Shorebirder´s Delight...AUSTRALIA (29 Oct)

Expansive plains of flat, endless grasslands, a long, long way inland from the coast are certainly not where you would ordinarily expect to see shorebirds. But this is Australia, where there is a bunch of specialist inland species that you will almost never find anywhere else. And so during the afternoon and evening on our "Aussie safari", we ran in to some very special shorebirds indeed. A hidden pool (that due to the flat terrain would have been hard to find without the help of Phil and his pinpoint local knowledge of course), held a healthy number of Red-kneed Dotterels that called frequently, showed often, and looked good in the late afternoon sun. It was only when the sun began to dip below the low horizon that another star shorebird made a memorable appearance: Australian Painted-Snipe. In some years this striking shorebird can be extremely hard to find, but in this balmy year our local man Phil was quietly confident. As the sun continued to dip the painted-snipe became bolder, striding out from the scrubby edges to feed out in the open, revealing their unmistakable, and striking plumage as they did so. Believe it or not though we would have to wait until long after dark for our final two shorebird species of the day. As we went on the prowl for Plains-wanderer, and buttonquail on the plains we also came across a band of Banded Lapwing, and better still (I have a real soft spot for this species), a small party of Inland Dotterels huddled in the car headlights...

More to come from another hidden pool, and another hidden gem, in Australia...