Miss wagtail, tern, turn to lark

Drove out to a series of treatment ponds this afternoon to check for Yellow Wagtails, migrants at this time of year from Japan and northeast Russia. The birds like areas of drying sludge and sometimes associate with Australasian Pipits. No sign of birds and shortage of sludge.

And no luck trying to capture flight shots of Whiskered Terns snatching flying insects from just above the surface of two ponds. A female Magpie-Lark (Granilla cyanoleuca) took a calmer path through the air, because it was not interested in hawking for tiny elusive prey.

White-breasted Woodswallows (Artamus leucorynchus) are very interested in flying prey. But this bird was even more interested in a series of intricate wing flapping and tail twitching exercises. I'm not sure what this behaviour - confined, in my experience, to solitary birds - means. Perhaps no more than avian PE.