Tuesday 19 November 2013

Wildlife everywhere!

I don't usually take a lot of notice of the wildlife around here although I do look out for snakes during the warm weather just in case any of them are lurking around in the back yard. Our resident Blue Tongue Lizards have given me a fright on more than one occasion when I thought they were snakes. Lately however, I have seen a number of birds for the first time and the most interesting of them are the Tawny Frogmouths which have a nest in our neighbour's pine tree.



I have learned something new today as I just did a search for Tawny Frogmouths and thought they were owls but they aren't apparently. If you click on that link in the introduction, you can read more info about them as well as listen to their call if you are interested.


The nest is high up in the huge pine tree next door and I had to try and zoom in with the camera to get a photo of them. They blend in so well with the branches of the tree that it takes a while to find them. Apparently the male stays with the little ones during the day.

While I was taking photos of the Tawny Frogmouths, four cockatoos decided to crash the party and made their presence felt like they usually do. They are so noisy and... pardon the pun... cocky! I asked my hubby what they were eating and he said they were getting the pine kernels out of the green pinecones. They certainly have a feast when they visit our yards as they eat our macadamia nuts and then move over to the neighbour's pine tree to have pine kernels for dessert!


Another newcomer to our yard is this character. I have no idea what she/he is but someone reading this might know. This bird has been around for a few months now and it is fascinating watching the patience that it has when it has its eye on a worm. It just sits there for ages and slowly moves its beak closer to the subject of its attention and then suddenly pounces and flies off with the prize.


'I think I have been noticed!'


'Oh well, if you are just going to stand there taking photos all day and won't give me any food I will go and check out what the neighbour's yard has to offer!' 


Over the weekend I had been checking out our tamarillo tree to see if there were enough tamarillos there to make another batch of Tamarillo and Mustard Relish and happened to look up when passing the King White Mulberry tree next to it ....


... and noticed this speckled bird just sitting there enjoying the quietness of the morning (before the cockatoos arrived of course). I was able to get reasonably close to it before it moved to a higher branch. Once again, I have no idea what type of bird this is and have never seen it before.

I think my classmate Coleen's love of wildlife must be brushing off on me! Don't forget there is still time to enter in the draw for one of her two Australian wildlife books that are in the giveaway which closes on the 30th November. The two winners will be announced on the 1st December.






11 comments:

  1. Lovely photographs. I have all of those birds here too, and the grey one is a white faced heron.

    Tawny Frogmouths are such fascinating looking birds. One of my sons has a family of them which sit on a branch outside his flat window in Sydney; he says it reminds him of home.

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    1. Thanks for letting me know what that bird is, Ree. I thought it looked like something that should be living at the beach. :-)

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  2. I love the Tawny Frogmouth - never heard of such a thing and I did go listen to the call! What an amazing place you live in! It sounded a little like an owl I thought. I currently have 2 pairs of bickering magpies and they fight over everything! They sound like an old couple that has been arguing about the same thing for 50 years! I never watched birds that much until we moved here with all the trees and the bird neighbors! Learn something new every day! - Thanks!

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    1. I don't think I had ever seen Tawny Frogmouths before, Kathy. I did think they were actually owls too and they certainly sound like owls. Our magpies get aggressive around September and a little boy in our area lost his eye last year after being attacked by one while riding on his bike.

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  3. It must be so wonderful to be surrounded by those natural wonders. We get snakes too so I am on high alert in the warmer months. A blue tongue lizard gave me a real fright once when I was hanging washing on the line; my heart was pounding. At the moment we have a magpie nest in a tree and every time my son steps outside he swoops down on him. Poor thing.

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    1. Zena, I think the nesting season for maggies is over here in SE Qld but I guess it might depend on the weather. They can give you a real fright when they swoop.

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  4. Thank you for sharing your bird life Nanna Chel, we don't have those ones around here :)

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  5. Tania, it was just as well I took the photos of the Tawny Frogmouths as they left the next day!

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  6. gorgeous Birdy goings on there! The cockatoos here will rip all the flesh off the fruit to get to the seed and crack it for the kernel, we share our fruit with the birds ( mostly happily ) but the cockatoo's don't even want it really! its such a waste.

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  7. Yes Tammy, they are very wasteful birds. It's the same with the macadamia nuts!

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  8. Great pics and post, Chel. We have Tawnies here from time to time. We were down at our daughters recently and they have a family of them in one of their trees. Beautiful. And also a pair of maggies who have no time to swoop, poor things are too busy feeding their 'baby' - the Channelled Bill Cukoo that they hatched - which happens to be almost twice their size. We have a couple of crows here who bring up a cukoo every year. You'd think Pappa bird would notice and be asking questions, wouldn't you? :-)
    Maddie

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