…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.

 

 

As I settled in to get some photos a woman sidled up to me and said “You’re not from here are you? I know all the birders here and you’re not local. Where are you from?”. I politely told her I was from Western Australia and was over on a birding holiday thinking I could gain some valuable local information. “Oh I went to Western Australia once. There was nothing there.” At this point I could sense that the conversation was already starting to take a strange turn. She carried on. “You’re wasting your time coming here. They’ve all gone. There’s nothing left. Nothing to see.” I’d just seen 4 species I’d never seen before and told her so. “There’s no point,” she replied, “the light is too bad it makes it pointless to take photos.” . At this point I quietly and quickly moved in the general direction of away.

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

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.