The musk lorikeets hustled and bustled at the heart of a bottlebrush, hanging upside down to get at the pollen in the bush’s crimson flowers.
During a power walk along the shore of Montrose Bay I had been stopped in my tracks by the cheerful antics and beauty of the lorikeets. When they balanced on thin twigs on the outside of the bush – like tight-rope walkers at the circus – their iridescent plumage shimmered bright green in the late afternoon sun.
Power walks are not supposed to be about birds. A few years back I started to take them more frequently because the Coronavirus pandemic put paid to my other source of exercise, swimming at the Hobart Aquatic Centre. With their daily exposure to nature, I’ve enjoyed these walks so much I’ve never returned to the pool.
I had gone to Montrose Bay initially to explore a fun-run course in the national Park Run program to add variety to two other locations I use for my keep-fit program, the Domain and Howrah beach on the Eastern Shore.
In terms of bird-watching, the course along Montrose Bay to Wilkinsons Point to the east of the Derwent Entertainment Centre proved to be the best.
I had hardly left my car when a flight of crested terns cruised just above the waters of the Derwent, one pausing in mid-air before making a spectacular plunge into the water not 10 metres from where I was standing. It emerged with a wriggling, silver minnow.
The grass surrounding the gums in Montrose Bay Community Park were littered with galahs and eastern rosellas before I heard the metallic, tinny calls of the lorikeets coming from the late-flowering bottlebrush, whose flowers were also attracting the attention of an eastern spinebill.
The Park Run course follows a footpath that crosses backwaters on boardwalks. Although usually a roosting and washing spot for gulls, the muddy tidal pools in the shadow of the entertainment centre also attracted a wader common along Derwent shores, the pied oystercatcher. As I walked I could hear the pipping calls of the waders as they swept in to feed on the mud exposed by a retreating tide.
Also probing the mud were two stately white-faced herons, along with another member of the heron family, a little egret. The egret kept a wary eye on a pelican pushing its way through a bed of reeds.
Out on the sparkling Derwent, a raft of black swans bobbed in the water as the wind started up, blowing a chilly breeze in from the south. Out in deeper waters little pied cormorants crossed the vista, low-slung like naval destroyers.
Although my power walks also incorporate a one-minute “interval” of faster pace to increase my heart rate, on this fine day I eschewed the stepped-up pace. The lorikeets were proving too much of a distraction.