#201 and #202 at Eynesbury, Victoria, July 1

What a week I've had! I finished the week with a quick visit to Eynesbury to see if I could find any Diamond Firetail. I've seen them there a few times in the past, but never reliably, and never in the same place twice! Today, like every other time, I checked the sports ground to see if any firetail were feeding on the manicured lawn. And to my surprise, there was! I approached slowly. Very slowly. I took 'insurance' photos along the way, just in case it flushed and disappeared. I got to about 20 metres away and slowly got to the ground. After a few more insurance photos, I started to commando crawl over the wet, muddy ground. Eventually, I manged to get about 5 metres away and decided that I was close enough, and took about 200 photos using a range of settings, desperately hoping that one of them would be just right. The bird saw me, but didn't seem at all bothered by me. After a few minutes, a pair of Galahs flew overhead and the firetail flushed into the bushes. I then got a few more photos of it perched in a small tree and it then flew back to the grass to feed. What an amazing experience it was to spend some time with what I consider to be one of the most beautiful birds in the world!

I spent the rest of the time wandering around the ornamental lake, getting some nice photos of  Freckled Duck and a Brown Treecreeper. Then I heard a loud call coming from behind me. I knew that call, but couldn't quite remember what it was. I checked the area and saw the bird fly quickly into a clump of trees. A few seconds later I was extremely pleased to see that it was a Crested Shrike-tit, a bird that I hadn't yet photographed this year. After a lot of patience following it around and getting very crappy photos it eventually perched in the open for a few seconds. Unfortunately I didn't get the whole bird in frame, but I was very happy with the photo that I got anyway.

#201 Diamond Firetail

#202 Crested Shrike-tit

eBird checklist: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S30475780

After today...
2016 year list: 257 species
2016 photos: 202 species