birds – Pelican Yoga

Wireless Hill – feathers & flower spikes (#3 of 3)

Published November 1, 2024 by Pelidoug

Wireless Hill – feathers & flower spikes (#3 of 3)

In appearance, Lichmera indistincta – the brown honeyeater – is a strong contender for an “undesirable” title: Australia’s most plain/drab/nondescript honeyeater.

This species’ song, however, is widely considered the finest of any Australian honeyeater’s; clear recordings of it are here. (the second grab is the better one)

The pictured brown honeyeaters are young individuals who dine on pollen & nectar from plants that naturally occur only in southwest Western Australia.

However, brown honeyeaters are highly adaptable; they live across parts of all mainland Australian states and territories, except Victoria;

“Robbing” gravestones, adjacent to Hollywood.

Published October 29, 2024 by Pelidoug

“Robbing” gravestones, adjacent to Hollywood.

In 2024 Father’s Day fell on a Sunday, and its afternoon was cloudy, but fine and mild.

Unsurprisingly, those factors made for a busy day at Perth’s largest cemetery.

By late afternoon, many Karrakatta gravestones were adorned with fresh floral (and other) tokens of remembrance.

Many Australian ravens were visible, “visiting” those gravestones.

Triple K “expedition” (#7 in teaser series: Black Kites)

Published June 6, 2024 by Pelidoug

Triple K “expedition” (#7 in teaser series: Black Kites)

On the Indian subcontinent – especially in urban areas – one particular raptor usually “rules the skies”.

Black kites are especially abundant in Delhi and Srinagar.

Not coincidentally, black kites are generally rather more “opportunistic scavengers” than “majestic predators”.

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“Landscape” view/ much closer view (#15B in series: Berchtesgaden Alps)

Published May 26, 2024 by Pelidoug

“Landscape” view/ much closer view (#15B in series: Berchtesgaden Alps)

You are looking at an alpine chough, flying overhead, just as we emerged from a “suprisingly” delicious lunch.

Not all “tourist venues with a view” serve bad food, and not all Bavarian restaurant fare is decidedly “meaty” and/or “stodgy”; our local trout, served very nearly atop the Jenner, was both lovely and light.

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“Landscape” view/ much closer view (#11B in series: Creery Wetland, day’s end)

Published May 18, 2024 by Pelidoug

“Landscape” view/ much closer view (#11B in series: Creery Wetland, day’s end)

As dusk began on 05 April 2024, we made our way back from Peel Inlet’s edge and adjacent (unseasonably dry) samphire-dominated wetland.

Before our return to suburbia we skirted some mostly-intact, mostly-native scrub/woodland.

We “met” a few kangaroos, but by 5. 51 pm we were the only humans within view,

Unexpectedly, something lovely – something flaunting – briefly appeared..

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NOT “bin chickens”: footnote to just-concluded series

Published April 26, 2024 by Pelidoug

NOT “bin chickens”: footnote to just-concluded series

Most Australian humans live in substantial cities.

Until late in the 20th century, ibis were not a “regular part of the urban scene”; urban humans who had seen ibis had usually seen them only when said humans “got out of town”.

Mid-20th century humans did not refer to Australian white ibis as “bin chickens – Threskiornis molucca was yet to “invade” our cities.

Back then, the ibis most familiar to Australians was Threskiornis spinicollis – the straw-necked ibis, aka “the farmer’s friend”.

All ibis pictured in this post are of the farmer-friendly kind, but photographed well within a metropolis.

Many (most, I suspect) city-resident humans who encounter these ibis wrongly assume that they are yet more “bin chickens”.

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Port River (#7 in series: Port power)

Published April 3, 2024 by Pelidoug

Port River (#7 in series: Port power)

The southern edge of the Adelaide International Bird Sanctuary National Park is surprisingly close to Port Adelaide’s actual port, power station and industrial zone.…

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MacDonnell Ranges (#9 in single image series: speed-drinking, Jessie Gap)

Published October 4, 2023 by Pelidoug

MacDonnell Ranges (#9 in single image series: speed-drinking, Jessie Gap)

The MacDonnell Ranges are rich in birdlife, including species unfamiliar to most suburban Australians.

This post’s photo may look “peaceful”, but in the middle of the day at Jessie Gap, the Australian zebra finch “action” was in fact a display of incredibly fleet, flurrying, “colour and movement”.

The pictured individuals were just part of a large flock, whose members were repeatedly zapping to and from tree and waterhole.

Jessie Gap is a short drive south-east, from Alice Springs.

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Quirky moments (#16 in series: big numbers/small numbers)

Published September 2, 2023 by Pelidoug

Quirky moments (#16 in series: big numbers/small numbers)

This post’s featured image was taken beside a waterhole in Etosha National Park in northern Namibia.

Visible are two members of one species, and more than hundred of another.

A mature African elephant is currently “our” planet’s most massive terrestrial animal.

Imagine this:

On one side of a colossal pair of scales you place one of the pictured elephants.

In order to balance those scales you would then need at least forty thousand of the pictured birds…and if a substantial flock of red queleas was present, forty thousand would not be an unusually high number!

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Quirky moments (#13 in series: tool-using Australian buzzard)

Published August 28, 2023 by Pelidoug

Quirky moments (#13 in series: tool-using Australian buzzard)

Until Charles Darwin observed finches at work in the Galapagos, many members of our own species had believed that tool-usage was a uniquely human ability/trait.

The known list of non-human tool-users is now enormous.

It includes many mammals (not only primates), birds, fish, cephalods, reptiles, and insects.

One of them is an Australian raptor which deploys rocks to crack emu eggs.

You may be surprised to know that the pictured individual did not learn the technique from his or her parents, nor did this captive bird’s human “keepers” train him or her to do it.

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Tag: birds