I was able to experience one of Outback Australia's greatest spectacles this morning. I arrived shortly after sunrise at N'Dhala Gorge and made my way up to the waterhole. I wasn't in any hurry because it was going to be a while until the sun got high enough in the sky to shine down into the gorge, but I still wanted to be set up early to let the birds become used to my presence. Shortly after setting up, the Budgerigars, commonly known as Budgies, and Zebra Finches returned to drinking. To my surprise, there were a few more birds than there were yesterday afternoon but of course, I wasn't complaining.
The Budgies were what really got my attention though. For the most part, they were flying around the gorge in flocks of five to thirty birds, but they began to accumulate in the trees around the waterhole I was sitting at. In a short time, I estimated there were more than 1,500 birds sitting in three trees around me. All of a sudden, they all descended on the watrehole at once. It was a mass of frenzied irridescent green chaos as the birds landed on the bank at least 15 birds deep and pushed their way to the water's edge were they drank and then returned to the trees. There were so many birds that their wings were creating substantial ripples and waves on the otherwise glassy surface of the waterhole. Iam not sure how long this spectacle continued as I was mesmerized by the number and beauty of these birds less than 10 meters from me. Eventually, the birds scattered as a raptor, either a Brown Goshawk or Collared Sparrowhawk, buzzed the flock hitting one bird but unable to catch it.
The birds came back to drink off and on throughout the morning, sometimes in large groups but never in quite so large a flock. It was one of those situations that was amazing to experience but impossible to capture on film, at least not still imagery. For the rest of the morning, I contented myself to photograph the Budgies as well as Diamond Doves and my target bird for the morning, the Painted Finch. All in all it was an amazing experience and while I couldn't capture that, I still managed to get some good photos of other birds.
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