A pungent sweetness pervades the air this morning as creamy-white blossoms adorn the Melaleucas or ‘paper barks’ near our balcony.
Rainbow Lorikeets chirp and chatter as they breakfast
on the beautiful blossoms.
Happily for photographers, there’s little camouflage
for Rainbow Lorikeets against the long, leathery leaves and
pale, brown branches of the massive, melaleuca.
Two ‘threes’ photo-stories emerge
from my walk on the beach this morning…
Three terns on the beach
and one is pecking for pipis.
Two terns together on the beach
and one is pecking for pipis.
One tern is on the beach
and he stops pecking for pipis…
when he hears the click of the camera.
Further down the beach
I venture up the lookout.
Flip-flops wait on the deck
as the tide tumbles in…
Read and see more ‘threes’ stories here.
It’s a bright and sunny morning
when ‘kookie’ comes a-calling.
He ad-mires the view…
and looks for a bug or two…
He spreads his left wing out,
he spreads his right wing out,
he ruffles back feathers out
and he shakes them all about,
He does the Hokey Pokey,
then kookaburra flies off again…
Ahhh… beginning a new day
and beginning new lives…
To see how others interpret ‘Beginning’, click here.
Leisurely Saturday. Revisit Palm Cove.
Walk along the jetty. Look over the sea to Double Island. Look back at the shoreline at the sand, sea and rocks.
What’s that? A white bird stands out against the dark rocks. Zoom in with my camera lens. See the white bird more clearly. A white heron?
A white bird with a fish in its beak. A largish fish but a long, thin beak on the bird. How did these two come together? Was the fish in the water? Did the white bird pierce the fish with its long sharp beak?
Was the fish dead in the water or on the sand and the white bird found it?
Did the fish drop from an osprey or hawk flying overhead?
Take more photos and watch … it looks like a big fish. Sometimes the bird has the fish in its beak. A free lunch. And a solitary lunch, except for us watching from the jetty…
Sometimes the bird stabs at the fish and tries to pick it up again.
I haven’t seen this bird before. Exciting… New… Interesting… What is happening now?
What bird is it? Not an ibis – they have black on them and a different shaped beak. A white heron? An egret?
Later. Look up online and find out the bird is an Eastern Reef Egret (Egretta Sacre) Also called a Pacific Reef-Heron.
Wonder how much fish the Egret ate…
Was it enough for lunch?
And… how did the Egret get the fish?
Comments welcome…
A bird on a wire: a colourful bird, on an ordinary electrical wire, on an ordinary suburban street – unlike Leonard Cohen’s ‘Bird on the wire” song of 1968.
But what bird is it?
Internet searches come up with ‘No result found’. I can’t insert information like ‘bird type’ or ‘common name ’ because I don’t know them. After viewing dozens of bird pictures, I cannot find this bird.
Fortunately, it stays on the wire for several minutes enabling me to keep clicking. Two more birds, just like this one, visit on nearby wires, but don’t stay long.
Aahh – nothing like a good wing and tail stretch…
and now, a head scratch.
“I missed that yellow butterfly,”
I whisper to my friend.
“Hey! Who are you?”
I shout to that intruder over there!
Any help in recognising this bird happily accepted!
And one more thing…. why does it have two feathers? strands? below the main tail?
Poor indeed is the garden in which birds find no homes (Abram Urban) and being surrounded by trees, gardens and birds is a joy for me.
Amazingly, as I write these words, a yellow breasted hummingbird whirrs to my window. Suddenly s/he flies through the open door and hovers and hums in front of me. It’s only a few seconds. I smile happily and stare. As suddenly as s/he enters, s/he exits. Flits out, over the balcony, into the palms and paper barks… and then to who knows where?
Smiling again, I think of the variety of birds I see and hear each day.
Like colours and the tropics, birds and the tropics also belong together.
Wake early to the shrill, eerie, wailing of stone birds (or curlews) as they stroll through gardens and warily cross streets looking for quiet, shady hiding places to spend the day.
Stone bird
Bush Stone-curlew
Walk to the beach to shrieking, squawking sulpher-crested cockatoos as they fly from tree to tree, calling and squabbling with their mates over breakfast.
Pass a wary, silent, snow-white Torres Strait pigeon diligently pecking in the grass on a vacant block.
Hear, but cannot see, doves cooing quietly in the paperbark leaves.
Walk along the beach and admire striking black, white and orange terns as they dig for pipis in the sand.
Tern
Suddenly the confident, raucous ‘laugh’ of a kookaburra rings out. A distinctive sound. A happy sound. A chuckle… that is a warning to other birds to steer clear. Reminds me of Ibsen’s words, “Each bird must sing with his own throat.”
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