A Jell's park visit, a Blue-billed duck[1] and a pair of … hmm … Pink Eared duck[2]!
Well that’s a first! The Blue-billed duck was easy to ID, I don’t see many, but they differ enough from the endless Black ducks. The other pair were swimming past quickly, in the distance, but distinctively patterned. Checking up the books that must be what they were, so one more for the list
[1] Blue-billed duck [2] Pink-eared duck
A startlingly loud THUMP at breakfast-time as a blackbird[1] flew into the kitchen window and knocked itself out
The Grey butcherbird[2] pursing it then sat on the railing, yelling loudly and sadly disappointed that its breakfast had escaped
[1] Common blackbird [2] Grey butcherbird
Surprisingly no rosellas or King parrots today as I jotted down what I could see while walking around with a coffee and looking for koalas, one new entry for the year – Bassian thrush – so one more update for the #birdsseenin2024 list
Bassian thrush Peewee Magpie Starling Sparrow Superb fairy wren
A morning walk and a very nonchalant treecreeper spiralled around a gum tree in the car park
I’ve usually found them to be quite shy but this one by the Erskine river in Lorne seemed to be completely ignoring us as we walked past and stopped to watch its search for insects
White-throated treecreeper
Back at Lake McIntyre again (Millicent, SA), and a walk around the lake this time. At the second bird hide Jo spotted a small bird moving out on the mudflats, then slowly we counted more and more. Five Black fronted dotterel scurrying back and forth. One more for the #birdsseenin2024 list
Birds for [2024-04-04 Thu], Canunda National Park, SA
A windy day for our bushwalk to the Coola ruins, nothing much to see because of that … some unidentified medium-sized raptors, and emu, plenty of them seen on the drive in, and a few on the 8km hike. Definitely not a bird I see often in the wild, certainly one for the #birdsseenin2024 list
A short ride out of town to the wetlands in a rehabilitated quarry, then a slow loop around the lake – stupidly forgetting to bring out binoculars. Plenty of the usual suspects and three definite unusual spottings for the #birdsseenin2024 list, in the order seen they are:
Blue-billed duck Lathams snipe Pied stilt
Birds seen [2024-01-27 Sat]-[2024-01-29 Mon] at Bright & Jamieson, Vic.
Some more first sightings of the year for the #birdsseenin2024 list
White-winged chough – Bright Blue-faced honeyeater – Bright White-browed scrubwren – Jamieson Silvereye – Jamieson Grey fantail –Jamieson
Birds seen [2024-01-24 Wed]; driving Melbourne to Bright, then cycling to Wandiligong
Some first sightings of the year, more for the #birdsseenin2024 list
Wedge-tailed Eagle – Hume highway, Craigeburn Black-faced Cuckooshrike – Hume highway, Euroa Red-browed finch – Wandiligong Satin bowerbird (f) – Bright Gang-Gang Cockatoo – Bright
One of my favourite #birds, a small quiet #cockatoo with a voice like a creaky door. Not the best photo, cropped & zoomed #cameraphone. #wildoz #australianbirds
Birds seen on [2024-01-04 Thu], Karkarook lake ride
Another jotted down list of the birds I saw today, seeing how many new ones for the year I can find for my #birdsseenin2024 list
Common bronzewing Coot Grebe Black Swan Willie wagtail Goldfinch Straw-necked ibis White ibis
Here we go, birds on the home from Lorne to home for my first sightings of the year for the #birdsseenin2024 list
Little corella King parrot White-faced heron Letter-winged kite Brown falcon Myna Pigeon – Lara Starling – Werribee Peewee Rainbow lorikeet – Hughesdale Chestnut teal – Glen Iris Pukeko – Glen Iris Turtle dove – Hughesdale
In the last two or three days of 2023 I saw a few posts on twitter tagged #BirdsSeenIn2023, together with injunctions to get your last sightings in, together with some lighthearted competition between birders in various countries to get the highest number of species seen in a given country. Then of course on New Years Day the first of the #BirdsSeenIn2024 posts appear – and being at Lorne where there’s always lots of birdlife had me quickly jot down my own list, about ten by the time I’d finished breakfast without leaving the house and almost getting to twenty species by lunchtime
