Birding in the heat!

It's summer in Melbourne, and while we haven't had several days in the high 30Cs or 40Cs like some parts of Australia, we have had some hot days.

On a couple of those hot days, I spent much of the day out birding beside a treeless salt lake where there have been several different rare birds visiting.

One of these was a little Long-toed Stint.

I've seen only one before.

Also there, was a Ruff, a bird which seems to come to visit every 5 years or so.

I did photograph two of our regular migratory shorebirds there.

That one is a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, while the one below is a Curlew Sandpiper, a species which is now listed as "Critically Endangered".

Unfortunately my photos of the really rare visitor we'd gone to try to see, a Buff-breasted Sandpiper (last one in Melbourne 25 years ago!) aren't worth sharing because of heat haze, and also because one of the friends I went with really needed a good photo of the bird for a lecture he had to present the next week, so I kept back to allow him the best chance of getting closer.