About rain and ducks
Late last week we had a beautiful rain. It fell steadily for about 30 hours which it hasn’t done for some time. In fact, it was the best rain we’d had for over seven months. In that 30 hour period we had more rain than the total of the previous four months.
Of course the birds loved the rain too. I was a little surprised to see that some of them still wanted to come to the bird bath for a drink. At least I didn’t have to refill it after the downpour.
The next day I was driving home from an outing. I rounded a corner near our place and had to brake to avoid two Pacific Black Ducks casually waddling over the road. I didn’t have the camera with me, so you will have to be content with one I’d taken on another occasion.
Pacific Black Duck
Common Starling bathing
Common Starling (with female House Sparrow)
The bird baths in our garden give us many hours of entertainment. There is a constant stream of birds coming to drink, especially during the hotter months.
Quite often the antics of the birds bathing makes us laugh. This Common starling really got into the idea of having a thorough bathe. The result was not a pretty look – not like their usual sleek and well kept plumage. The new ‘hair-do’ … or should that be ‘feather-do’ might catch on.
The female House Sparrow in the back ground had to wait her turn for a bath – or was that a drink?
For more articles about our bird baths, click here.
Singing Honeyeater
2 Comments »11th December, 2008; Category: Honeyeaters
Singing Honeyeater
Singing Honeyeaters are a resident breeding species in our garden in Murray Bridge. We see several of them every day, usually when they come to one of our bird baths. We often hear their beautiful ‘preet preet preet’ call.
Singing Honeyeaters are found throughout mainland Australia with the exception of the east coast. They are not found in Tasmania. One of their preferred habitats is mallee scrubland, of which we have plenty around here.
They usually breed from about July through to February, making an untidy cup shaped nest of grass, stems, spider’s webs and usually made in a thick shrub. they usually lay 2 to 3 eggs.
Reference: Graham Pizzey and Frank Knight: Field Guide to the Birds of Australia. Angus and Robertson, 1997
Related articles:
- Honeyeaters – a list of articles about honeyeaters from my archives
Striated Pardalote
Striated Pardalote
One of the more common resident breeding birds in our garden would have to be the Striated Pardalote. These delightful little birds are present every day, and we enjoy hearing their ‘peep-peep’ call as they forage for food in the leaf canopy of trees near our home.
We have two species of pardalote present here, the other one being the Spotted Pardalote. That one we affectionately call the ‘squeaky gate’ pardalote, because that’s what its call sounds like.
Both species nest in a hollow. The hollow can be a small tree hollow, or it can be in a burrow dug in the sandy soil around here. They will also utilise a small hollow in buildings, such as between bricks and woodwork.
New Holland Honeyeater gets hot
No Comments »8th December, 2008; Category: General
New Holland Honeyeater
We have several rather insipid looking red hot poker flowers in our garden at the moment. The New Holland Honeyeaters think that they are great. They come frequently during the day for a feed. I managed to capture a good shot of one of them a few days ago.
Click on the photo to enlarge the image.
Related articles:
- Great Birding Moments: Noisy Miner – this shows a better photo of the flower