Back to birding
Yellow-rumped Thornbill
Happy New Year readers.
First, an apology.
Sorry that I haven’t posted on this site much in recent months, not because I have lost interest or opportunities. Life has been a little rough in recent times with a number of health issues. Some of these have been dealt with and I am hopeful that things are improving. I hope to get out to do more birding and photography in the coming months, so stay tuned.
A few days ago I had a close encounter with several Yellow-rumped thornbills. I didn’t have the camera with me at the time, so the photo above was taken some time ago. On this occasion I was looking over the fence around our swimming pool watching the water coming from the filter as I was backwashing it. It was quite a hot day and three thornbills were attracted to the water gathering nearby.
One of the birds landed on the fence less than a metre from me, while the others hopped around on the ground less than two metres away. I love close encounters with the birds we have in our garden. Some of them can be quite confiding and can come very close. It is moments like this one that that makes me sometimes think that I should carry my camera with me on all occasions when in the garden.
Good birding.
An uninvited lunch time visitor
Australian Magpie on our picnic table
On our last visit to Sydney to visit and look after our grandchildren we had a child-free day, so we took advantage of the lovely weather to visit Lane Cove National Park. This park is a wonderful natural environment along the Lane Cove River and is only a ten minute drive from my son’s home, and not much more to the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
We drove through a section of the park we had never visited before, checking out the many picnic areas along the river. We eventually settled on a pleasant spot and set up on a nearby picnic table. It wasn’t long before several species of birds came to visit us, all in the hope of a free lunch. The boldest happened to be the Australian Magpie shown in today’s photos. The magpies in the Sydney area happen to be the Black-backed sub-species. Those we have at home – Murray Bridge which is 80km SE of Adelaide, South Australia – are the White-backed version. The Western Magpie is found in Western Australia, and there are many variations due to hybridisation on other parts of the country.
Although this bird was very bold due to being very used to human visitors to the park, we didn’t take pity on him and feed it any morsels which is a good thing; human food is generally not only unsuitable for our birds and animals, it can also be dangerous and even deadly to them. Please don’t feed the birds.
In the coming days I will show more close encounters with other species of birds during our visit to this lovely park.
Further reading:
- Plenty of magpies
- Wild weather and baby magpies
- Magpies up close and personal
- Magpies up close and personal #2
Australian Magpie on our picnic table
Australian Black-backed Magpie on our picnic table
Australian Magpie above our picnic table
A special visitor
Grey Shrike-Thrush
On Saturday I was sitting in my comfortable reading chair in my office. I was enjoying a coffee and reading a magazine that had arrived the day before. A sudden flurry of wings at the nearby window caught my attention. (My attention is very easily distracted by birds.)
A Grey Shrike-thrush had landed on the on the window sill barely a metre from where I sat. It pecked at something on the glass – probably an insect caught against the window – took a quick glance in my direction, and flew off to a nearby tree to eat his morning snack.
It is close encounters with our bird life like that which makes this such a wonderful hobby.
Grey Shrike-Thrush
Red Wattlebirds nesting
Red Wattlebird
I was quietly having my breakfast this morning when a Red Wattlebird flew into the bush near our sun room. It proceeded to pull off a small twig from a Melaleuca bush. It then flew off rapidly to a Eucalyptus tree next to the driveway. Less than a minute later it was back again, swinging on a small twig until it was dislodged, then off to the tree again. It repeated the action every minute or so.
After finishing my breakfast – and ignoring the newspaper – I wandered out to the driveway to have a look. Sure enough, a half constructed nest was located high in the thick foliage. I actually had to follow the bird’s flight to locate the nest. It’s well hidden from prying eyes. While I watched the another Red Wattlebird flew in from a different part of the garden and added to the nest.
I’ll have to keep an eye on this nest over the coming few weeks to watch for evidence of chicks.
It is spring here in South Australia and many birds are busy nesting of feeding young.
Further reading:
- Synchronised flying by wattlebirds
- Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra
- Honeyeaters and flowers
- Close encounters of the bird kind
Red Wattlebird
Red Wattlebird
Best posts of 2007
No Comments »30th December, 2007; Category: General
I thought I would look back on some of the posts on this blog written during 2007 and pick out a few highlights. New readers to this blog may then get a feel for the types of articles I have written. Of course, you can always go to the archives section on the side-bar and choose for yourself.
Best posts of 2007 in no particular order. Click on the title to read the article.
- Cats and Blackbirds
- Some unusual visitors to our bird bath
- Birding Bloopers #18
- Close views of Musk Lorikeets
- Great birding moments #29 -Crested Pigeon
- A splendid result – Splendid Wren
- Birding Bloopers #21
- A King amongst Parrots
- Great Birding Moments # 31 – Glossy Ibis at last
- Close encounters of the bird kind – Red Wattlebird
- Pesky plovers – dealing with swooping birds.
- The problem with Common Blackbirds – this article caused many comments from readers.
Noisy Miner