The almost-set sun obligingly accentuated our hero’s breast feathers, as s/he and I looked directly at each other.
Comments closedTag: waterbirds
Q: Are bills and beaks different, and if so, how are they different?
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According to numerous sources, no other living bird has a bigger bill than the Australian Pelican’s.
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If you did not already know what this chick looks like, you would likely find it difficult to guess what is its particular (common) species.
If a magician were to combine and animate a mangled wire bush, an old and charred small Banksia spike, a dash of cotton wool and an overripe cherry tomato, the result would likely resemble this post’s critter.
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Not every predatory stalker relies on cover and/or camouflage.
Today’s very elegant hunter is easily seen, even by inattentive humans.
A Great Egret relies on stillness and focus…and the very sudden deployment of his/her neck, head and beak.
An egret’s “lethal end” is analogous to a speargun.
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Our hero lost his “sacred” status when his Australian-ness was recognised!
As is true of many birds, Threskiornis molucca – the Australian white ibis – is wonderfully elegant when high in the sky, but rather less so when on terra firma, or in the process of becoming airborne.
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Four kilometres south of the little town of Augusta is Cape Leeuwin, atop which sits the Australian mainland’s tallest lighthouse.
The much-promoted notion that this is where two oceans meet is highly debatable; arguably, the Indian Ocean laps both sides of Cape Leeuwin.
Regardless, it is our continent’s bottom left hand “corner”, and the Augusta/Leeuwin “corner” is a wonderful place.
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Sequentially, the featured image is the fourth of this post’s photos, all taken within the contest’s brief timespan: a little less than four minutes.
Formally, the “snake bird” is an Oriental darter, Anhinga melenogaster – the same species who looked so very different when in repose, in #66 in Pelican Yoga’s “a shining moment” series.
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A perfectly peaceful, spacious scene?
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Leading by example: an Australian pelican, in South Australia’s Coorong National Park.
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