Sunday, 27 November 2011

Island Birds

As I start to delete and transfer files and photos I thought i'd Just post few images of birds from the island that I didn't get around to posting here on the blog. The list of species observed on and around the island durning the time here reached 105 with a total of 72 actually on the island.Image above shows a male Brown throated Sunbird and below a female. These were common around the base area.

Asian Brown Flycatcher above and Brown Shrike below were both migrants to the island

Germains Swiftlet above and Grey faced Buzzard below. Grey Faced Buzzards were one of the more commoner migrant raptors on the island.
Below is a Oriental Honey Buzzard that was seen migrating over the island just prior to lunch one day. Not common nor as abundant as Grey Faced Buzzard.




Collared Kingfisher above and Common Sandpiper below were always seen around the area of North Beach during low tide as they fed in and around the shallows of the exposed reefs. Waders were very few and far between on the island with 3 single Whimbrel sightings, a single Lesser Sand Plover. From the pelagics waders seen included 2 red necked phalaropes, a flock of 12 phalarope sp and a single phalarope sp that looked a good contender for a grey but never seen well enough to clinch the ID and a single Greenshank.
Pacific Reef Egrets (below) were again, around the areas of the reefs during low tide, Little Herons were more elusive and were usually around the area of the 2nd rocky outcrop.