Tasitolu

When I got my spotting scope - the massive lens that I use for bird watching – I professed no interest in “digiscoping” (attaching a converter for a digital camera and photographing birds). My interest in perusing stamp collections is limited, and I respect others’ kindred disinterest in plopping down with me and reliving my riveting morning of birding.

So please, feel no obligation to read on.

As is clear, I broke down and in the face of nameless waders sliced up a water bottle to jury-rig a digiscoping system. I quickly learned to let go of photographing unknown plovers, and to stick with the big, charismatic, and sadly, easily identifiable.

The pictures are taken at Tasitolu (“three seas” because of the three shallow, brackish ponds), which is now protected as a Peace Park. During the Indonesian occupation of East Timor (1975-1999), Tasitolu was a popular place for the Indonesian military to dump bodies. In 1989, Pope John Paul II visited Tasitolu. And now it is frequented by boys catching fish, foraging pigs, men gathering wood and me.



This morning I caught up with an Australian-based shorebird researcher with whom I had been emailing for the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately he is off to the districts today (he is only in East Timor for two weeks). He promptly pulled out Broad-billed, Curlew, Common, Marsh, Wood and Tereks Sandpipers; Oriental, Red-capped, Little ringed, and Kentish Plovers; Common Greenshank, Spotted Redshank, etc. etc. etc. He was most excited about a lone Sanderling.

With Tasitolu so close, I hope to take full advantage of "spring" migration.

The birds featured in the pictures are White-headed Stilt and Australian Pelican.