Bird Treat

At Woody Head near Iluka on our recent holiday, it would have been the 19th November, Lib and I took an afternoon walk along the shore around the rocky point to the sandy beach which stretched toward Iluka and the mouth of the Clarence River.

It was a spectacular vista with views across water to Evan's Head where we had spent the 4 previous days. Storm clouds massed dark and threatening over the hills and smoke billowed from what we assumed was a sugar cane burn off, then rounding the point heading south in the distance we could see the Norfolk Island pines and high rise apartments at Yamba on the other side of the Clarence. The rocks and pools gave way to sand and the tide was out.

Returning, as we walked the edge of the beach where grass and scrub met the sand, two beautiful birds caught our attention as they settled close together on the naked twigs of a dead shrub. We both had a good look at them with Ian's binos. They had a chestnutty gold crown and chin with black across their eyes, strong beaks not quite as long and curved as honeyeaters and paler chests and olive green wings with a touch of blue. When they flew the blue was more pronounced. It was a light blue, almost irredescent. Strong flyers, they moved from place to place before settling and watching us for a minute or two at a time.
They were medium sized, a little longer than common blackbird, especially in the tail.

I didn't check the bird book when we got back to camp, we were busy setting up a tarp ahead of the approaching storm and preparing for dinner and lighting a fire in the barbecue fireplace. As it turned out the thunder and lightning show started and the heavy rain followed as we began to cook, Lib with an umbrella on the barby and me under the tarp on the gas stove. It was serious rain for a couple of hours or so.

Next morning the mozzies were thick and aggressive and we decided to pack up and move on as soon as things dried out in the brilliant morning sunshine. I didn't get to check the bird book to identify the beauties we saw  but I wasn't worried, they were so distinctive and colourful that I thought they'd be easy to find as I wouldn't forget their features. As it happened a couple of weeks went by before I sat down at home to look them up and I could not find them at all, which baffled me.

Then at last on Saturday just gone I picked up another bird book and found them quickly much to my immense satisfaction. Rainbow Bee-eaters they were. Not really bee-eaters according to the book as they eat any insects, bees among them, they should be called rainbow bowerbirds it suggested. They are migratory and quite common, even in Victoria apparently from time to time, although I'd seen them infrequently enough in my time to not know what they were, leading me to think their commonality is more a northern thing. They nest in sand dunes and banks with the entrance protected from prevailing weather and seem to have inbuilt weather instinct, the book said.

  Our birds were juveniles I think, I didn't see the the black under the chin and the green was more olivey

Our birds were seen near here

Towards north

The point



The beauty of these birds and the magic setting stand as a highlight of 2013.