The Uncaged Bird -Hummingbird feeder is up!

Graceful floating flock (a pod?) of pelicans, at Labrador beach, Gold Coast Qld yesterday morning. One of last in this group actually swam forwards, against the direction of the rest of the others, but with his/her head turned back over his/her body the whole distance of the swim! (I.e. the drawn-out length of flock, about 4 car lengths)

Beside me, on shore, was a giggle of sea gulls hoping for hot chips or scraps of burger or something.... yeah, no. I’d only bought fresh fish for home! 

The crazy koala ‘lurks’ behind the gulls; we amuse ourselves telling tourists the notorious Drop Bears look like this when they’re not in trees!

(Oh, that’s Wavebreak Island in the background, a sand island in our Broadwater)

joanne said:

Graceful floating flock (a pod?) of pelicans, at Labrador beach, Gold Coast Qld yesterday morning. One of last in this group actually swam forwards, against the direction of the rest of the others, but with his/her head turned back over his/her body the whole distance of the swim! (I.e. the drawn-out length of flock, about 4 car lengths)

Beside me, on shore, was a giggle of sea gulls hoping for hot chips or scraps of burger or something.... yeah, no. I’d only bought fresh fish for home! 

The crazy koala ‘lurks’ behind the gulls; we amuse ourselves telling tourists the notorious Drop Bears look like this when they’re not in trees!

(Oh, that’s Wavebreak Island in the background, a sand island in our Broadwater)

Beautiful pictures @joanne. Beachscapes and seabirds feel so far away as the last few leaves cling to trees and visions of snowfalls dance in our heads.

in that case, enjoy this article even though it’s not strictly bird-related.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-07/abseiling-botanists-discover-rare-plants-nsw-national-park/9235832?WT.ac=localnews_goldcoast

I want one of these!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-07/duck-dinosaur-fossil-discovered-in-mongolia/9234342

Two baby ducklings trailing after mother duck!   unfortunately I was too slow to get a pic; they’re not the fluffy yellow kind, and barely the size of a large chicken’s egg on stick-legs!

Stunning images from Birdlife Australia's 2018 Calendar

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2017/dec/07/birds-of-a-feather-australian-birdlifes-2018-calendar-in-pictures

Two happy ducks, sheltering from the early morning heat yesterday morning...

it’s official! The Australian Bird of the Year is the Australian Magpie!!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-12-11/magies-ten-things-you-didnt-know/9245780

(Apparently, lots of sneaky politics and lobbying between the Ibis (‘bin chicken’) and Magpie camps - marksierra can fill you in on all that)

I’m really not sure how clearly you’ll be able to see what thought was both funny and astonishing this morning: a kind of combo lookout-weathervane ibis on our neighbour’s roof!! Ibis don’t ususally roost so high, they like scratching on the ground, wading in shallow water and mud, maybe hanging about on low-lying boughs of wide-spreading shady trees. This was quite startlingly high and exposed. A friend joined this one for a bit but flew off just as I was ready to click.

I was pretty shaky, sorry! 

Cool Joanne.

it's not there this morning, just the satellite dish and other aerial. Corner of the roof looks a bit bare now  

Did you the reports of this gorgeous prehistoric feathered dinosaur?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-16/chinese-rainbow-dinosaur-discovered-with-iridescent-feathers/9332100 

joanne said:

Did you the reports of this gorgeous prehistoric feathered dinosaur?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-16/chinese-rainbow-dinosaur-discovered-with-iridescent-feathers/9332100 

Gorgeous creature.

Visitor to the winter garden.

Beautiful! But looks chilly...

joanne said:

Beautiful! But looks chilly...

Yup. I'm bored with winter the day after New Year's.

To quote Jim Morrison, Waiting for the Sun.

A very brief peaceful intermission, from all the horrible news and our incessant heat and humidity: it’s just gone 7am in our part of Australia. About fifteen minutes ago I glanced out the French doors and over the balcony - to see two glorious black swans just lazily dawdling out on the lake!! Right opposite!! (Neighbour had recently thrown breadcrumbs and seed to the ducks and marsh hens)

Funniest sight was watching the swans swim right up to the bank, stretch their necks as far as they could and reach the best crumbs on the high bank while still sitting fully (cooly) in the water!! Unfortunately that pic didn’t come out, as we’re facing due south it was too dark/had no contrast.

