Puzzling Pardalotes
During a visit to the Cape Deslacs Reserve near Clifton Beach a few days ago, I had an encounter with, what was most probably a pair of, Striated Pardalotes. The area is largely coastal heath, but in some areas this is slowly being overtaken by Peppermints. I had staked out a flowering bansksia, in the hope of photographing one of the numerous, and newly arrived Crescent Honeyeaters. I hadn't been there long, when I heard a flock of Spotted Pardalotes approaching. I fondly hoped that they might give me an opportunity to photograph 
them, but as usual they were feeding in the canopy of the eucalypts, and smartly moved on. But almost immediately, two Striated Pardalotes appeared only a few metres away from me. In the next several minutes (I rather lose any sense of time when I'm photographing birds) they proceeded to give me the 'once over'. They seemed very agitated by my presence, something I could expect during their breeding season, (they breed in substantial numbers in this area) but we should be way past that by now. As you can see by the image at upper left, the agitation included displaying with wings open. Well whatever the reason for displaying, it did give me a great opportunity to photograph them, which was some consolation for missing out on the Crescents. Oh well, I have the next several months to remedy that.
During a visit to the Cape Deslacs Reserve near Clifton Beach a few days ago, I had an encounter with, what was most probably a pair of, Striated Pardalotes. The area is largely coastal heath, but in some areas this is slowly being overtaken by Peppermints. I had staked out a flowering bansksia, in the hope of photographing one of the numerous, and newly arrived Crescent Honeyeaters. I hadn't been there long, when I heard a flock of Spotted Pardalotes approaching. I fondly hoped that they might give me an opportunity to photograph 
them, but as usual they were feeding in the canopy of the eucalypts, and smartly moved on. But almost immediately, two Striated Pardalotes appeared only a few metres away from me. In the next several minutes (I rather lose any sense of time when I'm photographing birds) they proceeded to give me the 'once over'. They seemed very agitated by my presence, something I could expect during their breeding season, (they breed in substantial numbers in this area) but we should be way past that by now. As you can see by the image at upper left, the agitation included displaying with wings open. Well whatever the reason for displaying, it did give me a great opportunity to photograph them, which was some consolation for missing out on the Crescents. Oh well, I have the next several months to remedy that.
2 comments:
Beautiful photographs Alan.
Thanks Duncan. If you're out in the field often enough you just occasionally get a situation where it's difficult to NOT get reasonable shots, and this was my day!
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