Anyone can join in, just post your photos under the Sunday Selections title, link back to Kim, then add your name to her Linky list at Frogpondsrock.
This week I thought I would indulge my love of birds. And a big thankyou to Marie, whose post yesterday reminded me.
Birds who frequent our house include these:
 |
| The Corellas seem to love apples (green) so they are a fixture on our shopping list |
 |
| Female King Parrot being hand fed |
 | |||
| I don't know where the white galah came from: We have only seen him a couple of times. |
They are more usually this colour, but not so bedraggled.
 |
| Dry Galahs |
The one at the back that looks a little like a budgie on steroids is an Eastern Rosella. We are truly lucky and often see six or seven species of native birds each day. And it has given us a whole new understanding of the term 'pecking order'. Size is by no means everything. Aggressive small birds see the bigger ones off the feeder regularly.
Other birds I have fallen in love with include:
 |
| Chinstrap Penguin |
 |
| Gentoo Penguin |
 |
| Stormy Petrel |
And to get away from Antarctica and back to Oz
Haven't seen many native birds in my area over the years such as Corellas, Parrots, Galahs, Rosellas, Cockies and Budgies it's only since the drought broke that they've returned and are a welcome sight and sound in the mornings :-).
ReplyDeleteI too love the native birds. I have green Rosellas here as the Eastern Rosellas live lower down the mountain. It is interesting that the birds I have in my yard (5 acres of bush) are very different from those bird I see only half a K down the hill. Cheers Kim :)
ReplyDeleteYou have beautiful birds in your yard. I love the corella playing 'upside down Miss Jane'.
ReplyDeleteAbout 16 months ago we moved from a house with a gorgeous fig tree that welcomed cockies and various rosellas with it wonderful fruit to a new home with no trees. I really miss the birds. Hopefuly one day our trees will be big enough to see them back.
ReplyDeleteThanks you for sharing yours in the meantime :)
We encourage the birds (feed them and grow lots of native plants). Lots of the neighbours are less enamoured that we are. About a year ago one of them ran across the yard bashing on a metal garbage bin. He freaked the cockies out, for about five minutes. Hah.
ReplyDeleteThey are beautiful birds. Especially the majestic swan with her signets. We get rosellas, cockatoos, kookaburras, crows, pigeons and pesky minors.
ReplyDeleteYes, I'm a big fan of birds too and have been planting out the garden with flowering natives to attract them. I have a family of Wattle birds which are just the shape of my heart, there's also kookaburra's, magpies, willy wagtails, native pigeons, butcher birds, a variety of small finches and sparrows and guest appearances from cockatoos and parrots - yes and pesky minors too.
ReplyDeleteWe only rarely get the Indian myahs which I am thankful for. Heaps of crested wood doves - and I love the whirring sound they make as they take off. And wattle birds who I love but who get up considerably before sparrow's fart.
ReplyDeletegorgeous photos
ReplyDeleteThe corella eating the apple upside down in the tree is a classic - here I am, tired and overwhelmed and tearful at my current situation and his cheeky smile just cracked me up. Thank you :)
ReplyDeleteHa, ha - a budgie on steroids! We all recognise Mr Rosella from the tomato sauce bottles. I think it was the first parrot I ever learned the name of - see the power of advertising? What parrot does Arnott's use?
ReplyDeleteGosh I really miss seeing parrots in my garden, even though I cursed the corellas and sulphur crested cockies when they swooped down and stripped my almond tree every year. Galahs were always my favourite and we would see huge flocks of them in the early evening nibbling on the grass in the parklands.
The penguins are gorgeous. I've only ever seen Fairy Penguins in the wild. And some other kind that I can't recall at a Singapore bird park. They are so funny to watch waddling along, but boy are they magnificant in the water.
Oh, the poor bedraggled galah!
ReplyDeleteI've never seen one so wet.
I love the Eastern Rosella, so colourful. My home mostly has the crested wood pigeons in the surrounding trees, with parrots at dawn and dusk. Lots of magpies too.
