A little night time visitor
No Comments »24th January, 2015; Category: Garden birds, Nocturnal birds, Owls Frogmouths and Nightjars, Parrots and Lorikeets
Australian Owlet-nightjar
Last night we were watching television with the lounge door open; it was a pleasant summer’s night. During a particularly quiet segment of the show we were watching we suddenly heard the churring call of our “resident” Australian Owlet-nightjar.
“He’s still around,’ we both cried out.
Now I need to clarify a few points here:
- I use the word “our” loosely. It is a wild bird in the natural environment so we do not own it.
- I am not sure if this particular bird is actually a resident on our 5 acre property. We do hear it often enough to think that it is here most days, but have no proof of that.
- I have no idea if it is a male or female – to call it “he” is more of a generic term.
Over recent months we have not heard this bird calling many times at all, so it was delightful to hear the call last night. I like to think that it is quite contented living around here most of the time.
A few years ago one bird – perhaps the same one – took up occupation of a significant hollow in one of our mallee trees in our back yard. Amusingly, during the cool winter months it would emerge from the hollow every morning around 11am and sun itself in the opening of the hollow, call a few times and then retreat to sleep until evening. Sometimes we would even hear it calling again as it went out feeding during the night., being mostly a nocturnal species. It was on one of those occasions that I was able to sneak up closer for a photo (shown above).
Over the last two summers the hollow has come under the “ownership” of a pair of Mallee Ringneck parrots who have successfully added to their family each time. Lately they have been busy feeding two very persistent young ones which have recently fledged.
Further reading:
- Australian Owlet-nightjar
- Australian Owlet-nightjar
- Australian Owlet-nightjar does exist
- Australian Owlet-nightjar in our garden
- A special call in the night
Great birding moments #35 Female Superb Fairy-wren
Female Superb Fairy-wren
I have a confession to make.
I have just informed my wife that I insist on doing the clothes washing.
Reluctantly she has agreed to my request. My reason is simple; many times in recent years I have had some wonderful birding experiences while hanging out the washing on the clothes line – or bringing in the dry clothes. My eyes are always gazing upwards when doing this easy household chore and I have seen some great birds during this activity. Perhaps the most stunning was seeing a Peregrine falcon at top speed heading for what I think were some pigeons. Whoosh!
Adding to the birding dimension is the fact that our clothes-line is surrounded by trees and low to medium Australian Native plants (see me wife’s site here), so there is always some bird activity all around me. Distractions are common!
My latest Great Birding Moment happened yesterday while taking in the washing. I had almost finished and a female Superb Fairy-wren landed on the clothes-line next to me. As it cheerily chattered to me I could have reached out and patted it. It stayed there calling quietly to me for nearly a minute – a whole magical minute!
How wonderful.
I felt so privileged – and truly blessed.
Good birding.
Further reading:
- Great Birding Moments #1-35 The above article is one of a series of articles along a similar theme.
Male Superb Fairy-wren
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.