21 October 2018

The peeps of Abu Hassania

Week 36; 07 September 2018 - Abu Hassania Beach

Abu Hassania beach is on the other side of the freeway from my apartment, so I decided to check it out in the late afternoon to see what was foraging on the inter-tidal zone before sunset. Since the weather has cooled down a little, there were a lot of people enjoying the beach - but I found a spot near the high tide mark where I had seen some shorebirds and sat down amongst the rocks and waited.

Sure enough, once I was no longer considered a threat, the shorebirds returned and foraged around me and I enjoyed a few different species until after sunset.

The most abundant were Sanderling and a small flock seemed to race around from place to place seemingly competing for food. Trying to capture one at speed with both feet off the ground was a challenge, but I did manage one of these images

Sanderling (Calidris alba)



At speed....


Common Ringed Plovers were next up and I was quite surprised at the variability of the depth of the chest band on a few of the birds

Common Ringed Plover (Charadrius hiaticula)


This bird with a thinner breast band..

Of course Greater Sand Plover are present in small numbers all year round and in September these are all in non-breeding plumage

Greater Sand Plover (Anarhynchus leschenaultii)





The odd man out was a single Dunlin and there was some interaction when it pulled a worm out of a hole and suddenly he was quite popular

Dunlin (Calidris alpina)



Early bird get's the worm!



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