Pallid Cuckoo

PALLID CUCKOO

I met this very curious cuckoo this morning.























I saw it sitting on some power lines out on Number Three Creek Road. I drove past and took a few pictures.

The sun was in the wrong place and I was about to leave it alone when it flew down on to a fencepost quite nearby. It was obviously watching me as much I was watching it.






These birds announce the coming spring with their early morning call. We used to call them semi-tone birds because of the rising notes of their calls.


 Lying in bed, early in the Spring, the pallid cuckoos would provide us with a very gentle, alarm call

Grey Butcher Bird

GREY BUTCHER BIRD

 

 

 

It was a beautiful late winter, early spring day today, there was a bright and warm sun and a very gentle wind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I watched and followed this butcher bird for quite a while. I think it is quite a young one as it colour is more brown and fawn rather than the more strongly marked adults.

 

  

 

 

 It was sitting in a low tree calling with a beautifully melodic song. It sat on its branch for quite a while before swooping down into the grass below. It returned to the branch with what looked like a large winged ant in its beak. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It then moved from tree, sitting and watching the ground below carefully. An occasional  swoop and return before moving on to another branch.

Cormorants

CORMORANTS; LITTLE BLACK AND PIED

Such a wintry day!!


Very cold today, hail and rain one moment, then brilliant winter sun, followed by fierce winds off the Antarctic. There was snow about on the nearby hills.

I snuck out during a brief moment of sunshine to see what was happening on the Hospital Reservoir. Funny that, it is called the Hospital Res, although it lies in the middle of the golf course.









The water birds were out and about, they don't mind the wet weather.



On a log with the late sun shining on them were a group of cormorants, both Pied and Little Black cormorants. What beautiful green eyes the Little Black Cormorants have .

 

Straw-necked Ibis

STRAW-NECKED IBIS Threskiornis spinnicolis

It has been a wet week in Kilmore and the ground in the flatter areas in quite waterlogged.










At the twin bridges, to the west of town, there was a large number of straw-necked ibis, browsing amongst the grass and puddles. They do stand out when the sun shines on them, brilliant purple sheen from their wings, contrast beautifully against the white breasts.




 With so many birds, it was a little hard to get close enough for clear pictures. There were always some of their number watching out for what was going on.

Males and females are similar, the females in these picture stand out a little with some black banding across their chests.

 

The beaks have a downward curve, well shaped for finding food in shallow waters and grassland. They feed on a variety of insects, water creatures, frogs and small shell fish.  Their love of crickets and grasshoppers have given them the title of 'farmers' friends'






 Large numbers of straw-necked ibis can often be found on rubbish sites across Australia. They look dirty in these situations, covered from grime in their search for edible scraps amongst the rubbish. They do not have the pristine and bright look of birds of the wetlands.