Richard Hall Photography

We headed up to Mount Lofty Summit this afternoon to see if we could locate any Scarlet Robin as they’re a species I’ve longed to photograph properly for quite some time now. Walking around the main carpark and summit lookout is often productive at this time of the year, but on this occasion we didn’t sight any. In fact, there were very few birds in general apart from the the usual Superb Fairy-wrens that are prolific at the lookout and a few other individuals; New Holland Honeyeater, Crescent Honeyeater and a few White-throated Treecreepers.

After a few laps of the summit we decided to call it a day and headed home. Just as we were leaving I spotted a small, black bird on the entry sign which I thought was a Willie Wagtail. Driving past I decided to glance behind in the mirror and was thrilled to see it was in fact a male Scarlet Robin! I parked the car immediately and jumped out in pursuit. At first I couldn’t locate him, but then I found him nearby on the side mirror of a car as he attacked his reflection in it repeatedly.

I spotted some movement in a nearby tree which turned out to be his partner, who was content to sit and watch her mate go about attacking the ‘intruders’ into their territory. He repeated this behaviour several times, flying to a tree to one side then back to the mirrors again until the car’s owner turned up and removed the ‘threat’. They moved off into the forest for a short while to hunt for food before returning to my car parked close-by where Marianne got some fantastic close-up views of the male, as she was sat in the car at the time with the windows down!

She also was fortunate to have a male Superb Fairy-wren visit and attack the mirror just a minute or two later! Needless to say she was thrilled to have seen two beauties at just a foot or two from her eyes! I was quite pleased to get a few photos of the robins but now having located a pair I was determined to return another day to try again as by now the light was fading fast.