What are you staring at?
Male Eclectus Parrot
I think that the title of this post says it all.
The quizzical look this male Eclectus parrot is giving me speaks volumes.
If only we could tell what he was thinking.
The photo was taken at the Australian Reptile Park near Gosford, north of Sydney.
Further reading:
Red-browed finches playing coy
Red-browed finch
Last month my family and I visited the Australian Reptile Park north of Sydney. As well as a great collection of reptiles the park also boasts a good collection of birds in aviaries. I have featured some of these over recent posts and have still a few more to add in the coming days.
The setting of the park near the town of Gosford is in the heart of forested areas of the Blue Mountains (part of the Great Dividing Range in eastern Australia). Because of its location the natural birdlife is quite prolific. Some of the wild birds take advantage of the food provided for some of the animals, including the caged birds.
The Red-browed finch featured in today’s photos is one such species. They were able to fly in and out through the wire of the aviary holding much larger parrots. This gave them easy access to the seed trays. It might have been easy for the birds, but taking their photo was not easy for me; I had to avoid getting the wire in the photo. Shooting through the wire of an aviary is always a challenge.
On this occasion there was an added challenge to getting these birds in focus: the finches were a little coy and keep just out of view behind the parrot feeding tray. I’m not sure if they were just a little shy, or that the parrots had spilled all the best seeds out of the tray.
Red-browed finch
Bush Stone-curlew at the Australian Reptile Park
Bush Stone-curlew
As I was meandering through the aviary section on our recent family visit to the Australian Reptile Park north of Sydney, I managed to get this interesting photo of a Bush Stone-curlew.
This individual is obviously quite relaxed near humans, with hundreds passing by its aviary on a daily basis. It fact, its pose almost suggests it is being curious about what I was doing, and came very close to investigate.
Or was it deliberately posing in a provocative way to get my attention?
Further reading:
You can see more photos and read more about this species by clicking on these related articles:
Southern Boobooks at the Australian Reptile Park
No Comments »19th August, 2014; Category: Aviaries, Bush birds, Garden birds, Murray Bridge, Owls Frogmouths and Nightjars, Zoos
Southern Boobook owls at Australian Reptile Park
Over the last week or so I have been sharing photos of birds taken during a recent family visit to the Australian Reptile Park near Gosford north of Sydney.
This series continues today with the photo above of two Southern Boobook owls roosting in their aviary. Boobooks are widely spread in Australia and are a well-known species because of their “boo-book” call ringing through the bushland and even in suburban gardens.
We recently had one calling near our home in Murray Bridge, South Australia. You can read about that here.
Tawny Frogmouths at the Australian Reptile Park
No Comments »30th July, 2014; Category: Aviaries, Garden birds, Murray Bridge, Owls Frogmouths and Nightjars, Zoos
Tawny Frogmouth
On our recent visit to the Australian Wildlife Park near Gosford north of Sydney, I was pleased that a part of their collection of animals included birds. In fact, some of the birds were in walk-through aviaries. Such cages are good opportunities to get good photos of species it would be hard to obtain with animals in the wild.
One of the aviaries featured owls and frogmouths. I’ll show the owls in another post in a few days’ time.
Tawny Frogmouths, as shown in today’s post (above and below) are one of my favourite birds. Ever since a family Easter camp in the 1986 at Hattah-Kulkyne National Park in north-west Victoria we have loved these birds. On that occasion one decided to roost on a branch above our tent and call for quite a while during the night. Once we worked out what it was, the constant oom-oom-oom call soothingly put us to sleep.
We have occasionally heard and seen this species in our garden at home in Murray Bridge, South Australia. Because of its soft call we do not hear it if the television is going in the evening. Perhaps that is a good reason for occasionally switching it off.
Tawny Frogmouth