In the pics below, you can just make out one swan near the house corner, with its bent neck. 

The second pic is a friendly maned duck ‘posing for a pic too, please’

Beautiful. Can't wait for Spring to break. I'm looking forward to changing the sub title.

feeding pic!  Their necks are soooo long when they stretch! And the water is sooooo cool! Lol

Your images were a bit dark on my screen, joanne.  These might be a bit better - or not.

Thanks Mark. I can see them better as well. Black swans. I've never done a drawing of one but now I'm inspired to search for some photo reference.

it’s so hot here at present, my phone keeps turning itself off! I’m having to put it in the fridge (in rice ) when I’m not using it! At the same time, we’ve got seasonal change: sunrise and sunset have both changed, sunset is much earlier, and sunrise is now much later. Makes it harder to get decent pix of the waterfowl. 

(The adjusted pix have light quality of at least an hour later if not two. It really was a dawn-breaking series)

Very cool bird watching presentation at the Maplewood Garden Club meeting last night. I sat in the back as a guest. If I sat in the front I would have been calling out answers. Yup, that's the kind of student that I was.

Anyway, I'm hoping that the presenter's mention of Cornell's Project Feeder Watch will get more people, some hopefully on MOL to put out feeders.

Hope that they will follow up with planting suggestions for a bird friendly garden. Living in our bird friendly, woodchuck friendly, deer friendly landscape, I would gladly share my successes and mishaps.

They need a Part 2.

Have you caught up with the exciting news that a huge colony of 1.5 million emperor penguins was found, ‘hiding’ just off the main research/exploration route in Antarctica ? Great news, just when we’d all been v concerned that all the penguins down there that we knew off might be extinct by the end of this century. 

Hot on the heels of all that news comes this sweet little article: 

I’m not sure if it’s connected with either of those research teams, or another team. You really should read it, it’s a lovely antidote to the ‘normal’ news.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-08/curious-penguins-selfie-at-antarctica/9528364 

joanne said:

Have you caught up with the exciting news that a huge colony of 1.5 million emperor penguins was found, ‘hiding’ just off the main research/exploration route in Antarctica ? Great news, just when we’d all been v concerned that all the penguins down there that we knew off might be extinct by the end of this century. 

Hot on the heels of all that news comes this sweet little article: 

I’m not sure if it’s connected with either of those research teams, or another team. You really should read it, it’s a lovely antidote to the ‘normal’ news.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-08/curious-penguins-selfie-at-antarctica/9528364 

Very cool. I am usually bewildered by the obsession with selfies, but now I am a convert.

Do any of us need this? I'm thinking YES!

https://www.facebook.com/ZUMMR.Feeder/videos/10156171871545750/

oh that is just GORGEOUS!   

We need that right?

I took a trip to Jamaica with my first husband years ago and there was a person called The Bird Woman of Anchovy. She fed the hummers at the same time of day and would let tourists hold feeders and wait. They flew right out of the jungle at a set time and light on your finder while the drank.

when you come here, there are magical hilltop places to visit where you can sit and sip cups of tea then suddenly be surrounded by clouds of rainbow lorikeets, or wild budgies, etc. 

Or visit us and feed ducks and assorted water fowl, then visit a nearby butterfly farm with a feeding house (true! It’s in Gaven, look it up), then go feed pelicans by the hundreds beachside at Labrador, while whale & dolphin spotting... happy sighs.... 

Our lake is currently 85% a carpet of waterlilies, after nearly 3 weeks of rain. The ducks basically walk on the broad thick leaves as if they were flagstones, then quickly dive through a crack for a snatched morsel of slimy goodness (worms? Tender plant shoots?), pop up again and continue their march across to the other side of the lake...  The wind has been quite strong this week so where the water is bare, the current is strong. It’s fun to see the smaller birds almost surfing along on the waves!

Sounds like heaven!