At dawn, bush stone-curlews and masked lapwings stood silent and still, ghostly figures swathed in mist on the golf course. The rising sun shot golden shafts of light through the mist via gaps between trees. A full moon hung in blue sky, its face a brilliant white orb reflecting the sun’s rays. Cool air wafted over my bare limbs, a perfect antidote to the heat produced by my 40-minute toning workout in the darkness before dawn. Now, in winter, the coolness lies beyond the walls of our rental house. Its delightful presence makes me want to cling to it, knowing full well its freshness will be replaced by months of sultry heat before we leave this country.
Great Egret and Eastern Reef Egret, Dark Morph (© Magi Nams)
After breakfast, I cycled to the suburb of Railway Estate via Bicentennial Park, pausing to gaze out over a rock ledge in the Ross River exposed by low tide. A pair of silver gulls with scarlet legs and beaks stood expectantly near a fisho seated on the edge of the ledge, his line cast out over the river. An elegant great egret shared the ledge with him, as did a little pied cormorant, a smaller white egret and a solid grey egret or heron I’d not seen before. Close inspection revealed the leggy, grey bird as a dark morph of the eastern reef egret, and the smaller, white egret as the white morph of the same species. I say this now directly and with ease, yet I stood employing binoculars, camera, and field guide for a quarter hour there by the river, and after I returned home, compared my photographs to those published online to confirm my identifications.
This morning, the river and its adjoining green spaces seemed a magnet not only for intriguing egrets, but also for raptors. As I cycled, I spotted a black kite, whistling kite, and gloriously beautiful Brahminy kite cruising above the water or nearby drying fields and lawns. In the distance near Castle Hill, a white-bellied sea eagle soared on long wings, its short tail causing its pale body to appear almost dumpy when compared to the expanse of those wings. On my way home, when I again paused near the river rock ledge to inspect the egrets, I noticed two black kites attacking a little eagle in flight, with the small, chunky eagle evading its attackers through the use of dives and half-rolls. Many times my birding attention is focused on songbirds, but today, predators – powerful, elegant, or feisty – appeared again and again, soaring, stalking, and diving into the limelight.
Today’s birds: Australian raven, Torresian crow, Australian magpies, bush stone-curlews, masked lapwings, magpie-larks, mynas, rainbow lorikeets, blue-faced honeyeaters, peaceful doves, great bowerbirds, helmeted friarbird, brown honeyeaters, yellow honeyeaters, white-bellied cuckoo-shrikes, spangled drongos, rainbow bee-eaters, house sparrows, rock doves, Australian white ibises, straw-necked ibis, great egret, silver gulls, Richard’s pipits, nutmeg mannikins, *eastern reef egrets, little pied cormorant, sulphur-crested cockatoos, double-barred finches, golden-headed cisticolas, red-backed fairy wrens (f), black kites, whistling kite, welcome swallows, white-breasted woodswallows, white-throated honeyeater, figbirds, white-bellied sea eagle, Brahminy kite, *little eagle. (*denotes lifelist sighting)
