Emu-wren, Cisticola and Fieldwrens

We are at Deen Maar Indigenous Protected Area where I enjoyed another memorable morning last Saturday. Within minutes I had seen one of my "target" species - Southern emu-wren. Spent some time in the marshes with many Golden-headed cisticola and Striated fieldwren.

Although it never actually happened I had a feeling the whole morning that I was about to see something unique (I was thinking bittern etc). A great way to spend a morning!

Southern emu-wren (Stipiturus malachurus)

Striated fieldwren (Calamanthus fuliginosus) 

Golden-headed cisticola (Cisticola exilis)

I was enjoying a nice view of this cisticola when a
fieldwren came and joined in (below)

(You know you must be small when
you can make a fieldwren look big!)

Black-shouldered kite (Elanus axillaris)

Swamp harrier (Circus approximans)

Mob of emu in the distance (about 15 of them)

Black swan 

Great egret

Here is 30 seconds of low-res compact still-camera video showing Deen Maar. Beyond the rise is the surf beach of Bass Strait. During the video some black swan take off (barely visible). In the last 4-5 seconds the "white noise" you can hear is the constant noise of the turbines (if you have good ears & listen carefully!).

My Deen Maar specials

Well they may be easy fodder for the more serious & experienced birder but Deen Maar introduced me to some species I hadn't had much to do with.

Firstly I was introduced to the Southern Emu-wren. I didn't go there looking for them & had not seen them before nor read much about them.
So embarrassingly I...

• didn't notice the emu feather tail until checking photos later on!
• thought I must have two lifers, having seen the tincy dark brown female (was quite disappointed to realise they were the same bird - please correct me if I'm wrong!)

The second bird had me rifling through the hitherto largely untouched pages 164-197 of my 2001 Pizzey. Oh my God - I had ignored those pages for good reason! When I saw this bird (actually a pair) I thought "Great, easy tick!" Some 45 minutes of exploring various resources later I realised - not so easy! Comparing my photos with various descriptions and other images I have nervously (Pizzey "uncommon regular migrant to to s. Australia") but confidently concluded that this is a Wood sandpiper:

Finally I also enjoyed first decent photographs of what I believe to be Golden-headed cisticola and Striated fieldwren.

As I mentioned on the previous Deen Maar post, I believe I was the only person out there. This is just as well as anyone following me would have seen a lot of this:

Post-Wood sandpiper perfect take-off

Go on click on it, you know you want to!

And I see that the Buff Budgies are just making up bird names now - or at least seeing things I don't believe exist. Congratulations Richard on Red-browed pardalote. Is that bird 206 for the year?

Spell check doesn't like pardalote. Look it did it again.... pardalote, pardalote, pardalote.

Peter (RTs - now on 144 glorious Victorian birds)