Wildlife Wednesday - Bar-tailed godwits

More birds. 

Our area has a "Bird Airport" - a park that has signs to inform people of the migratory shorebirds that frequent the area. 

These birds have long been an exciting feature to me...but I haven't been able to document them with photos. They're not people-friendly. They keep their distance. If I take down binoculars I can see them in enough detail to work out what they are, but only if I write down what I see, or have my bird book with me (because by the time I've walked home, poof! all those details have gone from my brain).

This camera has allowed me to get photos so I can come home, open my bird book, and compare details for identification. And I've loved doing that!

So, I've been spending time with the Bar-tailed godwits (which had always been "maybe a godwit, maybe a sandpiper, I don't remember the details enough to know.") 

You can read more about them here: https://birdlife.org.au/bird-profile/bar-tailed-godwit

They migrate here from their northern breeding grounds - Alaska, Scandinavia, northern Asia - and spend the summer on the mudflats of Australia and New Zealand. They always seem to be such busy feeders, with their heads burrowing into the river flats, even through water. But now that I've been sitting and spending time observing them (and yes, stalking could be the word... it's been quite a bit of time!), I've noticed that much of their time is taken by preening and cleaning, washing and bathing. And when your feathers have to get you around the world twice each year, I guess you need them at their best.

It makes me realise how much I take my muscles and body for granted. I don't spend much time on ensuring my muscles can do all I need them to do, but take them for granted. I have been better in the past, but I need to do better.

Godwits with a supervising seagull!

Yoga is great and I've done a heap of 1-on-1 sessions during COVID lockdown. So I know what I need to do. I just need to do it. Stand in the crowd and do my preening, just like the gorgeous godwits. And here they are, preening and eating, bathing and enjoying the mudflats of the NSW south coast.

And we do have international tourists still arriving :)