Birds of Australia [My Experiences]

Alisana · Jul 30, 2012

OK - after getting side tracked for a bit looking at other 'Off Topic' posts, I had to remember why I came here.

And that is, to share with you pictures or videos I've taken of birds here in Australia.

I'm going to try and keep all these pictures as "my own" (ie, I've taken them). I will try and keep it to native species, but some, although not native, are very well established so you can't avoid them. (Either that, or I just snapped a picture

)

Where possible, I'll try and include the species, but to start with, I'll just start uploading and edit with names later.

Enjoy!

Alisana · Jul 30, 2012

Location: Tyto Wetlands; Ingham

Darter (Male - females are white on the underside)
-- They're interesting to watch, they dive under water to fish and with the way their head comes out of the water it gives them the nickname "snakebirds"

Willy wagtail

Azure Kingfisher or Little Kingfisher (hard to tell which it is)

[ame="http://youtu.be/Pwg6qhoIF2s"]Little Kingfisher - YouTube[/ame]

Yellow Honeyeater
-- Image clipped from video below

[ame="http://youtu.be/-gJDJNl5bP0"]Yellow Honeyeater with Bottlebrush flowers - YouTube[/ame]

Alisana · Jul 30, 2012

Location: Billabong Sanctuary; south of Townsville

Plumed-Whistling Duck

Red-Tail Black Cockatoo: Juvenile Male (named Ashley)

[ame="http://youtu.be/Um4VkcA2wTw"]Feeding Red-Tailed Black Cockatoo - YouTube[/ame]

Black Kite (Female)

Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo (I think her name was Saffron)

Swamphen - I think (there is a crocodile in the background)

Alisana · Jul 30, 2012

Location: Cairns Tropical Zoo

Pelican

Brolga aka Australian Crane

[ame="http://youtu.be/zL0y-gcDKEE"]Brolga Bungling Call - YouTube[/ame]

Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo (Male)

Red-Tailed Black Cockatoo (Male on right - either juvenile male or female on left)

Flying-Fish Birds (They literally leap through the air to steal your hot chips)
jk

Buff-Banded Rail

Red-Tail Black Cockatoo in Flight (Male) [Damn hard picture to grab, they fly pretty fast)

Royal Spoonbill

Laughing Kookaburra

Alisana · Jul 30, 2012

Location: Cairns Tropical Zoo

Sooty Owl

Tawny Frogmouth

Alisana · Jul 30, 2012

Location: Paluma

Australian Brush-Turkey (Common as anything)

Not sure - tiny little thing though

Chowchilla

Alisana · Jul 30, 2012

Location: Kuranda Bird World; near Cairns

Red-Tail Black Cockatoo (Male)

Pied Heron and (?)Wandering Whistling Duck

Cassowary (be wary of the cassowary!

)

Spotted Turtle Dove

[ame="http://youtu.be/_BiuoX8O41U"]Spotted Turtle-Dove - YouTube[/ame]

Rainbow Lorikeet

Black Swan

Luxon-Bleeding Heart Pigeon
-- I had to include this, even though they're native to Philippines, no one would understand why I had a near-heart attack when I saw this bird! I panicked and was like "OMG! OMG! The bird is bleeding! WHATDOWEDO?!" ... *moment pause* "... it doesn't seem bothered by the injury" *checks species sheet* "... Oohhh......" *stares dumbfounded at the bird* (Side note: Is there an evolutionary reason for the colour? I assume to 'play dead' but none of them do that... :S )

Double-Eyed Fig Parrot
(one of my favourite parrots)

[ame="http://youtu.be/ctqLDSw0mmQ"]Double-Eyed Fig Parrot loves headscratches - YouTube[/ame]

Note: I have HEAPS more photos from this place, but I want to try and limit to Australian birds

If you want to see ALL of the birds at Kuranda, let me know and I'll make a separate thread.

Alisana · Jul 30, 2012

Location: Hometown and University

Bush-Stone Curlew (my kiddos!

They're the resident curlews at my work ^^)

Australian White Ibis (like Brush/Scrub Turkeys - they're EVERYWHERE) plus Ducks (not everywhere)

Red-Tailed Black Cockatoo joined me on the grass for lunch

... then went back up the tree to finish eating

More Ducks (note Ibis in corner >_>)

Alisana · Jul 30, 2012

Location: Hometown and University

Blue-Winged Kookaburra - joined us for lunch, stole my sandwich/ham

Note: this video is also on page 2 in response to another user's comment.

Added it to this post for convenience.

[ame="http://youtu.be/WYKOv53jUUs"]Blue-Winged Kookaburra Killing Ham - YouTube[/ame]

Our bird wildlife likes to steal lunch... the turkeys are notorious for it.

Speaking of: there are 12 in this picture. Can you spot them all? (Taken on my mobile phone)

Molcan2 · Jul 30, 2012

I LOVE all of these pics! They are all sooooo beautiful! I love seeing birds in their natural habitat or being kept in enclosures that allow freedom. Its such a stark contrast from those that are kept in cages all the time.

So far my favorites are: Blue-Winged Kookaburra (love the contrast in color, so pretty), Brolga aka Australian Crane (so majestic), and of course the Red-Tailed Black Cockatoo pics, absolutely love the colors of the females and/or juveniles.

Thanks so much for sharing, beautiful job.

