Antipodean Adventures in Birdwatching : Part Five

Given how many pictures of birds I took while in Australia I feel compelled to share a few more. Whether that compulsion is a means of me showing off or me just showing and sharing, you will have to decide.

The next issue I had was what do I include and where do I start. Well here goes...

For those who saw and read my previous Antipodean blog you will know I like birds of prey so a few shots of another predator – an osprey. I was at Boondall where I saw all sorts of birds including the Ibises that I shot and then painted.

I was walking on from that spot when I noticed a bird high up on a tree and even with my longer lens wasn’t getting that close up a shot but went ahead anyway. Having shot a few photographs I walked. I happened to turn round and look back at the same tree and now there wasn't one bird of prey but two.

Click – click a few more shots and some more wishful thinking that they might come out alright.

The shots aren’t perfect. I have had to crop them heavily but I’m reasonably happy with the results and there is enough detail to tell there are two Ospreys and one of them, the one that arrived later, is eating something.

I included Cockatoos and Rainbow Lorikeets (Linoiini) in the aforementioned previous blog but there are a whole ‘flock’ of other parrots in Oz. We saw many of them for the first time in the wildlife parks and aviaries that we visited but the ones I have included here were all seen and photographed in the ‘wild’.

I decided the 'captive' birds were interesting but too ‘easy’ to shoot so what follows doesn’t include everything I saw but does include…

Coconut lorikeet

Crimson Rosella

Galah

Green Rosella

Sulphur Crested Cockatoo

Another bird I hoped to see was a pelican and like other birds and animals it seemed destined never to happen, then having seen one they started appearing everywhere we went.

They are strange looking birds with the expendable gullet under their large beaks which you only really see when they are eating something. We got to see it quite a lot when a fisherman gutting his catch threw the guts to one which not surprisingly was keeping a close eye on what his was doing.

Having mentioned ‘eye’ I can’t help but say that the strangest thing about their appearance, to my mind, was their eyes. They look two dimensional and as if they are cut out of a piece of thick yellow plastic and then stuck onto their heads.

Another large white seabird we saw was a gannet, in fact we saw a whole colony of them within a gated nature reserve. We hadn’t realized that you had to organize someone to let you in so you can get closer. I had to make my way round and try and get the best shots I could.

I was quite pleased, as i got the mix of adults and juveniles and some in flight too.