Silverfly - I think those are great pics - especially for a bird that flits around so much.
Got any bird pics?
- Thread starter Wadin' Boot
- Start date
took a minute.......
SS - took a while but I found it!
me too ...
The eyes (with glasses), are way better than the cell phone. The trail led us To within 20 yards of the tree she(?) was perched in. She stayed put as we walked by. Didn’t look back at her too much as I could see she was getting a little nervous as we approached.
Gaultheria
Smolt
Dippers are my favorite.
We just returned from spending a couple of weeks in Victoria, Australia with our oldest daughter Sarah and granddaughter Ella. They live in Trentham which is a small town (pop 1100) about an hour outside of Melbourne. We woke every morning to the sound of melodic magpies, screeching cockatoos (aka "cockies") and laughing kookaburras. Trentham is small town America 50 years ago... such a delight to visit.
I didn't bring my bird photography camera and had to settle on cell phone images - most of which sucked. Here are a few of the better ones.
Australian magpies - Aussie's fear them during nesting season.
One of the neighborhood kookaburras.
Sulphur crested "cockies" were everywhere and often in very large flocks.
There was a wetland restoration project underway just a short walking distance from Sarah's house. After spending much of my career creating restoring and managing wetlands, I got to see how the Aussie's do it and get my waterbird fix as well.
Australian wood ducks - probably the most common duck in Australia.
Purple swamphen which is a weird looking, long legged gallinule.
White ibis or "bin chicken" as they are known to the Aussies due their preference to hanging around garbage cans.
Ella and Sarah
I didn't bring my bird photography camera and had to settle on cell phone images - most of which sucked. Here are a few of the better ones.
Australian magpies - Aussie's fear them during nesting season.
One of the neighborhood kookaburras.
Sulphur crested "cockies" were everywhere and often in very large flocks.
There was a wetland restoration project underway just a short walking distance from Sarah's house. After spending much of my career creating restoring and managing wetlands, I got to see how the Aussie's do it and get my waterbird fix as well.
Australian wood ducks - probably the most common duck in Australia.
Purple swamphen which is a weird looking, long legged gallinule.
White ibis or "bin chicken" as they are known to the Aussies due their preference to hanging around garbage cans.
Ella and Sarah
My wife spent 2nd grade in Australia. She still has PTSD from magpie encounters!
tkww
Life of the Party
The historically non-existent Scrub Jay population is gradually increasing in SE WA.
I don't know when exactly to expect birds to return for the summer, but the Song Sparrows from last summer appear to have returned already. Obviously I can't be 100% sure it's the same bird, but it's got the the noticeable white throat and crisp facial markings and distinct eyebrows that caught my attention last year. And the bird that was around all winter wouldn't ever get closer than 20ish feet. This guy shows up and immediately has no problem perching 6 or 8 feet away. (Of course not when I had my camera out...)
I don't know when exactly to expect birds to return for the summer, but the Song Sparrows from last summer appear to have returned already. Obviously I can't be 100% sure it's the same bird, but it's got the the noticeable white throat and crisp facial markings and distinct eyebrows that caught my attention last year. And the bird that was around all winter wouldn't ever get closer than 20ish feet. This guy shows up and immediately has no problem perching 6 or 8 feet away. (Of course not when I had my camera out...)
Yeah some of the calls around the hood are more spring sounding that should be this time of year....
RR those magpie and currawong calls are the background childhood soundtrack for every kid who ever grew up outside the cities in Australia, man I miss it, so peaceful, so immediately relaxing. The magpies are really smart birds....
Hopefully you made up to Hanging Rock a few miles northeast of Trentham? There's a great victorian gothic horror movie directed by Peter Wier called Picnic at Hanging Rock. Hopefully the bushfires weren't too much, they have had it rough the last three weeks
Wowee!!! You know about Trentham? You grew up in the area correct? I LOVED Trentham. The Trentham Hotel and Cosmopolitan were our go to pubs there (and the only pubs ha ha). What a nice, quaint, friendly town.
Yes we went to Hanging Rock. Our daughter told us about the movie but we haven't watched it yet. The museum there is quite interesting. We did some wine tasting around Macedon as well. Fortunately, the bushfires were not an issue while we were there (surprisingly). We had delightful weather - missed the haze and smoke and missed the heat waves.
The melodic calls of magpie and currawong's are so cool. We would lay in bed in the morning and listen to them. Peaceful and relaxing is a great description. I love the diversity of birds in rural Victoria.
grew up further northeast than there, folks and family are all otherwise in Melbourne. If you told me, when I left, that I would miss magpie noise on some deep, immediate and fundamental level, I would have thought you nuts....
Thought I'd share a couple of great river birds...
American Dippers feeding in fast water on the Firehole in Yellowstone last week, pulling up mayfly nymphs and caddis larvae
And from Ecuador last November, male and female Torrent ducks were unbelievable working upstream in raging water.
American Dippers feeding in fast water on the Firehole in Yellowstone last week, pulling up mayfly nymphs and caddis larvae
And from Ecuador last November, male and female Torrent ducks were unbelievable working upstream in raging water.
Steve