So today was a(nother) lovely winters day and the word is the whales migrating north have been very active and plentiful. We decided to head for a long delayed walk along the wall. I was looking forward to having the camera pointing somewhere other than our yard (not so bad there, but gives our local birds a break!). Initially the birds were scarce and the tide right out and just on the turn.
There was a darter preening and drying itself (first photo below) after some successful fishing among many terns and Australasian gannets (second photo below) who were enjoying active schools of fish at the river mouth.
This egret had Shaw's Bay all to itself ...
Or so it seemed :) ... there was a familiar blue/green iridescent flash and then the sacred kingfisher landed on a rock to keep surveying the bay for more morsels. Ah, they so gorgeous!
Suddenly there were more familiar flashes of that familiar blue/green iridescence and I was struggling to know where to point my lens ... over the next 30 minutes or so, it was such a late afternoon delight to witness atleast a dozen sacred kingfishers chirping away to eachother and variously fishing morsels from the bay as they skimmed across the water and back to another rock to keep scanning. What a joy!! The most I had seen previously was two. It seemed this may have been a couple of families out passing on their hunting (fishing!) skills to their youngsters.
Enjoy this glimpse of what I was privileged to observe.
Hopefully you even noticed the younger ones?
So, after so long in something of a hiatus, this was a really nice little impetus to another stint of LSL about to begin. I look forward to exploring again, and also to being active getting this "up to date" so I can hopefully just feel I will be able to add to when I have days like this!
Stay tuned.
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