General Meeting 7^th March

The March meeting was a Members’ night. The first presentation was from Colin Prickett who showed a number of photographs of birds. The first few photos were taken during a holiday in Fiji and showed Bar tailed Godwits, Ruddy Turnstone, Common Sandpiper and Reef Heron on the tidal mudflats near Suva. These were followed by shots of the aptly named Many Coloured Fruit Dove, a pair of White Collared Kingfishers and a juvenile Fiji Goshawk. The next few shots showed a Superb Fairy Wren, Splendid Fairy Wren and Sacred Kingfisher. He then showed a series of photographs taken at Lake Cooloongup, part of the Rockingham Lakes Regional Park, in mid January.  The shots showed a huge flock of Banded Stilts (several thousand) together with Black Winged Stilts and a large number of Grey Teal that had moved in to feed as the lake dried. He finished off with a number of shots of the masses of birdlife at Lake McLarty in late January and early February. These showed the huge flock of Sharp Tailed Sandpipers, large numbers of Red-necked Avocets, Banded Stilts, a Ruff and Red-kneed Dotterel. Colin finished by showing a shot of a surprise visitor to Lake McLarty that caused some excitement in birding circles, a Red-throated Pipit, a northern hemisphere bird previously only known to visit northern Australia

The next presentation was by Chris Punter, who showed some photographs taken during a KRMB outing to Karnup Nature Reserve during the spring. The photos showed the marvelous variety of plants in flower at the time. They included several species of Stylidium; Common Butterfly (Stylidium piliferum), Pink Fountain (S. brunonianum) and Cow Kicks (S. schoenoides). Also shown were the pea Gompholobium confertum (pink), Pimelea rosea, Pixie Mops (Petrophile

Linearis) and Kangaroo Paws.

Chris then presented some bird photographs taken on a trip to the UK last year. These included several shots of a Dipper foraging in a fast moving stream. What an amazing bird, it is incredible that they are not swept off the slippery rocks.