Alisana · Jul 30, 2012

Molcan2 said:
I LOVE all of these pics! They are all sooooo beautiful! I love seeing birds in their natural habitat or being kept in enclosures that allow freedom. Its such a stark contrast from those that are kept in cages all the time.

So far my favorites are: Blue-Winged Kookaburra (love the contrast in color, so pretty), Brolga aka Australian Crane (so majestic), and of course the Red-Tailed Black Cockatoo pics, absolutely love the colors of the females and/or juveniles.

Thanks so much for sharing, beautiful job.

Thanks

I'm glad you like them! I'll be uploading more, but right now I'm at home and most of my pictures are out at my computer at uni

I need to get up at 5 or 6am to get photos of the flocks of Sulphur-crested cockatoos and Corellas - they're a great sight!

aliray · Jul 30, 2012

thanks for sharing those pictures they are factinating as well as beautiful. the lorikeet is increadible looks like god had a great time with a paintbrush. Alison and sweetie pie

Pookamama · Jul 30, 2012

Beautiful photos. I can't get over the owls and the cockatoos. Just majestic! Thank you for sharing! Australia has a beautiful assortment of birds.

Alisana · Jul 30, 2012

Molcan2: this is the video of the Kookaburra after he nicked my sandwich

Figured he could have the ham at the very least, given the bread and cheese was wasted, lol

[ame=http://youtu.be/WYKOv53jUUs]Blue-Winged Kookaburra Killing Ham - YouTube[/ame]

Molcan2 · Jul 30, 2012

OMG, I'm IN LOVE! Its a good thing I dont live over there, I would be feeding ALL the birds, I would be in heaven! I love how he killed the ham before eating it

. The colors on him are so beautiful. I love the blue. That was something that I didn't realize the Ekkies had, I thought they were pretty much just green and red. They have brilliant blue as well. Thanks for posting the video. Tommy's going to hate it when we go diving on the Great Barrier, I have plans on turning it into a bird trip as well

Pookamama · Jul 30, 2012

What do they eat in the wild, fish? He looks like he was trying to make sure that ham was dead before he ate it!

Alisana · Jul 30, 2012

Molcan2 said:
OMG, I'm IN LOVE! Its a good thing I dont live over there, I would be feeding ALL the birds, I would be in heaven! I love how he killed the ham before eating it . The colors on him are so beautiful. I love the blue. That was something that I didn't realize the Ekkies had, I thought they were pretty much just green and red. They have brilliant blue as well. Thanks for posting the video. Tommy's going to hate it when we go diving on the Great Barrier, I have plans on turning it into a bird trip as well

Kuranda Bird World in Cairns is good if you want to see heaps of birds, depending on where you decide to do diving (Cairns, Townsville and various islands); but as for seeing kookaburras, you'll see them staking out picnic spots. We have one that lives outside one of the campus 'pubs' (can get steak and chips there for lunch) and he's well aware that a knocked over cup of hot chips is free game. lol. I think Magnetic Island used to have hand feeding sessions for kookaburras at one of the cabins - if you check with the tour groups though, there are a few that have hand feeding sessions. (Some will feed straight meat like raw steak, beef heart, others will give thawed mice, depends on the place - so if you're squeamish, maybe better to watch

)

Pookamama said:
What do they eat in the wild, fish? He looks like he was trying to make sure that ham was dead before he ate it!

They can do - although they are classified as kingfishers (largest in the world if I'm not mistaken), they eat large insects, rodents, frogs, snakes, lizards and the odd small bird. You'll find a lot here just get their food from BBQs (they LOVE meat, even better if raw) it's interesting when keeping an eye on your food

Total_Dejavu · Jul 31, 2012

Thanks for sharing all these great pics! My favs are the crane, sulphur cockatoos, and the owl. LOVE THE OWL! So beautiful.

Alisana · Jul 31, 2012

OK - Next round of photos!

These next few photos were taken between 2007 and 2009.

As a side note, I'll probably go through and watermark them later with the species name and a distribution map. Too lazy at the moment

---------

Location: Townsville

Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo

Magpie in centre, with Masked Lapwings around the edges

Australian White Ibis

Blue-Winged Kookaburra

Ducks on the Ross River

Indian Peafowl (feral flocks at Mount Stuart)
-- All hens

Alisana · Jul 31, 2012

Now - my favourite: Australian WILD parrots!

Location: O'Reillys Rainforest Retreat, Lamington National Park

Note: as stated before, these photos were taken in 2007-2009; as of 2010 the feeding of wild birds has been discontinued. There were too many issues with people trying to bring their own seed (officials had to moderate the amount of seed they provided to the public so the birds weren't dependent on people, but people-being-people, got annoyed and would bring their own seed - we all know how bad that can be[1] *sigh*). The rules of the place were you were not allowed to touch the birds, however they could land on you. Given how complacent the birds were around people, some people were idiots and would try and grab the birds. Though there were supervisors on hand, it was too difficult to monitor. Now I believe they do one or two public feedings, but only authorised personnel run the sessions from bird feeders.

[1] - there were reports of mould on people's home-bought seed, or other unhealthy nasties that made the birds sick at one point.

Personal View: While I really enjoyed my time feeding these birds and it was an AMAZING experience that I won't forget, I agree with the officials - people cannot be trusted; it's best to leave wild birds to be wild birds.

Australian King Parrots (Males)

Photo taken in Canopy Tree Top Walk

Australian King Parrots (Females)

Australian King Parrot on hand and Crimson Rosella's on ground

Birds of Australia [My Experiences]

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