Trevor's Birding

Bush Stone-curlew at the Australian Reptile Park

No Comments »21st August, 2014; Category: Bird Behaviour, Bush birds, Zoos

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.

Pigeons and doves

No Comments »9th August, 2014; Category: Bird Behaviour, Garden birds, Pigeons and Doves

Crested pigeon

I went for a walk of The Estate this afternoon.

When I say “The Estate”, please understand that we only own a 5 acre (2 hectare) block.

As I passed along the neighbour’s fence, I glanced over into the area in front of their house. On the grass I saw six birds feeding on the grass: 2 Crested pigeons, 2 Spotted Turtledoves and 2 Peaceful doves, all within about 2 or 3 metres of each other.

This is the first time I’ve seen all 3 species feeding in such close proximity to each other.

Note: I didn’t have my camera with me, so the photos shown today were taken on another occasion.

Spotted Turtledove

Peaceful Dove

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

A rude Laughing Kookaburra

No Comments »28th July, 2014; Category: Aviaries, Kingfishers, Zoos

Laughing Kookaburra

Most people love to hear the call of the Laughing Kookaburra. It is one of the quintessential bird calls of the Australian bush.

Some people might be of the opinion that Laughing Kookaburras can be quite rude when they laugh at inappropriate moments. The bird in the photo above was being rude in a quite different way; he turned his back on me.

The bird shown in the photo today was one of the residents of one of the walk through aviaries at the Australian Reptile Park near Gosford north of Sydney. We went there on a family outing recently. It is my guess that there were also many more kookaburras in the surrounding bushland.

I’d better own up. The bird in the photo did turn around shortly after this photo was taken. Unfortunately I didn’t get the focus right and it turned out quite blurred, so I guess you can say that I was the rude one – for calling it rude in the first place!