Date Saturday 21 October 2023 Time 1:10 pm Duration 20 minutes Observers 1 Sightings: Rainbow Lorikeet × 2 Grey Butcherbird × 1 Common Blackbird × 1 Rock Dove × 3 Common Myna × 9 Magpie-lark × 1 Spotted Dove × 1 Red Wattlebird × 6 Australian Magpie × 2
Date Thursday 19 October 2023 Time 12:50 pm Duration 20 minutes Observers 1 Sightings: Common Myna × 4 Little Raven × 1 Noisy Miner × 2 Red Wattlebird × 12 Spotted Dove × 3
Poor quality shot, best I could do of the small #quail in the garden outside. #wildoz #birds
EDIT: Not a Stubble Quail, waiting on an ID via https://inaturalist.org
late afternoon with the sun starting to get low, the blackbird[3] is loudly calling in the bay tree
The mudlarks[1] seem to have been noisy all day – all week and month really – and the Rainbow lorikeets[2] are shrieking endlessly in the flowering callistemon, but as it cools down in the afternoon the blackbird[3] takes over
[1] Magpie-lark [2] Rainbow lorikeet [3] Common blackbird
Day walk around Maleny, and visit to a rainforest park, some lifers:
Yellow-throated scrubwren Green catbird – heard Eastern whipbird – heard Laughing kookaburra Letter-winged kite Straw-necked ibis Magpie Pied currawong Rainbow lorikeet Logrunner Blue-faced honeyeater Thornbill (sp.) Cattle egret Australian raven
outside it's dull and grey and wet and a pair of Red wattlebirds[1] are feeding in the neighbour's tree
They’re in the Japanese maple, bouncing the branches about and shaking water off the tree, spiders or sap, not sure what they’re eating
[1] Red wattlebird
Breakfast this morning and we could here them calling constantly, at least a pair, possibly more. Back and forth between different outposts a few trees one side or the other of the house. Then leaving work this afternoon what did I hear? Another pair in the gum trees around the university calling back and forth to each other
[1] Grey butcherbird
lunchtime garden visitor – a Grey butcherbird[1] on the back deck
We often hear them calling in the trees around the park but don’t see them much, a bit of a surprise when I walked into the kitchen at lunchtime to see one suddenly fly up off the back deck. I think it was collecting spiders or insects from all the webs when I started it, then flew up into the plum tree and watched me for a minute or so then flew off across the neighbour’s garden when I went outside for a better look
Early morning ride. Flocks of Eastern Rosellas[1], some crimson[2] too. Magpies[3]. The grebe[4] nest nearest the road now has 2 eggs. An unidentified hawk or harrier. One swamp wallaby[5] up on the escarpment and later a few mobs of roos[6]. Thick clouds of little flies and a few dragonflies, the rest waiting for more sun. Rabbits zoom across the road, some very close.
[1] Eastern rosella [2] Crimson rosella [3] Australian magpie [4] Australasian grebe [5] Swamp wallaby [6] Eastern grey kangaroo
Vanity site? Technology experiment? Learning tool? Blog? Journal? Diary? Photo album? I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you…
I experiment. I play. I write and I take pictures. Some of the site is organised around topics, other parts are organized by date, then there’s always the cross-references between them.
Its all been here a fairly long time. Like the papers on my desk, or the books on the bedside table, the pile just grew… and it all grew without much plan or structure. I try not to break URLs, so historical oddities abound.
Long ago it started as a learning experiment with a few static HTML pages, then I added a bit of server-side includes and some very ugly PHP. A hand-built journal/blog on top of that PHP, then a few experiments in moving to various static publishing systems. I’ve never wanted a database-based blogging engine, so over the years I’ve tried PHP, nanoblogger, emacs-muse, silkpage and docbook before settling on Emacs Org mode for writing and jekyll for publishing. But the itch remained… I never really liked jekyll and the ruby underneath always seemed so much black magic. So now the latest incarnation is Org mode and hugo.
