A nice welcome home
Male Superb Fairy-wren
I’ve been a little quiet here over the last seven weeks. I’ve been overseas on a wonderful holiday. Stay tuned for plenty of wonderful photos of the birds of Ethiopia, Morocco and Spain in the coming months. In each country I saw about 30 species that I’d never seen before. The actual number is a bit rubbery as I’ve yet to identify some of the birds I photographed. Some long hours of interesting research ahead for me.
After a direct and very tedious journey home via Madrid, Dubai, Kuala Lumpur and Melbourne, we arrived at Adelaide Airport at 8am on Wednesday. Due to the blurriness of jet lag the rest of day was basically survival mode.
Thursday morning (yesterday) was a different matter. At breakfast time we had two Superb Fairy-wrens feeding in our garden, a male as shown in the photos, and a female. This species is widespread and common in our district here in South Australia, but this is the first time we’ve seen it in our garden in nearly 30 years living here. (On 5 occasions we have had Variegated Fairy-wrens visit over the same time period, the last being over 10 years ago.)
So, not only were we greeted with these lovely birds on our first day home, I was able to add a new species to our “home list”. Very nice.
Even better: they were around again this morning. I hope they find our garden enticing and decide to take up residence.
I managed only 2 photos of the male; the female was a little on the shy side and wouldn’t sit still long enough in the open for a shot.
Male Superb Fairy-wren
Common Bronzewing Pigeon
Common Bronzewing Pigeon near Murray Bridge
Bronzewing pigeons are flighty birds. As such they are easily disturbed and fly away rapidly at any human interference. I was therefore rather surprised to find that this bird stayed on the stones on the roadside long enough for several quick photos. The one above is the best of them.
This photo was taken about 20km SW of Murray Bridge on a Sunday drive out bush a few weeks ago.
Happy Bird-day to me
Yes, that’s right.
It’s my birthday today, so to treat all my faithful readers I’m going to share some of my favourite photos.
Oh, and if you’d like to write some birthday messages in the comments section, I’d be mighty chuffed too.
Male Flame Robin, Mt. Macedon, Victoria
Cattle Egret in walk through aviary at Adelaide Zoo
Crested Pigeon
Male Gang-gang Cockatoo, Botanic Gardens, Canberra
Red Wattlebird
Birding around Mannum, South Australia part 2
Murray River at Mannum, South Australia
A few weeks ago I spent a pleasant Sunday afternoon birding in and around Mannum, about a 20 minute drive north of home. The Murray River and its environment are the dominant feature of this town, an old paddle steamer port in the 1800s. I went for a walk along a walking trail on the riverside opposite the town. The trail starts just south of the ferry crossing.
I was delighted with the birding on that fine, pleasant spring day. One of the best species I saw was the Superb Fairy-wren. This stunning bird is always a good sighting and that can come up quite close in picnic areas. This family was just a little wary and it took quite a while and some patience to get several good shots of the male in all his colouful splendour.
Male Superb Fairy-wren, Mannum
Male Superb Fairy-wren, Mannum
We have baby Willie Wagtails in a nest
Willie Wagtails in the nest
I had suspected that our resident pair of Willie Wagtails have been nesting somewhere in our mallee scrub but hadn’t been able to locate the nest. They can be very sneaky and secretive about the whole affair.
Then a few days ago I was cleaning up in an area of the scrub not frequented all that often and I was attacked by the adults. Not that they actually hit or bit me; they just made it quite obvious by their scotching calls and close swooping over my head that I was not welcome.
Sure enough – three fluffy chicks were over filling a totally inadequate nest. The photo above shows their home almost bursting at the seams.
I took the photo a few weeks ago and the chicks have now fledged and are making their presence known around the garden, demanding food from a harried set of parents struggling to keep up with their insistent calling for food.
The next question is: will the parents nest again once this brood is off their hands… er… beaks and feeding themselves independently?
The photo of some fledged Willie Wagtails was taken a few years ago at the same location.
Further reading:
Baby Willie Wagtails just out of their nest and being fed.