As I prepared for bed on Saturday night I looked to the sky and saw stars; hoping that the clear skies would last until this morning for our planned bird outing to Stockton Sandspit. I obviously didn't hope too hard because as I left the house for the meet it was pouring down. It took a while but the rain did ease and amazingly we had some full sun later in the morning. Initial bird numbers at the Sandspit were disappointing due to something spooking the birds back to the dykes (did I say something? I meant fishermen.).
We wondered the Sandspit and the local area trying to find birds and while we found a few Egrets, Spoonies, little bush birds, Osprey, Tattlers, PGP and Terek Sandpipers it was a bit sad.
We went back to SSS for one last look and as we were walking along the beach we were suddenly surrounded by large numbers of waders looking for a landing spot. A couple of fishermen had decided to walk along Kooragang dykes while the birds were roosting at low tide and put the birds up, so they all decided to fly to the Sandspit. Yay for us!!!
With nowhere to hide we decided to lay in the grass and the birds quickly settled in on the muddy water line on the beach. Some slow belly crawling got us lots of ant bites, scrapes and scratches, but we got down onto the beach with the birds ignoring us while they slept and fed.
The Bar-tailed and Black-tailed Godwits looked great with many already fat and red and ready for their migration. Several Eastern Curlews actually landed in front of us and that led to a progression of several other species. Little, Common and Caspian Terns, Silver Gulls, Pacific Golden Plover, Lesser Sand Plover, Red-capped Plover, Whimbrel and Pied Oystercatchers.
Many photos ended up being taken, and the crew who drove up from Sydney actually got to see some birds, which, being the reason they came up, is a good thing.
Nice write up, I was I was able to make it.
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