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highlights, SEQ, 500m

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Subject: highlights, SEQ, 500m
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Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2005 12:26:54 +1000
29.12.04
Female Mistletoebird - Lovely observation on this day of the bird gathering plant-down from the branchlet of a eucalypt directly above my head. Vocalising steadily, she gathered the fluff-strand/s to her beak rather in the way that carnies used to spin fairy-floss away from the mass and onto a stick.

1.1.05
Maned/Wood Duck - The pair presently living on our place have had seven ducklings. We've been watching them closely, as last year's brood of 14 were all predated. However, these parents seem to have enough nous to keep the chicks under cover, & never stray far from shrubbery. They also keep a longer distance from us than when it's just the two adults alone. An unexpected sight on this day, though, was -- we came around the corner of a row of cypresses, unintentionally catching the whole family of ducks by surprise. Immediately, the nine birds pressed themselves to the ground & became startlingly cryptic. The parents lay with necks extended, & eyes large & alert. The seven youngsters were grouped, at an apex to the parents' two pointing beaks, & around the father's head; indeed, one was under his neck & another lay almost beneath his shoulder. Though all birds were absolutely still, the father emitted a steady, low 'murmuring'. As they were in shade with a little dappling, the patterns of the parents & stripes of the chicks, & the overall pattern/speckle of the group, as well as the still postures & 'uncharacteristic' pose of the parents, made them almost invisible. Certainly they couldn't be seen from the sky, either, as they were under a low-slung tree. We continued walking & took to gardening some distance off. We worked our way further & further from them. But they did not move a muscle until we were 'out of sight'.

J

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Judith L-A
S-E Qld
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