Great Tits

[Amor de Cosmos]

Great Tits

Killdeer are in the Plover family for sure. Though not exactly the same as any European varieties.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Great Tits



The eagle on the solar collector. It's obviously prime avian real estate, as he/she protects it big-time. It's on the beach but well below the high-tide line, so probably an ideal perch for scoping fish and ducks.

[ursus arctos]

Great Tits

Wowza

Absolutely magnificent.

[hobbes]

Great Tits

We have a large number of swifts frolicking in the skies above our bank garden every evening.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Great Tits

Up on the heath it's Crows. Hundreds of the blighters.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Great Tits

Wowza

Absolutely magnificent.

Yeah, they're always impressive. Real poseurs too. "Have you got my good side? Should I look a tad more baleful? How about my tail, enough of a fan?"

Their majesty is almost totally visual as well. They've got this silly piping little call, more suited to something sparrow-sized.

Fascinating to watch and live around though. They nest in quantities here, and watching them catch and bring prey back to the nest is real red-in-tooth-and-claw stuff.

[ursus arctos]

Great Tits

Their majesty is almost totally visual as well. They've got this silly piping little call, more suited to something sparrow-sized.

So, the wingnut "patriot" obsession with them is well-founded.

Do you keep a life list?

[Amor de Cosmos]

Great Tits

No. I'm in no sense a completist. I just like to know what I'm looking at and, to the extent that its possible, be in their company. If I see something I don't recognise I try and identify it, but don't go out of my way to find things.

Because we're a "rest-stop" on the Pacific fly-way, and a nesting ground for many species — such as bald eagles — it's not hard to come across interesting birdlife.

[Sits]

Great Tits

That is indeed marvellous AdC, especially as we can't hear it on here. The best I can do for a national archetype is this out-of-focus kookaburra snapped on my Sunday walk:

[Amor de Cosmos]

Great Tits

How common are kookaburras where you live Sits?

[Sits]

Great Tits

Very. Usually the first birds I hear every morning, and among the last in the evening. I should try and record them.

Apart from when perched alone stock still, waiting to swoop on lizards and bugs, they are quite social. They will sit in rows of 2-4 on a high branch, laughing, cackling or making strange deep-in-the throat gurgles.

Quite often one or two will hunt in our garden.

[Sits]

Great Tits

Had a quick look to see if I had any others I'd taken, but sadly not. I found an old one I'd taken of another local though.

[Third rate Leszno]

Great Tits

Black vulture, Florida Everglades, two weeks ago.

[Sits]

Great Tits

Wow. That's magnificent.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Great Tits

Yes, really fine.

[Third rate Leszno]

Great Tits

Luckily it's as big as a barn door so the autofocus locked onto it, despite my shaky panning technique. I wasn't so successful trying to get nighthawks hunting dragonflies, in fact I was lucky to get the slippery little blighters in shot at all, never mind in focus!

[Sits]

Great Tits

Just glanced out of my office window and saw two pelicans, gliding like eagles, at my eye level (18th floor). Way too far away to attempt a pic but worth a mention nonetheless.

[Sits]

Great Tits

See? Too far but I tried anyway:

[Sits]

Great Tits

Australian Magpie, doing the goosestep. From my walk on Saturday morning:

[The Alan Partridge Project]

Great Tits

Quick question.

I gave this thread the title that it currently has as a sort of counterbalance to a rather unpleasant topic entitled something like "Crap Breasts," which if memory serves was primarily about Uma Thurman's figure.

Anyway, would people like me to change this thread title? As the Exploding Vole liked it so much I thought about putting his name in a new title. If no-one's fussed I'll leave as is.

[gyp]

Great Tits

Not sure if I've mastered posting images, but here are a few photos from around Melbourne and Sydney: long-billed corella, galah, kookaburra and white-faced heron

[Sits]

Great Tits

Almost as good as my blurred kookaburra, blurred cockatoo and distant, blurred pelicans gyp, keep it up!

[Sits]

Great Tits

This morning's attempt at a kookaburra. Floundering in gyp's wake.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Great Tits

At the edge of the local school playing field there's an eagles' nest:



It's been there for years and the same couple return around Christmas each year. They raise a brood, then leave in early Summer. This year the youngsters stayed. It's not uncommon, after they're able to hunt the parents lose interest and head north for the fishing. When Mum and Dad return this Winter the youngsters will be turfed out — no room for kids in the basement. Meanwhile, like teenagers in a bedsit, the place is a fucking mess. Feathers and assorted avian body-parts — mostly ducks I think — for a ten yard radius under the nest. The dog and I were underneath when they were emptying the larder yesterday and it was like having a garbage skip thrown over us.

You can just see one of them top right in the picture above the nest. The other was busy tidying up (hah!)

[Amor de Cosmos]

Great Tits

A siege of rooftop Herons this morning: