Getting home from shopping and such, late-afternoon of 31 December, I
blithely stomped along the verandah carrying heavy bags to the kitchen door,
when a Black Bittern rose from a small muddy patch across the creek from the
house, a favourite shady resting place for various water birds (who knows -
perhaps it had perhaps spent hours there while I was in the shops!) and flew
along the creek and out of sight, all in the space of maybe five to ten
seconds. One of the very last birds of 2004 for us at Abberton.
After a Bush-hen serenaded us on Boxing Day evening, we had expected a
nightly encore for a week or two - as over the previous New Year. But we had
a mighty, though brief, storm here on the afternoon of 27 December and not a
peep was heard from the bird until last night, 3 January when it commenced
its loud and repetitive call around 6pm from the same excessively vegetated
patch of wilderness that it favoured a year ago. Again, we could hear the
bird from indoors, and it continued calling with only a few breaks until at
least 11pm when I succumbed to sleep.
This-morning has been a really busy day in the rock pool just outside my
window. Birds have been coming to it all day, in shifts. Pale-headed
Rosella, Blue-faced Honeyeaters, White-throated Honeyeaters, Striped
Honeyeaters, Speckled Warbler, Zebra Finches, Double-barred Finches,
Red-browed Finches, various pigeons, and so on. This-morning, one Little
Friarbird seemed to want to claim the pool against all-comers, aggressively
driving off a persistent Striped Honeyeater. Then, earlier this-afternoon,
three Little Friarbirds arrived, and having tested the water began to use it
as a plunging pool - just dropping straight into the middle before taking a
thoroughly soaking bedraggled walk back to the edge. It's a very tempting
pastime on a hot day like today.
But all of that splashing is over for now, and it's just finches and
White-throated Honeyeaters as I write -
BUT I just got interrupted by a beautiful male Koel coming to the rock for a
drink! I got some photos through the window (not too good) then headed
outside to try to get some better ones before it moved on. Some are okayish,
and I'll try to get them on the web-site tonight.
Meantime, that little adventure is over, and it's just Brown and Striped
Honeyeaters in the pool, with a big juvenile green-faced Blue-faced
Honeyeater just arrived.
By the way, December that has just finished was our best ever month in the
garden for species numbers, ie 116. January is standing around 50 spp so
far, but the combination of hot weather and a Test Match is keeping me
indoors just at present.
Bill Jolly
"Abberton",
Lockyer Valley, Queensland.
Visit our website at www.abberton.org
email:
ph: (+61) 7 4697 6111
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