…to be beside the seaside!
I do like to be beside the sea!
I do like to stroll along the Prom, Prom, Prom!
Where the brass bands play, “Tiddely-om-pom-pom!”

So just let me be beside the seaside!
I’ll be beside myself with glee
And there’s lots of girls beside,
I should like to be beside,
Beside the seaside,
Beside the sea!”

by
John H. Glover-Kind 1907

 

 

Cairns Esplanade is a sight to behold early in the morning. It seemed like the whole of Cairns is there clad in lycra leggings, shorts, and vests exercising in every conceivable form. I immediately felt slovenly, ill disciplined, and over dressed. It definitely felt as if this was an odd place to be looking for birds and I did feel surprisingly self conscious. But, having said that, the seafront at Cairns is not some luxurious tropical palm fringed sandy beach, but a mudflat with mangroves at the northern end and that means birds. Lots of birds. So many birds that Sue Taylor in her book “The 100 Best Birdwatching Sites In Australia” rates it as her number three destination. So that is what drew us to the Esplanade.

 

 

In hindsight Moaning Minnie was sort of right about the light. The rising sun meant that the birds were strongly backlit, but I never subscribed to the old school photographic technique of having the sun at your back. I’ve always liked contre-jour lighting and as long as you know how to meter and avoid lens flare there’s nothing to worry about. What was bothering me more was that I couldn’t get at eye level with the birds as the Esplanade was about 1m above the mud. The obvious answer to this was to get out onto the mud and lie down, but this is Australia and the mudflats were perfect for saltwater crocodiles and there were signs warning about their presence everywhere. Not wanting to be breakfast for a large ravenous reptile I decided to stay on the Esplanade.

 

 

As I walked along the Esplanade I kept seeing this small brown bird flitting between the trees. I thought it was vaguely familiar but couldn’t place it in context. It was only when I looked at a photo of it I realised that I had see it before as it was a House Sparrow (Passer domesticus), another animal that some homesick Brit introduced circa 1870 thinking it was a good idea. Like all these events it was disastrous and the birds soon became a major pest and colonised the whole of Eastern Australia. Another introduced species that could be seen in great numbers was the Common Myna (Acridotheres tristis). It was introduced about the same time as the House Sparrow to control pests, and particularly in the case of Northern Queensland, plague locusts and cane beetles, but they bred prolifically and soon became another introduced pest on the eastern seaboard. It’s not everywhere you can witness two ecological disasters in within 2 minutes. It wasn’t all bad news though we saw loads of different birds and 4 completely new species – Bar-tailed Godwits, White-breasted Swallows, Great Knots, and Striated Herons.

 

While walking back to the car I was amazed by the Nankeen Night Herons. We have them here in York so they are not new to me, and are actually one of my favourite birds. What was so surprising was how chilled they were around people. Here in York a mere glimpse of a person will put them to flight. On the Cairns Esplanade they were walking along the walkway amongst the people. We sat down to have morning tea by a BBQ and one came up looking for food. It was so close that to photograph it I had to use my compact camera as my other camera’s lens was too long.

 

All up a good haul for the morning and a great start to the trip.