canberrabirds

Cockateil, Swifts,& unusual (?) Blackbird.

To: "Canberrabirds" <>
Subject: Cockateil, Swifts,& unusual (?) Blackbird.
From: "John Layton" <>
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:14:02 +1100
Early yesterday while it was still cool, clear and calm we went to Ye Olde Macgregor Sewage Wurkes and soon found a male Cockateil sporting the plumage of a wild bird. I began to admire the morning, " Look at that pale blue, watercolour sky and those negligee white clouds. Hans Heysen would have rendered it nicely."
 
Suddenly Junior Brat chipped in, "But could old Heysen paint swifts? Sure enough, there were ten White-throated Needletails making their undulating way across the Heysenesque firmament, 200m away. They looked incongruous without their usual background of guncotton storm curtains.
 
Back home I saw a female Common Blackbird hopping across the yard. It appeared to be a dull grey rather than the usual dowdy brown. However, the breast plumage caught my attention, It had a faint but discernible rufous wash. I thought of the American Robin Turdus migratorius. There is, of course, the possibility it had come in contact with something that had imparted this coloration to the feathers.
 
John K. Layton.
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