Weekend birds

Not too much time spent bird photographing this past weekend, But at least I took the camera out for a play.

First outing was two hours at Stockton Sandspit during low tide on Friday. Not a lot of action, though plenty of Brown Honeyeaters on the site. The Sacred Kingfishers are back and hunting the soldier crabs at low tide. Very easy pickings for the birds and they are using the bird hide as a perch to swoop onto their prey.

A Little Egret and a White-faced Heron picking off little fish near big island.

A reasonable sized flock of Eastern Curlew and a small group Bar-tailed Godwits roosting in the shallows while the Red-capped and Pacific Golden Plovers were on the shelly sand having a sleep.

Today I went out to Swan Bay with the family. Low tide visit there too with a couple of Black Swans, Some Godwits, Curlews, White Ibis and Pied Oystercatchers probing the sandy, muddy shoreline.

A special treat for the family was a mature White-bellied Sea-eagle patrolling the shoreline for lunch, while scaring all the shorebirds at the same time.