White Browed Babblers and water

Some time ago I wrote about White Browed Babblers and water. In that article I stated I’d never seen this species coming to drink:

White Browed Babblers are frequent visitors to our garden. They come in their family group, scuttling through the low bushes, scurrying up the branches of the mallee trees searching for insects and spiders and filling the air with their cat like calls.

From time to time their foraging antics bring them close to the bird bath. Sometimes they get as close as a metre away. I have never seen them land on the bird bath, let alone take a drink or bathe.

Proved wrong:

I have been proved wrong.

A few days ago a group of babblers came to the part of the garden near the bird baths. One of them landed on one of the bird baths and briefly stopped for a drink. I was fortunate to have the camera ready for this shot. It’s not a great photo but is it made more interesting by having caught a House Sparrow in flight and about to land on the bird bath too.

White Browed Babbler

Related articles:

• Birds at our bird baths – a collection of articles from my archives where I have written about the birds that come to the bird baths in our garden.