Photo Gallery Update
Mistletoebird
My son has done an update on and a redesign of our family photo gallery. This gallery currently has over 750 photos on a wide range of subjects including birds, flowers, animals, travel and much more.
Take a look.
Leave a rating.
Link: Hampel Photo Gallery
UPDATE: our photo gallery has just passed the 300,000 views today.
Red Capped Robin
Bird strikes on planes
Birds and planes don’t mix all that well. A bird flying into a plane can cause some very serious damage to the plane, endangering the lives of those on board. Sadly, it doesn’t do much for the bird either.
While there have been few serious bird strikes on planes in Australia in recent years, they still number in the hundreds of incidents annually. Worldwide the cost is estimated to be over $US3 billion. The article I read about this made no mention of how many birds are killed annually in this way. The toll must be enormous.
The most common bird strikes on planes at the Melbourne Airport are, in order:
- Common Starlings
- Australian Magpies
- Ravens
- Pigeons
- Straw-Necked Ibis
Alarmingly, in recent years there have been three incidents involving emus and planes. Presumably these were on the ground during landing or take-off. As yet, I’ve not heard of any flying emus.
Links:
- Flocking birds cause havoc in the air – from The Age newspaper.
- Bird strike at Adelaide Airport – an article I wrote last year on this topic.
Birds of a Feather and love birds
I’ve never been one to observe St Valentine’s Day because I believe that every day should be a special day for the one that you love. Many people do observe the day, however, and the Audubon web site has a special St Valentine’s Day feature to help birders celebrate this day in a special way.
They have three special features:
- Avian love birds – special courting behaviours in birds.
- Human love birds – interviews with couples who met through birding activities or clubs.
- Green gift ideas – some ideas for gifts that will benefit the birds.
To read more click here.
Some unusual visitors to our bird bath
I have written on a number of occasions about the birds that visit the bird bath in our garden. (Click here for one article with several photos.)
A non-bird visitor to the bird bath
While having lunch yesterday a Stumpy Tail Lizard (also called a Shingleback Lizard, one of the Blue Tongue Lizards of Australia), came wandering through the garden towards to bird bath on the ground. He paused to gobble down a few eremophila flowers before having long drink from the bird bath. He probably stayed for some five minutes, drinking deeply a number of times, before wandering off again.
Stumpy Tailed Lizard
A very cheeky visitor
Then late last night at just after 10pm I was outside seeing off a friend who had come to visit for the evening. We were standing about ten metres from the bird bath which was on the ground. As we were saying goodnight, we both stopped and turned because we had heard loud slurping noises coming from the bird bath.
As it was in the shadows I stepped inside, grabbed a touch and found that a Red Fox (an introduced species) had been visiting the bird bath for a drink. He casually wandered off in the beam of the torch light, quite unconcerned about my presence a few metres away. I’m not sure if I’m pleased that he feels quite at home in our garden. I must warn our next door neighbour to lock up her chooks and guinea fowl.
I didn’t get a photo of the fox.
Related Articles:
- Time for a bath – visitors to our bird bath, with many photos.
Birds in the News
A digest of articles called Birds in the News #70 has just been posted in the blog called Living the Scientific Life.
There are links to many interesting articles about birds that have featured in the news over the last week or so, including some on endangered birds.