My mother, J, lives on a wonderful property in the Gladstone area (Queensland, Australia).  J and B run a few cows and agist some horses.  The property is not a bird sanctuary as such, but as the property has a permanent source of water (a very large dam that hasn’t dried up in all the time they’ve lived there), it attracts a wide array of birds.  During my recent visit, I tried to snap as many birds as possible.

My mother’s garden has a good number of grevilleas so naturally her garden attracts many honeyeaters.  Honeyeaters can be quite aggressive in defending their territory.  A bank of spiky dense shrubs has been removed as it tended to shelter snakes, as well as small birds.  Grand-children and snakes are not such a great combination so the spikes had to go.  The property has also been cleared of a number of trees in recent years for grazing, so there is less tree cover for woodland birds such as pardalotes, robins and finches.  Hence, there seemed to be fewer birds of this type.  It is always tricky balancing conservation and grazing.  The woodland birds were probably still about in areas where I feared to tread.  There was a rogue steer roaming the paddocks so I may have been a little timid in my venturing.  Time of year may also have had a bearing on the number of these birds.

Anyway, without further ado, here are some of the many birds that call my mum’s place home.

Little Birds

Willy wagtail (Rhipidura leucophrys)
Female Rufous whistler (Pachycephala rufiventris)
Rainbow bee-eater (Merops ornatus)
Female Rufous whistler
Male Red-backed fairywren (Malurus melanocephalus)
Grey fantail (Rhipidura albiscapa)

The cheeky red-backed wrens made use of a grove of clumping bamboo and a nearby hedge to gain some protection from the pesky honeyeaters.

Honeyeaters

Blue-faced honeyeater (Entomyzon cyanotis)
Brown honeyeater? (Lichmera indistincta)
Brown honeyeater? (Lichmera indistincta)
Noisy friarbird (Philemon corniculatus)
Little friarbird (Philemon citreogularis)

Parrots

Female King Parrot (Alisterus scapularis)
Male King Parrot (Alisterus scapularis)
Red-winged Parrot (Aprosmictus erythropterus)
Rainbow Lorikeet (Trichoglossus haematodus)

Waterbirds

There were many more water birds than appear in the photos below.  I have better photos of the Royal Spinebill and Great Egrets from other locations on my holiday so I will save those photos for another time.  Resident brolgas took it upon themselves to go on holiday for the week that we were there.  Oh well, those are the breaks!

Spoonbills and Jacana
Male Yellow-billed spoonbill (Platalea flavipes)
Little Egret (Egretta garzetta)
Check out those feet!
Comb-crested Jacana (Irediparra gallinacea)
The Little Egret has a black bill..
Australasian Darter (Anhinga novaehollandiae)
Cotton Pygmy Goose (Nettapus coromandelianus)

With so much grassland, there were quite a few raptors about but I wasn’t able to get any decent photos.  I will have to work out the tracking on the camera.  The Butcherbirds were also regular visitors to the garden, but again I have better photos from another location.  Here are a couple of birds that didn’t fit the above categories – one common and one a vulnerable species.  To say we were excited when we saw the Squatter Pigeon is an understatement.

Plus two:

Squatter Pigeon (Geophaps scripta) – listed as vulnerable
Black-faced Cuckoo Shrike (Coracina novaehollandiae)

I would like to thank MNL for the Ragtag Daily Prompt “Bird” today.  It gave me a bit of motivation to get my post finished.

Anyway, that is your lot for today.  More to come in future so stay tuned if you have a penchant for birds.

Regards
Tracy

43 thoughts on “Holiday Bird Diary – Part 1”

      1. Sorry to hear she is unwell. Age is confronting in so many ways. I never thought I’d be in a position to look at the future that seems to creep up closer to my face, faster, each year.

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  2. My favorite is the Willy Wagtail–both the name and the bird. Cute! Your mother lives in a pretty fabulous place. The balance in nature is tricky, but this seems to be a sort of paradise to the birds.

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  8. What a magical place Tracy and I love your bird photographs, the water birds are especially beautiful 🙂💖🐦 xxx

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  10. What a wonderful collection of birds. You have done a great job of capturing the tiny birds, They are so quick. There is a robin that comes to my garden and I swear he’s taunting me because he always arrives when the camera isn’t handy or if it is he sits at an angle that makes him hard to see. I persevere however, I’ll get him one day. Our Tassie birds are somewhat different from yours up in Queensland but all birds are a joy to watch. Even sparrows and pigeons.

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  11. So many beautiful birds in this post! Thanks so much for sharing the splendour of nature, Tracy! The Gray Fantail, the parrots and the Cotton Pygmy Goose are my favs. 😄

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      1. Thank you, Tracy.😊 I’m back on track now and eager to catch up with all my friends here.
        Seeing all these lovely birds makes me want to paint them! 😄 Your mum is very lucky to host such a variety of them in her gardens.

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  12. Amazing bird photographs showing many birds that are new to me. Fall has hit in British Columbia and the sockeye are running. Google Adams River salmon run images.

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  13. Such a lovely piece of paradise for you to visit. The bird gallery is superb, I bet you had fun stalking them all. The new camera is coming into its own now. Sorry to hear your Mum is not well, what a terrible decision it must be to have to move on.

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