Welcome to our website for the study and appreciation of Australian birds and their interesting behaviours.
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 […]
Last week my post featured the amazing Zebra Finch, one of the most studied birds in the world, Finches are primarily small seed eaters (granivores), being mainly grass seeds. Though they do need some green grass or leaf to balance their diets. This special group of Finches is featured having a bright red tail which makes their tiny bodies visible […]
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 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 […]
This week we will focus on two of our most colourful multi-coloured birds found here in the Summer months, both very different in most aspects except their beautiful coloured plumage. While the Rainbow Lorikeet lives, breeds and roosts in the Sydney Region and along the east coast of NSW, the Rainbow Bee-eater is a Summer Migrant, spending only the warmer […]
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 […]
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 […]
As the weather has not been the best for birding I thought it good to continue my thread on Intelligent Design, only this time with nesting variations among species. We may wonder how birds know what kind of nest to build as there are so many variations. Birds learn from observation, watching their parents, they also are given a wisdom […]
This week, after last weeks bizarre anti-birding weather, our focus is on the Intelligent Design variations in the bills of some of our fresh water waders . The feature photo is of the Red-necked Avocet, a flock bird of around fifty to several hundred birds. They use a fast scythe action to scoop from the bottom of the shallow lake […]
With Christmas gone and the New Year looming, it is time to play the last post for 2025, and what better way than to have a family tribute to my local Australian Magpie family who frequent my birdbaths to wash, drink, cook off and sing to me in beautiful melodious dual noted caroling. Father, mother and this Spring’s juvenile offspring. […]
Our backyard has become a nursery for three of our local native bird species that frequent our birdbaths. In the last few days we were surprised to find two juvenile Crested Pigeon emerge with both parents. We thought something was happening again in our courtyard Bottlebrush tree that overhangs the birdbaths, where these birds usually nest each year. We were […]
After a peaceful walk by the Hacking River in our local Royal National Park, fondly known as the ‘Nasho‘, I decided to feature the birds we saw today and have seen in recent days that dwell along the river banks. The word riparian is a quaint word we seldom use which means ‘by the river‘. Birds use the river for […]
In the last post we saw Endangered bird species from the west in Perth WA, this week we focus on an endangered bird in rapid decline in the east, meaning our state of NSW where before the early European invasion and settlement Black-necked Stalk (Australia’s only endemic stalk species) also falsely known as the Jabiru (The South American Stalk), were […]
My wife and I recently took flight to the west coast of our vast continent to Perth WA (currently 3 hours behind our east coast time), to visit my son and cousin as well as visit some other sights around Perth, including their zoo and famous King’s Park. Thankfully the Aveley Community Festival 2025 was also on the day we […]
One morning shortly after our return from our Far North Queensland tour we heard the persistent calls of a juvenile bird begging for feeding from somewhere in our back courtyard. We looked in our Bottlebrush tree but could not find it, we looked and there in the flowerpot it was, still apparently with some remaining nestling feathers having not fully […]
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