Golden Whistler (male)

We are having some lovely autumn weather at present. What a contrast to the severe heat waves of the summer just past. It would be perfect if it rained one day; in fact - we need many days of good soaking rain in our area.

A few days ago I was relaxing in the garden reading a book. My daughter was sitting nearby also enjoying a book. A sudden burst of song a few metres away sent me scurrying for my camera. “Whistler!” I called as I disappeared inside.

Golden Whistler (male)

Emerging with the camera I was pleased to get several reasonable photos of both a male and a female. There was another uncoloured juvenile male hanging around too.

It had been quite a few months since the last visit by this species to our garden.

It was an added delight on a thoroughly delightful day.

Golden Whistler (female)

Ornithology: the serious study of birds, the habits, life cycle, habitats and characteristics of birds, often involving keeping of detailed records and writing articles or books about birdlife.

I guess one could call me an amateur student of ornithology. I do take this hobby quite seriously at times, I have written many articles on this blog about birds, I certainly keep detailed records of my sightings and observations but I haven’t written any books about birds (yet). Nor do I make my living from studying birds.

Footnote:

It has been over six months since I had my last entry in this series of articles about words peculiar to this fascinating hobby of birding. I’ll try to get back to regular postings on this topic in the coming months. Meanwhile - check out the archives here and the Glossary of Bird Words here.

Below is a photo of me taken by my wife. I am pretending to be a serious student of ornithology.

Typical Pose of Husband

Many of my readers come here to read about birds and see my photos of Australian birds.

That’s fine - and I appreciate all of my faithful readers and those who leave comments and questions.

What you may not be aware of is that I write for another blog which features more of my writings. Sometimes I feature poems or Haiku about birds.

To read one of my Haiku about birds click here.

To read more of my general poetry click here.

I keep a daily eye on the bird baths in our garden. On several other occasions I have written about the visitors to the bird bath and I even have a list of those species to have paid at least one visit.

This morning as I finished my breakfast and was attempting to solve the cryptic crossword (only one word defeated me) I looked up to see a female Mistletoebird drinking from the bird bath. This is an unusual occurrance as I can recall only one other occasion when a male Mistletoebird came to drink.

The photo below shows a male. The female is plain brown with a red patch on the rump.

Mistletoebird

All the really hot weather we had earlier in the year seems to have flown. We have recently had some lovely days in the low 20s with a gentle breeze; lovely weather to be out and about in the garden. Yesterday we had a break from what we were doing and made a cuppa to enjoy out in the beautiful autumn sunshine.

Feeding on the ground only a few metres from where we sat was a family group of Yellow-rumped Thornbills, too busy finding things to eat to worry about us enjoying their presence so close to us.

Yellow-rumped Thornbill