Bird Activity: November
The ladder wobbled but I stepped up to the top rung, one hand on my camera and one steadying myself against the bendy trunk of the bush beside me. Still I could not look down into the nest so I stepped back down a rung. Then reaching as high as I could from there my fingers went up and back down into the nest. Three warm eggs met my touch.
I would not disturb the nest of most birds, but that nest belonged to a Noisy Miner. And in the end my taking out one of the eggs to photograph it did not bother the birds at all. The miners are a pest around here almost as much so as their cousins the Indian Myna. At the beginning of November there were only three eggs but somewhere around the 15th the sounds coming down from the nest changed. Or more there were actually sounds. The three orange-speckled eggs have hatched. Little tiny peep peeping comes almost constantly from that tree now.
There are nest of Noisy Miners everywhere and young ones sitting in bushes and on fences. I'd much rather have an abundance of almost any other bird. I snuck up on this adult miner bird while he was busy drinking nectar out of one of my flowering succulents.
As we were standing outside the Convent of Mercy waiting for a friend so we could go in to listen to the Sydney Youth Orchestra I heard the cry of a Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoo. Three of them were high above us in the pine trees, just black silhouettes against the slightly clouded sky. They nibbled at the pine cones and bark, sending bits and pieces crashing down occasionally. As you can see I did kinda get one photo in which one can see the bird as more than a black blob.
The Australian Ravens are being as annoying as usual, carrying off my hens eggs. I have to go out all through the day if I want to actually get any. I think the bird pictured is the young one, who is now almost fully feathered.
Last month I posted a photo of the top of the tree that the galahs had ring-barked. You can see what a good job they did on the trunk in this one....... there are even less leaves on the top of the tree now and more of the sticks and twigs are starting to fall off.
I have been doing Bird Activity posts each month for well over a year now, does anyone want me to continue doing them monthly? Or should I only do them sometimes?
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6 comments
These pictures are beautiful! I keep on forgetting that you live in Australia and that we're in two different seasons, right now! I'll read one of your blog posts and just think "Where on earth did she find a bird like that? I thought they all flew south for the winter?"
ReplyDelete~Anna
https://the3musketeerssite.wordpress.com/
Yep it is spring here, but is it easily hot enough for summer some days. Yesterday it got to at least 40 degrees celsius, and there were massively, strong, hot winds, wonderful bushfire weather....
DeleteI love all the birds you have around your house! I enjoy the monthly updates!
ReplyDeleteThats great, I shall definitely keep posting then :D
DeleteOhh YOU HELD THE EGG OMG THAT IS SO AMAZING. (And those photos are utterly beautiful too, btw. OF COURSE. You are just an amazing photographer. XD) We have a ton of birds at our house!! We even had a kookaburra nest...but one of the babies fell out and died on the ground which was extremely sad. :( But I think there are more in the nest. Hopefully they'll be okay. *fingers crossed* My dad feeds them so they're kind of his "pets" which is so incredible. XD
ReplyDeleteThankyou, *takes a sweeping bow* I have seen a lot of birds and nests, but I have never had the luck of finding a kookaburra's nest, I do like kookaburras. It is so cool that you kinda have 'pet' ones.
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