I’m still here
Contrary to what my regular readers may have thought, I have neither dropped off the planet nor shuffled off this mortal coil.
I’ve been busy.
With my nose in the books.
I’m in the thick of studying for my Master of Arts in Creative Writing course. Plenty of assignments due at the end of term yesterday. We now have a two week mid-semester break. Time to catch my breath – and hopefully catch up on a few birds. And catch up on some reading.
Things have been rather quiet around home recently as far as birds go. The hot weather we had in March seems to have flown. We’ve had some very pleasant days, some very windy days with gale force winds, and we’ve had a light sprinkling of some wet stuff from the atmosphere. I’d hardly call it rain. We are still desperately waiting for the rains to come; things are starting to look rather desperate.
One downside to having much cooler conditions has been the lack of visitors to the garden birdbath. The Pardalotes still come from time to time. The Red Wattlebirds, Common Starlings and House Sparrows are still reasonably regular visitors. And about once a day the resident Willie Wagtail comes for a water-wasting bath; he splashes water in all directions. I tried telling him we are on strict water restrictions, but he just ignores me.
BIGBY report for January 2008
No Comments »1st February, 2008; Category: General
At the beginning of the year I joined the BIGBY – the Big Green Big Year. Carbon neutral birding seems a good thing to do. I was planning on getting a lot fitter this year anyway and hopefully lose a few excess kilos from around the middle. Doing most of my serious birding in the garden and on walks from home seemed an ideal solution all round.
Limitations:
Alas – illness has prevented much serious birding in January. Coupled with the intense heat wave we have had – with many days in the 45C (113F) range – opportunities to go for birding walks have been limited. Most of what I have observed have been in the garden or from the house.
Good sightings
Despite these limitations the bird list for 2008 is coming along quite nicely. Top of the list would have to be the Australian Owlet-nightjar which has taken up residence in a hollow a few metres from my office window. This nocturnal species is more often heard than seen, so I was pleased when I got a photo a few days ago. (This will feature in an article here in the next few days.) It is a delight to hear this little bird calling during the day and night.
The second really great sighting was a lifer. We had a brief visit from a Barbary Dove. At first I called it a Collared Turtle-dove but it seems the “experts” think it is a Barbary Dove instead. No matter – it is still a new bird for my life list and my garden list.
The third great sighting for the month was an immature Collared Sparrowhawk which decided to pose beautifully for me no more than five metres away. Delightful.
Highlight
Another highlight for the month was an event, not a sighting. This was carbon neutral birding at its best. I took readers on a world birding trip without leaving home. I hosted the carnival I and the Bird for the very first time. While the preparation took quite a time, it received some good feedback from readers and participants. It also boosted the traffic to my site for a few days.
Other sighting this month:
So far I’ve recorded 38 species (including 2 breeding) for the garden and during my walks. This is not a fantastic total but given the circumstances it is quite good. Here is the full list:
- Brown Falcon
- Collared Sparrowhawk
- Black Kite
- Rock Dove
- Barbary Dove
- Spotted Turtle-dove
- Crested Pigeon
- Galah
- Rainbow Lorikeet
- Purple-crowned Lorikeet
- Mallee Ringneck
- Australian Owlet-nightjar
- Rainbow Bee-eater
- Spotted Pardalote
- Striated Pardalote
- Weebill
- Yellow-rumped Thornbill
- Red Wattlebird
- Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater (breeding)
- Singing Honeyeater
- White-plumed Honeyeater
- Brown-headed Honeyeater
- New Holland Honeyeater
- White-browed Babbler
- Grey Shrike-thrush
- Australian Magpie Lark
- Willie Wagtail
- Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike
- Grey Butcherbird
- Grey Currawong
- Australian Magpie
- Little Raven
- White-winged Chough
- House Sparrow
- Mistletoebird
- Silvereye
- Common Blackbird (breeding)
- Cammon Starling
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
Christmas Greetings and a Christmas Bird List
Christmas Greetings to all my readers.
I hope you had a great day. Here in my part of Australia in was 28C (82F), bright sunshine with not a cloud in the sky and a gentle breeze. It does not get much better than that. We had a quiet Christmas with just a few family members for a Christmas lunch. Didn’t do any serious birding and just casually observed or heard a few birds in the garden or on a short drive.
These common birds included:
- House Sparrow
- Common Starling
- Galah
- Common Blackbird
- Australian Magpie
- Australian Magpie Lark
- Little Raven
- New Holland Honeyeater
- Red Wattlebird
- Crested Pigeon
- Spotted Turtledove
- Willie Wagtail
- Singing Honeyeater
This is not an amazing list and these species are regularly present in our garden on a daily basis. Overall, I did observe that most birds were rather quiet all day. I guess that many of them were busy celebrating Christmas too.
I saw this bird and I thought of you
4 Comments »23rd December, 2007; Category: Birders, Birds, General, Plovers Dotterels and Lapwings, Waterbirds
A friend sidled up to me the other day and said, “I saw this little bird and I thought of you, Trevor.”
Now – I’m not sure whether that ever happens to you or not, but it is becoming a rather frequent occurrence in my life. You see, I’m not slow at letting people know that I am a birder, someone whose passion is watching birds in the wild. That’s what this blog is all about after all.
Said friend went on to say that this little bird actually attacked him. I pressed him with several key questions, such as, size, colour, location and what was it actually doing. Within a minute I had established that it was probably a Red-capped Plover (see photo), a small wading bird common around the coast of Australia and in suitable wetlands inland. It was “attacking” my friend because it either had a nest with eggs or newly hatched chicks nearby.
Red-capped Plover
It is nice to be recognised for one’s expertise in this way. What annoys me, however, is the growing number of friends and acquaintances who say the same thing after they return from a holiday in some exotic location.
“Oh Trevor,” they chirp as happy as a Sparrow with a bowl full of seed, “we saw this beautiful parrot in Cairns (or Broome or Darwin or wherever) and we immediately thought of you.” After the initial polite smile and excited ooohs and aaahs I go away fuming. I’ve NEVER seen that species in my life. And they’ve seen it and they are not even birders. Grrrrrr.
So what do I do about this annoying situation?
Perhaps I need to go for more holidays to exotic places. Then I can blithely reply, “Yeah, but did you see the Scarlet-crested Rainbow-winged Blue and White Cockatoo*?. It sat on my shoulder and nibbled at my ear.”
Or some other suitable anecdotal put-down.
*There is NO such animal – I just imagined it, but it sure sounds exotic and fabulous.