September 2007 - Bird Story

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Bird Story - September 2007

Pigeon update

September 28th 2007 20:05

There have been a couple of changes in our home-flock these past 2-3 days. Firstly, Shyly, after spending several months living on the roof and alcove with our main family, has flown off to dwell with the city pigeons instead. I last saw him flying off in the direction of Mr & Mrs Speckley's family 2-3 days ago. I think this may have something to do with the fact that there are not enough ladies to go around at our place, and being one of 5 males with one 'taken' chick, might be rather restrictive - especially when one of said males takes a fancy to one - enough said!

Last night, when feeding the evening seed-meal to our flock, I spotted a new pigeon with our gang and the visiting Speckley gang. It appears to be a city pigeon with a lot of white stripey markings on its wings. I have yet to name it, as I do not know if it will be a regular visitor or not, but it is young and possibly female, as it aroused the attentions of two of our unattached males.

I shall attempt to take a photograph of our 'newbie' next week.

I have FINALLY finished the MS on my next book, Our Australian Feathered Friends, I simply need to align the text, check the photographs are listed as being on the correct pages, and it is done! (PHEW!) I hope to post a couple of chapters in my bird-blog during October. they combine information about specific species with observations on particular individuals I have met and come to know. I find that most bird books on the library shelves today seem to deal solely with facts. It seems to be more like reading a book for biology class, than an enjoyable read. That is why I decided to cover only local birds, and rather than deal with every species, cover only those i have personally observed and can ' jazz up' the scientific text with some personal encounters and personality observations.

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Posted By: sandeye - Category: No Category

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The calls

September 26th 2007 16:17

The tame raven has learned to sit on top of next door's roof and crawwwwwwk. If I am in the back of the house and hear him, he will fly down onto the carport or lawn as soon as he sees me lift the curtain. He knows that I am soon going to pop through the door in a moment with a piece of cheese or another tasty snack for him!

We used to have a similar arrangement with the black-faced cuckoo-shrikes. I would hear a chattery whirring chitter, recognize their call, and pop to the door with our ever handy white plastic tub filled with cubed cheese especially for visiting birds. If I did not hear them, perhaps if I were playing music rather loudly, one of these cheeky fellows would come to the windowsill and tap its beak on the glass, even!

When we used to have tame magpies, their call alerted me to the fact that our cheese tub would be required, also. If I heard the bird, out came the cheese.

Although I often hear other birds talking and singing in the yard, it is usually only these species that actually call out especially to request a meal.

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Posted By: sandeye - Category: No Category

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Young ravens?

September 21st 2007 19:41

What a greedy raven! I threw out 3-4 tit-bits of cheese, and it gobbled them up, and then also went to investigate the chunks of home made bread I had previously thrown out for the pigeons to peck at. The raven picked up one chunk and then hopped to a second, eyeing me as he did so - as if ashamed of being greedy - then he tried to pick up a second chunk, at the same time as the first.

When the magpies fill their beak with as much food as they can cram in, I know that they have young in a nest. I am assuming that our friendly raven also has a youngster to cater for, as he flew off with two huge chunks of home made bread in his beak. (It would be as greedy as if a human tried to stuff two slices of pizza in their mouth at one time!!)

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Grass eating galahs

September 19th 2007 16:43

As promised, here are a few photographs I took of the galahs down the beach over the weekend.

For anybody who does not know this species, it is from the parrot family and is a bit like a pink and gray colored small cockatoo. I have written a chapter on them in my up-coming book, due to be released next month (and currently being checked for grammar/spelling/punctuation boo-boos

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PELICAN PICTURES

September 17th 2007 18:37

Finally, I have managed to take a few shots of those elusive pelicans! I had to take my walk on Saturday, instead of Sunday, and was not holding out much hope of actually locating a pelican close enough to photograph. However, as I crossed the street approaching the harbor, there was this 'shape' looking rather similar to a pelican perched upon a tyre…

Sure enough, on getting closer, there was my chance! A pair of pelicans, resting in the bay

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A calendar?

September 14th 2007 17:00

I thought that now I am very close to completing my 8th book - the one concerning the bird life in the Illawarra district - I might also bring out a 2008 calendar to complement it. Because printing the photos in the book in color would mean charging readers an extra $10, I have decided to go with B&W photographs to accompany the text, saving readers the added expense - but the pictures look so much nicer in color…

I have not yet made a final decision as to whether or not to do this, but, if I proceed, I would definitely be featuring the show-pigeons and kookaburra, and also be having shots of the brightly colored birds, such as the rainbow lorikeets - and hopefully a shot of the elusive pelican, which I will yet again attempt to obtain NEXT weekend… (It was supposed to be this weekend, but I have had other matters forced upon me

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The next episode of the pigeon saga

September 12th 2007 19:07

Perch wise, Smokey and BabyNob will both lay claim to the shelf in the dunny, if the door is open for a while. My bedroom windowsill is the main area to play chase, or to rest and relax to music. If I leave the back door open, the whole flock will enter, and try to find a location to rest. The 3 white sons coo-fight for the top of the lamp and the door-top positions, Brownie pecks about in the dust pile under the broom, Shyly likes to walk over my trainers and knock them all over, Smokey likes to sit on the outside lamp, or the inside lamp and coo.

Romance wise, Brownie seems to be quite happy romancing with Bebe2 and has gotten over the death of her former husband Fluffy. Smokey and BabyNob still appear to be single males, chasing all the pigeons, rock doves, and turtle doves they can find. I am not quite sure what to make of Shyly. When he first joined our flock, I was uncertain if it was a male or a female pigeon. However, after a little time, when it chased chicks and puff-cooed, I realized it was a male. But, it now appears that one of the young male white pigeons, Baby1, thinks it is a female and Shyly is allowing it to do so. I have no idea as to whether this reflects on how pigeon populations in general act if there are five men and one woman in the flock, or if pigeons naturally sometimes have homosexual relationships by choice

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The magpie-lark.

September 10th 2007 19:21

I took several photos of a friendly magpie-lark last week. Here she is by my son's abutilon and rose.

Something edible seems to have attracted her attention!

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Variety of birds

September 7th 2007 19:59

I was thinking how lucky I am to live in a home where there are so many different types of bird that visit our yard. We live in a city center, yet having a large back yard means we get a lot of birds visit. Many local older style homes are being knocked down and turned into flats, without gardens. This means that the birds seek new territory, and often come to our place!

Baby1 was courting Brownie, spotted me at the window, flew up, swirled then stared in at me for a moment, and then flew back to Brownie. A couple of starlings were sitting on the fence watching the pigeons and a myna bird was hunting in the lawn. A little later on, I spotted a friendly female magpie-lark pecking in the grasses. I grabbed that camera of mine, and managed to shoot a few pictures before she went too close to the house to see. (I plan to post some of these on my blog next week, along with a relative section of text from my next book.) A few turtle doves were resting in the poinsettia, and on the fence, and a sparrow was pecking about under the carport

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Posted By: sandeye - Category: No Category

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FAIRY WRENS

September 5th 2007 19:19

Alas, my fairy wren photos did not turn out too well. I will post only one, which unfortunately was the best of the set. You can just see that it is a small bird, mostly dark, with a bright blue splodge - but little more!

It is my general policy when photographing birdlife, not to alarm them, or in any way bring concern to them whilst doing so. For this reason, if the birds do not personally know me, I will generally stand back to start with, slowly extracting my camera from my purse, setting it up, raising it, to take the first snap. From there, if the bird shows no alarm or fear, I will try to get a little closer, gradually, letting it get used to me and sense that it can trust me. I then take closer photos if the individual(s) allows

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Well, I did find a pelican...

September 3rd 2007 16:48

Yesterday, I set out before dawn, to arrive at the harbor around 6am, for sunrise. I spotted a pelican floating serenely in the harbor, near to some fishing boats who were preparing to depart. I climbed down the steps to the boards, getting my camera ready. I managed to take the flash off, cut into double zoom, and aimed.

Unfortunately, this combination of no flash and double zoom, made the takes so slow, that the pelican came our blurry, as it was mobile during the shot. Next, I tried taking snaps with the flash on, but the coloring came out wrong. I tried a few more, walking up and down the harbor boards to follow it as it lead me a dance, back and forth. If only it had stayed still, I would have got a good shot

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