Kitchen Garden Guides

Monday, October 29, 2012

Bruny Island Bird Festival, part 1

The Bruny Island Bird Festival started on Thursday…. as a storm brewed across the water. Then the sky opened and it poured all day and into the night but we braved it and attended the welcome BBQ, in marquees around the Adventure Bay hall. The food was wonderful and the speakers made us enthusiastic to join in the guided bird walks and various talks on Friday.

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Luckily, Friday morning saw quite a bit of sunshine, making our shore birds walk a delight. On the foreshore at Adventure Bay there are many flowering gums, perfect habitat for the Swift Parrot (a threatened species), which we frequently saw, but failed to capture in a photo, on our walk.

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While Lenny continued on the shore birds walk, I left halfway through to head off to a talk by Chris Tzaros about photographing birds. It was very inspiring and not too advanced for amateurs like me. Here is a photo Chris took of a Swift Parrot.

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However, the best chance we had to photograph some interesting birds came when I did not have my camera with me! A raptor hovered above the beach scrub, a flock of plovers took off from the beach in front of us, a late flash of light making them appear brilliant silver and a beautiful, large sea bird flew overhead, with the setting sun illuminating its coloured under sides, while we walked on the beach this evening….. Never go anywhere on Bruny Island without your camera!! Small compensation was this little (blurry) Scarlet Robin on a fence post, I photographed at the Bruny Island Berry Farm earlier in the afternoon.

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Then, just as we returned from our walk this evening, front after front sped down the mountains, bringing rain and wind across the sea again.

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1 comment:

Kirsty @ Bowerbird Blue said...

sounds like a fantastic weekend, I love your Robin shot, he's gorgeous.