Birds of Diamond Beach

I wouldn't claim to be a birdo or a twitcher but I do like being in places where there are lots of birds. You may have gleaned this from the many posts on this blog featuring one bird or other. Many times David and I have scrabbled to be first to the binoculars and then Pizzey when some new bird appears. We might be in mid sentence, when a distracting flit or shape or colour occurs in the distance past someone's shoulder, then it's - hang on, what's that?

There are lots of familiar birds here in our new soon-to-be garden. You have already met our grumpy resident plovers and sweet singing butcher birds. There are also the ubiquitous magpies, everyone has these around:

Because we have water in the form of a dam, many other interesting feathered critters are about.

Above, Australian wood ducks, she is on the left, he is on the right.

This is an Australasian grebe, looks like a fluffy baby ducky sort of thing, but is actually an adult, and seems to live on our dam full time. We have named him Gary. But it could be Garette, I suppose. Peta Garette perhaps.

There must be edibles in the dam because this cormorant was here for a week or so, sitting on that fence post and doing this rubber necking thing all day, occasionally going for a dip.

This is another fisher, the white faced heron in one of our ironbarks.

Kookaburras of course. Seem to find it hilarious that we are still in bed asleep at, say, 5am.

 One day there was a whole squadron of these large birds soaring round and round in the thermals above us. But not birds of prey, necks too long, bodies slender. We think they were darters.

This, on the other hand is a bird of prey. A big one that lives in a huge messy twiggy nest high in a nearby eucalypt. We think it is a whistling kite. It's presence in the airspace of our resident magpies results in aerial dogfights that rival the Battle of Britain. 

The lorikeets are nearly impossible to photograph. They flash past in crazy dashes, jabbering to eachother and landing in the highest treetops. This is an eastern rosella, much easier to snap.

This is a peewee, the same one that sees a rival in the wing mirrors of our car and has spread his muddy footprints and slobbery peck marks all over same.

It took me weeks of patience to capture this shot of a welcome swallow, coming to a muddy puddle to get nest building materials. Swallows are as quick as lightning and very skittish towards the camera wielding human.

This stately big fellow is a pheasant coucal. He was patrolling the dam wall yesterday.

Finally, this is this morning's bird - a dollar bird. Gorgeous tangerine bill, with purple under his chin and lovely greeny blue wings. They are a rainforest species. Other birds we have sighted or heard but been unable to photograph include wonga pigeons, a buff banded rail and whip birds. Its quite a rich patch for birds, this new garden. And we haven't even started planting the bird-attracting bushes yet!