Flamingos, Adelaide Zoo
Adelaide Zoo has only two flamingos, a Chilean Flamingo and a Greater Flamingo. They occupy the flamingo grotto built in in 1885, a specially made quiet corner of the zoo. Only a low fence separates them from the admiring public. They usually make excellent photo opportunities as they feed in their small pond.
You can read further information about these birds from the Adelaide Zoo website, including details of distribution, diet and other interesting facts. The pages include short videos of the birds:
Who has lost a canary?
We’d just finished lunch a while ago and were sitting on our back veranda enjoying a cuppa. The barbecue I’d coked had been delicious and the weather was fine. I was absorbed in a novel I’m reading when my wife suddenly drew my attention to a canary on the ground about three metres away.
I quietly went inside to get my camera and it stayed long enough for me to take about a dozen photos. The best ones are shown here. It has obviously escaped from someone’s aviary; they are certainly not native to Australia. Two or our nearest neighbours keep canaries so it may well have escaped from their aviaries. It was very tame, allowing me to approach to within a metre or two, but wary enough to keep out of reach. Catching it poses a few problems.
Sadly, such a brightly coloured bird could easily become easy prey for the local Brown Falcons, Collared Sparrowhawks and others.
Further reading:
I and the bird #93
It has been too long since my last contribution to the I and the Bird carnival.
At long last I managed to scrape in a link to the latest carnival over at Vickie Henderson Art. Her compilation of wonderful posts about birds from all over the world is called The Compelling Nature of Birds.
Go on – go on over there and have a read.
I’ll wait patiently here for you to return.