Winter around Ballina - part two

 So, on with the show, and the post to complete the winter trilogy 😕. Sometimes it is easy to forget (or take for  granted is probably a better description) the variety we have to enjoy. Colours, sounds, interactions, movements, environments ... even the same bird can look quite different in same setting - let alone a different setting, or changed light. Enjoy.

Ah yes, to begin this post, even the crow (more technically a torresian crow) can look magnificent! Curved beak, sleek shiny body and wings, bare black legs pierced by that all-seeing white eye. What a perch too!

Crow on the wall

This next sequence of four was taken in a bottle-brush on the lighthouse hill - a favourite spot to sit and enjoy the sight and sound of the Pacific Ocean, watch those denizens of the sea (the whales) migrate north to calve and south with their calves or just relax and read a book in the great outdoors. But this treat was about the birds ... the rainbow lorikeet (photo #2) is very common and very colourful and hard to miss even if you do not see them kamikaze past you their calls are very raucous and aggressive too! Not too far behind on ALL the characteristics is the scaly-breasted lorikeet, so you can imagine the racket when they decide to try to share the same nectar in the same tree 😅. I have a leaning towards the scaly-breasted lorikeet ... a little less exuberant and a little less gaudy but still striking and absolutely drop-dead gorgeous without being under or over stated ... of course, you be the judge and beauty is always in the eyes of the beholder!

Scaly-breasted lorikeet just checking

Rainbow lorikeet feasting

Scaly-breasted lorikeet on top of the world!

Scaly-breasted lorikeet on full alert

Next we have a couple of galahs grazing down on the earth rather than being silly and noisy on wires or tree branches. Foraging for seeds on the ground, enjoying a little winter shade.

Grazing galahs

Now babies, whatever kind are cute, right? Of course they are. This masked lapwing (plover) chick simply adds evidence to support the cute theory 👍. Who would imagine they grow to be such disagreeable (if quite stunning) adults!

Masked lapwing chick

Again, a treat from just being alert driving past the swampy lake beside the Bruxner Highway heading to Ballina from the west late one afternoon. First the black-necked stork having a bit to say in the setting haze of the afternoon sun providing a wonderfully soft landscape background (this one looks really good on canvas!). Very fortunate there is a lay-by you can turn into and that I had my camera with me. The third photo below was on another morning in the section of the same swamp further to the east along Teven road. Very still ... very calm ... very beautiful mirrored image of a black-winged stilt seeming to kiss itself very tenderly 😊 - or whatever you imagine it is doing!

Black-necked stork 

Not quite so raucous

Black-winged stilt

And to wind up this winter trilogy around Ballina, what is more iconic to that location than the pelican ... the big bird of the coast, the big glider and gulper that is both ponderous and graceful in flight and landing and paddling. A joy to behold in nearly any setting. We conclude with one setting atop the power poles near the sailing club, the other in full graceful flight heading along the river at the same site ... simply stunning.

Pelicans on a light (& pole)

In full glide mode