Welcome to our website for the study and appreciation of Australian birds and their interesting behaviours.
This week I introduce my third book release Reflect On These Things – Practical Meditations Gleaned from Australia’s Amazing Birds. Unlike my previous two books, this is distinctively a Christian teaching book. As you can observe from the cover of my new book the Australian Pelican is resting alone on a quiet section of the river. Birds take time-out to […]
This week I focus on a bird that is endemic to Australia yet I seldom post but is quite unique and remarkable in how it spreads the Mistletoe which is an obligate hemiparasitic plant. Mistletoe grows and hangs from tree branches having been sown from the faeces of the Mistletoebird where the seeds of the fruit have been rubbed onto […]
This week we focus on Norfolk Island, an island under the rule and serviced by Australia, even though it sits some1,677 km (1,042 miles) away from Sydney out in the Pacific Ocean. The English first used it as a penal colony and later abandoned. In 1856 was settled under Queen Victoria’s rule as a new home to relocate rebel Pitcairn […]
Taking another walk through our local park and meeting several birding couples was a great delight. It was great to see the male Powerful Owl with the remains of last night’s Possum prey. The male usually eats the head and keeps the body for the female and nestlings, finishing off any leftovers. Click on image to enlarge it. It was […]
It was a beautiful crisp Autumn day once more and my wife suggested that we visit our local Taronga Park Zoo overlooking the beautiful Sydney Harbour. After catching the train into the city we took a ferry across the harbour, past the bridge, opera house and islands to the other side where we bussed up the hillside to the zoo […]
Yes, it is that time again when the Powerful Owl nests annually in the same tree in our local Nature Reserve. We knew to start looking about now and we were pleased to spot the male already watching the nest from the same vantage point as previous years, always with a direct line of sight to the nest. The sun […]
It is most enjoyable to experience a week of lovely mild sunny blue sky Autumn days, a change from the unseasonable weather on the past months. We have been told we are heading toward a year bringing drought, heatwaves and bushfires possibly worse than previous years. My wife and I decided to have a day out together so we headed […]
On another of our beautiful warm crisp Autumn afternoons my wife and I took a walk along the rivers edge in Botany Bay to see if all the migratory waders had flown north for the winter, and yes, the beaches were bear and only gulls remained on the beach where they were often seen. We had missed viewing their breeding […]
Last weekend my wife’s family and us had a annual birthday celebration away. We were in the beautiful Blue Mountains. While we were there we watched daily as a family of Satin Bowerbird fed from a fig tree in a next door property. There was much toing and froing by Satin Bowerbirds, Pied Currawong and the occasional Australian Magpie. Most […]
We finally received a really lovely warm Autumn afternoon for a walk, so my wife and I asked a friend of hers to join us for a bird walk down our usual National Park track. After a tasty burger lunch from our local award winning burger shop we drove to our usual parking spot and commenced our walk. We did […]
We finally received a beautiful Autumn day amid the preceding unpredictable weather, so my wife and I decided on a birding lunch date in our local Royal National Park with our turkey and cranny rolls. We had only just sat down on a seat by the river’s edge and this beautiful Azure Kingfisher landed on a branch about 2 metres […]
Continuing with our visit to the Capertee Valley, we had a day when it wasn’t raining to visit the actual locked Capertee National Park. This is where the Critically Endangered Regent Honeyeater nest each year during September and October, by the Capertee River. Many mature Mugga Ironbark (Eucalyptus sideroxylon) trees flower during this period providing vital nectar to the birds […]
The Spotted Pardalote is Australia’s smallest bird with a body length of only 8-10 cm (3.1-3.9 ins) and is one of the most difficult birds to observe since it feeds high inside the dark canopy of eucalyptus trees. Since its body is the shape and size of a eucalypt (gum) leaf it is able to camouflage itself from predation by […]
Praise the Lord ! I finally had a day that was worthy of birding for both me and the birds, however the bird numbers were not great for this time of year. So I set out alone for a walk as my wife was occupied with a friend needing encouragement. It was lovely to walk in the crisp morning air […]
Another interesting aspect to Intelligent Design in bird morphology is the appearance of hooks at end of particular species of birds and what they are used for. As is the case of meat eating raptors, which have a small hook on their upper mandible for tearing their prey into swallowable pieces because they lack teeth to chew their prey. You […]
Australia is blessed with some of the world’s best mimicry birds. Many of our endemic birds have the ability to mimic and understand the language of other bird species that share habitat in their territories. Should one visit the rainforests in the National Parks along the east coast of NSW and Victoria, Australia, they may be surprised to hear flowing […]