Bull's Quarry and Budgewoi

New Holland Honeyeater

I drove down to Bulls Quarry (disused) this morning because I have been seeing reports of birds that I have wanted to photograph down there. There were lots of bird, but most of them were like little rockets and raced around from tree to tree as though they were in a game of tag.

One of the problems was that every time I thought I saw an interesting bird, by the time I caught up with it, it had morphed into a Yellow-faced Honeyeater. They were plentiful and it took a while to get used to their presence and start looking for other birds.

The Fan-tailed Cuckoo was an interesting find.

The experts tell me they have normally left the area by this time of the year. (Note to myself: I must check my previous photos of this bird to see when I have photographed them in Cooranbong.) This one was by itself and did not appear to be associated with a host bird.

At various locations in the area I saw a number of Scarlet Honeyeaters (both male and female). Little, and Red Wattlebirds, and Red-browed finches. Most of the Red-brows did not in fact have red brows, indicating they were immature birds.

The Honeyeater in this photo is probably a Brown-headed Honeyeater, but the experts on the ABID site are divided, with one of them insisting it is an immature Black-chinned Honeyeater. I think the distinguishing features in this photograp are the white eye surround and the dark chin. I would have liked to have the rest of its body in view as well, so we may have to have a best-guess ID rather than a definite one.

 I then drove back to Ocean St, Budgewoi where I met up with Steve Merrit and Daniel Mckeon, who had found the Rose Robin at the Weemala end of the Board Walk. This Rose Robin had been found by Steve last week and I already had an attempt at finding it without any luck. Today it was there and it provided a lot of photo opportunities.  The Rose Robin is the smallest of our Robins and is also more arboreal that the others. I have photographed the female before in Cooranbong but this is my first male.

We looked for  the Southern Emu-wren and we think we found some of then hiding in the shrubs. But, by then our patience had run out and it was getting past our lunchtime. I will probably return soon and spend some time trying to coax them out for a photograph.