I had one mission in mind when I woke up yesterday: to find the Rainbow Bee-Eaters now that they've returned for the summer breeding season to the Napean River. It's a fair whack of a drive and after standing at their 'usual' spot for almost an hour which just happens to feature a dead tree nice and close that they like to sit in and makes for some lovely photos, but finding nothing, I was starting to second guess myself.
I ended up walking to another spot further down the track where I had my first encounter with them a few years ago (something I didn't think I'd have without heading somewhere north and yes, I got a little teary at the time) and as soon as I hit the area I heard their weird metallic sounding call (look, I'm bad at describing sounds at the best of time, downright awful when it comes to describing bird calls!) Still, they stayed a fair distance away and I ended up scrambling up an embankment, apologies to the poor fisherman at the bottom who I didn't see until I was towering over him, gasping loudly as a bird flew in above me. He looked a little shocked and then scared to say the least. Don't worry my dude, I'm friendly!
And after all that, I got one photo. One, not even nearly sharp, photo 😂 Still, I got to see one of my favourite birds and gave the fisherman a story to tell the Mrs over dinner.
Rainbow Bee-Eaters
Camden
