Monday, December 31, 2012

White-Tailed Black Cockatoo

Unfortunately there's a branch in the way, but they get so easily disturbed that I took the photo anyway rather than scare the bird away. It was looking for seed in the nearby banksias.

Friday, October 26, 2012

The garden in spring...

All it takes is a few days of sunshine to bring so many things into bloom...

My new feathered friend...

Thursday, October 11, 2012

A night visitor

This is a Southern Brown Tree-frog that was clinging to the glass doors at about 10pm a couple of nights ago. The flash has made its skin colour look brighter than it actually is.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Bowerbirds show up for lunch

I often have Currawongs come looking for dry dog food to eat, but it seems the Satin Bowerbirds also like it. The blue one is the male, the green and brown is the female. (The black bird is, of course, a Currawong.)

Friday, August 10, 2012

Southern Brown Tree Frog

This is actually a picture from several months ago. It's a Southern Brown tree Frog that was sheltering one hot afternoon in the coolness of a huge flax plant.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

The native robin

I've been wanting to get a picture of one of the robin species for ages. This is the female Scarlet Robin (Petroica multicolor), although the photo has made his breast look more like an orange-red than a rose-red.

Wrens having a winters feast

During cold weather I make a mixture of oats, animal fat and honey that I smear all over a pine cone and then I hang out the cone for the wrens to come and have a feed. It makes life just that little bit easier for them, and they love it. The Grey Shrike-thrushes also like it as well.

Monday, January 2, 2012

Another successful Grey Shrike-Thrush brood

Anyone who lives near bushland in Australia will probably know the musical call of the Grey Shrike-Thrush (Colluricincla harmonica). Some people think the soft-gray plumage of these birds is drab, but what they lack in colour they make up for with the most beautiful song of the Gippsland forests. Although they resemble true thrushes, which were introduced from Europe during the 19th century, Shrike-Thrushes belong to a different family that includes Bellbirds and Whistlers. It’s surprising to learn that they are found all over Australia and New Guinea, except in some of the driest parts of the desert. They breed between July and February, and they like to build their nests in a shady and secluded place. For the past four years a couple have been using a nest that they built at the back of the shed where I live. They have their first batch of about three eggs in September. The mother and father take turns to sit on the nest and then spend most of the day finding food for the fledglings after they hatch in October. The young birds will hang around in the shed until they are big enough to fly about and hunt for food by themselves, which usually means worms, insects, fruit and seed or even small skinks. Then the female lays another batch in November and they go through the same routine all over again. Sometimes there are only two fledglings and other times there may be three but the last is a runt who doesn’t survive. However, in December there was a successful brood of three raised, the last to leave pictured here perched on a ladder.