Carolling

Usually I can't get close to a Magpie, but this one was sitting on someone's washing line carolling (singing) it's heart out, oblivious to me creeping closer behind a tree ...

©Christine LintonAustralian Magpie, carolling (singing)

Sunrise

Walking down to the river, I looked back along the street and saw this sunrise.

©Christine Linton

Magpie in imagination

This is actually an ant nest I noticed in a pine chips border by the road - I can see a magpie head in it, can you?

©Christine Linton

Ibis - having fun

Around here, we have lots of ibis; in fact they can become a problem, simply because so many of them gather in small areas and end up fouling the water and smelling.  Personally I find their dignified walk attractive, with their sudden thrusting of the long curved beak into the riverbed or grass for a tasty morsel.  Yesterday I was able to take some photos of a group of about 15 or so, which had congregated on the nearby reserve by the clubhouse.  The wheelie (rubbish) bins had been left with their lids open, and the ibis had taken advantage of this, being natural scavengers like many birds.  The one on the far left has his head right in the bin.  One near the centre is coming in to land.  There were lots of others making their way over to the bins; an unleashed dog scattered them all once and I had to wait until they reassembled - that didn't take long!

©Christine Linton

Still loving birds

I have come back to this blog after a long gap, because I often want to share my bird sightings from my walks.  I've changed the template and will make other changes no doubt - I'm a more experienced blogger nowadays.  My other blog is at http://craftconversations.blogspot.com/  where you can find my experimental art and craft.

One of the places I love best to walk along is by the Torrens River.  Margins, edges of habitat - here, edge of suburbia next to a river - hold lots of wildlife.  Today a solitary female Australian Magpie was not bothered by a gang of Noisy Miners who kept crowding her, following her stately walk in their excitable manner.  They are both native Aussies, but we have lots of introduced species; the plain old pigeon, known here as Feral Pigeon, has beautiful iridescent neck feathers as gorgeous as any bird.

©Christine Linton

Budgerigar - always popular

The ever-popular budgie is well-known worldwide as a talkative, trainable cagebird, but in Australia, their native country, they are seen in flocks as they fly in their hundreds throughout most of Australia.  They inhabit grassland and scrubland, and are even seen in the suburbs.  Many years ago, I told my father, who was visiting me from the UK, that we often saw small flocks of budgies in the Adelaide suburbs - and of course we did not see any while he was there.  The day after he and my mother returned to England, a flock of about 50 briefly settled on the road in  front of my house!

As pets, they come in many shades of blue, green and yellow, but in the wild they are green/yellow as other colours are the result of selective breeding.  In the early morning and late afternoon the flocks will congregate at waterholes to drink, and feed on grass seeds during the day.  In the heat of the day, like any bird they will seek shady trees to rest in.  After good rains, which produce lush grass seeding, their population explodes.  If you like the sound of one budgie chirrupping away, imagine the noise of hundreds in a flock!

Galah

The Galah is much-loved in suburban Adelaide for its funny antics amongst the treetops and the way you can get quite close to them when they are picking about on the ground, after seeds and insects.

Galahs have benefited mankinds intervention into Australia, as they clearing of forests resulting in more grassland, and the introduction of dams in arid areas, are much to their liking.  They do raid crops but they also eat weed seeds.  The name of Galah was given to them by the Aboriginal people. 

They chatter and mimic, are beautiful and acrobatic - and unfortunately this has made them popular as caged birds.  To see them fly across the sky in huge flocks is much better than watching them in a cage.