Hi EC,
ReplyDeleteCrikey - we don't get birds like that in England, sadly,
:0)
Cheers
PM
Hmmm, this blog is a beautiful safe space and I, for one, treasure it. Especially for the ornithological delights. Keep on blogging, EC, and delete, delete, delete the weeds that rear their tiresome heads in your garden.
ReplyDeleteThanks PM and Mitzi much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteAnon: I know why you are hiding behind the anon shield, but sorry, wrong person. The Jody who incites your ire is another person. I have followed the advice I was so kindly given, and plucked you from my garden.
You have some truly incredible birds! They make ours look quite drab in comparison! The Eastern Rosella is particularly lovely.
ReplyDeleteI also love the black swans. I remember seeing them a lot in New Zealand.
Jay and PM, your birds may look drab but it is my understanding that they sound much, much better than ours. Both the cockies and the corellas are far from musical and the galahs have a fairly impressive squawk as well. No nightingales here.
ReplyDeletethanks for showing us your jewels!
ReplyDeleteWarm Aloha from Honolulu
Comfort Spiral
><}}(°>
><}}(°>
<°)}}><
Thanks El Chi - we can feel the joy you photographed. I love birds too - the whole nest-building fragile egg-hatching miracle of them.
ReplyDeleteI am in deep bush right now and all those species are all around. I can tell the various parrot types calls apart too, kookaburra choir at daybreak was funny and not-funny simultaneously, and there cannot be a better call than magpies carolling. the birdy joy.
Thanks Ann O'D: Oh yes. Miracles indeed. And you are so, so right about the wonder of the magenpie warble. Love it.
ReplyDeleteWe are not getting kookaburras at the moment - so you have made me a tad jealous.
We don't see very many birds where I am at all. The back garden is totally bereft of them, probably because we live so close to a busy main road. When I was young you couldn't move for them! Sparrows, blackbirds, swifts....so I like your photos very much. When I met hubby he took me out to some great places to birdwatch with hides so you can sit there without scaring them all off. It's been some time since I managed that, but the cacophony is wonderful. :)
ReplyDelete*Love* these bird pics. There's nothing quite as wonder-inspiring as birds, whether they be in trees or waddling around on ice being overwhelmingly cute. To a Californian, yours look as exotic as the penguins. I'm impressed with how close you're able to get for pictures--and that you can have bird feeders with cats. Do the bell collars actually work? We've tried that, and they always managed somehow to "lose" the collar. We gave up. I'm also curious if black swans are common in your part of the world? I don't think I've ever actually seen one.
ReplyDeletePaper Chipmunk: Jazz now has three bells on his collar and still regretfully catches an occasional sparrow or a wood dove. Jewel chitters at the cockatoos - ambitious that cat. We feed the birds in the afternoon after we have shut the cats in for the day, and so far it works for the most part. And the feeder is attached to the ceiling on our verandah so we can get v close. Wonderful.
ReplyDeleteAnd our native swans are black. The white ones are more exotic for us. If we go down to the lake there are black swan families everwhere. Magic.
Three bells?! He sounds rather determined. Dominic the slasher is a frighteningly good birder. Dare I say we started to keep a field guide handy to see what he was bringing in. :-( One positive aspect of his growing obesity is we haven't had much of that since his last, a rather large woodpecker he brought in several months ago (which was still quite alive and flying around...and around...and around...). Perhaps you could start feeding Jazz extra canned portions...
ReplyDeleteBlack swans--wow. I really don't think I've ever seen one in person. Neat.
A woodpecker - wow. Now that seems super exotic to me. And I have rescued the odd bird that is not deceased. Also mice - though one ungrateful one bit me hard after I had taken it away from Jazz. I took the rotten animal down and let in loose in our compost bin and it bit me the whole way. Jazz was unimpressed as well.
ReplyDeleteSo many beautiful birds. We have been seeing lots more birds in the last 12 months since moving house. Nice to be in a quieter area :)
ReplyDelete