Seen a lot of the feathered birds now while tripping. The Superb Parrot, all regal, prime and proper is very nice, but the one that takes my prize (a hand full of food) is the King Parrot, they are so cute and beautiful.
Many years ago, I was working at Burrinjuck Dam, trying to solve a problem with the turbines there. The Tech Officer there had arranged accommodation at the resort (the old construction camp). We were sitting quietly on evening planning the next day's activities when some Crimson Rosellas came up to us. We fed them some nibblies, but the next day we had proper bird seed from the resort store. A ****atoo came in first, but he was ousted by a few King Parrots. But then the Crimson Rosellas arrived and scared the others away completely. The smaller birds were much more aggressive. I was trying to input some data into my laptop and one Rosella got so annoyed he marched up my arm and grabbed my ear lobe and screeched. I can assure you that at that distance, a Rosella Screech is utterly deafening!
Two week later, I was in Malaysia, doing some work there. I had to explain something about turbines, so I pulled out my laptop and the first thing that came up when I started it up was a photo of me with 3 Rosellas on my arm. A Malaysian Electrical Engineer, who was obviously a bird fanatic told me that each of those birds was worth 10000 Ringgit (at the time, about $A4000)! No wonder people smuggle birds out of Australia. Mongrels....
-- Edited by erad on Thursday 2nd of January 2020 10:02:10 AM
Peregrine Falcon or the Wedge tail Eagle. I once had 17 different breeds of pheasants as well as different fowl. Along with that I had a large Avery with a mix of different smaller breeds from quail, budgies, love birds finches, ****ateils etc. They mostly lived ok together. cheers blaze
ps
the food bill was huge
-- Edited by blaze on Thursday 2nd of January 2020 10:02:31 AM
One of about half a dozen birds which we have rescued having the good life relaxing, & have flown off with their parents some weeks later. A bit sad to see them go but very rewarding!
We left Mallacoota the morning before the horrendous fire arrived - went for a drive the afternoon before out on the Genoa Road to Sandy Point. On the way back we stopped in at a picnic table at Double Creek. There we saw our "Lifers" as birdos call first sitings - two male Superb Lyrebirds were practising their mimicry - mainly Currawongs that we heard nearby by & Laughing Kookaburras. It was impossible to tell the difference between their subjects & these birds - they are good!
We hope that these birds were able to get to tarhe near Double Creek Arm before they were cooked. Earlier in the afternoon we saw two White-headedl Pigeons on Lakeside Drive - an area where a number of houses were destroyed.
Mallacoota was a beautiful place, with wonderful birds but it certainly needs a lot of help now. Unfortunately it is at the end of the road, meaning there is only one entry/exit. While there were four fire trucks in town, hardly any of the campers had made a move to go!
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Warren
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If you don't get it done today, there's always tomorrow!
Ian,
There are so many beautiful native birds here in Australia from rainforest to desert. And birdwatching is not an expensive hobby unless one gets into Bird photography.
Yes some are common, some are pests like the noisy miner, rainbow lorrikeet (were not native to WA), some are extremely rare, some severely threatened by habitat loss.
Australia is called "The land of the parrots" & it's believed that all the parrots of the world originated here before the continents moved apart (Gondwanaland).
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Warren
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If you don't get it done today, there's always tomorrow!
I would have to vote for the Currawong. Smart! We have a pair in our yard. (Now with a young one). I could recount numerous times we have seen them out smart other birds. We also have water dragon lizards. We feed the water dragons. Adult male here now is almost 30" long. We have seen the Currawong steal food from the water dragon.
