Wintery Birds

Beautiful birds in my own garden - this winter has been fantastic for bringing out our native birds. The pardalotes come every winter and bop around in my Golden Ash tree - leafless, bare and supposedly barren, the little cuties fly from branch to branch, probably munching on some tiny insect hidden beneath the bark.

The red wattle bird (wattles are the red dangly things beside its ears) is not particularly attractive - striped grey, large, with not so nice looking eyes, it makes me laugh when it does it acrobats in my Chinese Lantern tree, hanging precariously to sup from the pollen/nectar of the reddish pink bells of flowers, the branches bending and flexing as Chinese acrobats do.




The gorgeous and painfully shy Eastern Spinebill has been a wonderful surprise. Hubby (bird watcher extrordinaire) didn't think that they lived in the suburbs, but I keep catching them darting into our fushias and the pineapple sage bushes. They are soooo quick, with a stunningly curved and long beak.

Walking the dog in the local park brought my attention to some strange sounds high above in pine trees - 5, 6, 7 black cockatoos enjoying the rush of the wind blowing them out of the top of the tree, then soaring back in the branches again. I stared at them for ages (or until the dog said that that is enough - lets go!) Hubbie thought that they were on transit from the Dandenong Ranges through to maybe the Botanical Gardens (as the cockie flies so to speak!)None of these images are mine - please click on pictures to find URL and subsequent owner of said photo.