23-25 Oct 04 -- hot, smoky, occasional thunderstorm.
Yes, the Torresian Crows have completed their nest on the northern
slope, and seem now to be brooding. On Saturday the two birds were,
unusually, BOTH absent, and for an unusually long time. Some while
after they'd come back together, I noticed a Channel-billed Cuckoo
soaring overhead. Don't know if anything had gone on, or if the
cuckoo was just casing the joint...
The quite-large group of Figbirds seem to have gone into
territorial overdrive, following the breaking of the dry season
/drought. Our MBay fig tree seems to be largely theirs, at present,
with the bowerbirds and others foraging more on the ground.
I think I've located a 'practice' platform used by young male
bowerbirds. Having seen lots of green birds active there from a
distance, I investigated, and found a 'platform' exactly like the one
in front of the bower on our place -- but, in this case, minus an
actual bower...
Had a great birding experience on Sunday. Our northeast-facing deck
juts over a slope, and I was sitting quietly waiting for the heat to
abate, watching the TCs and bowerbirds and others, when the breeze
abruptly dropped. At once the humidity became more apparent, and with
this a cloud of insects rose from the ground. As this reached just
above my eye-level, the birds began to come in -- beginning with the
recently returned Spangled Drongos. What an extraordinarily elegant
hawker this bird is -- like some kind of silk-black aerial ballet, it
was. And the Little Wattlebirds, which fly up to the insect, pause in
mid-air, then stretch their necks and pluck the creature as if from a
shelf.
Other birds which joined this hunting spectacle as close as
ten feet from me were -- Grey Butcherbirds, Welcome Swallows, Magpie
Larks, Dollarbirds, Noisy Miners, Figbirds-in-passing. (A 'peanut
gllaery' of kookaburras and bowerbirds looked almost wistful.)
With each one's differing flight/hunting style, you can
imagine what a display it was. And then there were the shifts in the
pattern of movement occasioned by the different levels of and
responses to aggressiveness. And the occasional near-miss!
THEN, as clouds gathered and haziness pressed in from the
east - SWIFTS! White-throated Needletails came streaming by, quite
high, but I guess the insects which had successfully passed through
the bird-storm below had reached Swift-level by then.
A great day.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Judith L-A
S-E Qld
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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