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Camouflage Or Sabotage?

Today I have some clandestine photos to share with you, dear Readers.  Provided on a need-to-know basis.  Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.  The subjects are well camouflaged.

I recently went on a short walk with my son for the purpose of some online activity.  Suddenly I heard the unmistakable sound of a bird of prey.  “What was that?” I exclaimed.  “Oh yeah,” my son said, “two sparrow-hawks nest in those pine trees over there.”  To say I was indignant, Ladies and Gentlemen, was a total understatement.  I demanded to know why this information had been withheld from me.  Was the information top-secret, only to be disclosed to those who ‘need-to-know’?  Well, no.  He just forgot.  Can you really believe that? Read more

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Purple Swamphen

Today I had the pleasure of reading about the African Swamphen on the De Wets Wild blog.  If you haven’t checked out the De Wets Wild blog, you really should.  Dries and his family travel to the many wilderness areas of South Africa to bring us beautiful photos of the flora and fauna of each place they visit.  Anyway, the African Swamphen (Porphyrio madagascariensis) is a sub-species of the Purple Swamphen.  The Purple Swamphen has a wide distribution across the globe, including Australia.

At Dries’ request, I’m posting a few photos I took recently of the Purple Swamphens in my area. Read more

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Leave It To The Professional

There is one thing certain about Australasian Grebes and that is they are very shy.  Come within 100 metres of them and they quickly dive below the surface of the water or they paddle away at a great pace leaving you in their wake.  Many a time on our holiday, we saw them in the distance and that is where they stayed, so no photographs (not good ones anyway).   It turns out that finding and getting close to these tiny waterbirds is a job for a professional. Read more

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Holiday Bird Diary – Part 2

A couple of hundred clicks north of Sydney, the Myall Lakes National Park in New South Wales (Australia) is one of the best habitats around for birds.  It is a real bird oasis.  The Myall Lakes is one of the state’s largest coastal lake systems.  As we were just passing through and were time constrained, we only skimmed its outskirts.  We stayed at the lovely, quiet fishing village of Hawks Nest.  Usually, I have to work hard for my bird photos but the birds were lining up for their photos to be taken.  Here are a few that we took one morning (click on images to enlarge). Read more

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Holiday Bird Diary – Part 1

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. Read more

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And Then There Were Two

Trigger Warning – this post contains content that may distress some readers.

This was not the post I was going to write for the Ragtag Daily Prompt – Purple.  As I chose today’s RDP, I had a bit of a heads-up, but plans change.  This post is about love, loss, grieving and wee birds.  It’s not really about purple but there is one small, important connection to the Prompt word.  Coincidentally, this post also fits the Word of the Day – Mellifluous. Read more