After quite a bit of out and about with a few less restrictions in June, it was back to being more cautious and less mobile across July and August. Not to worry. Still ample activity around the yard.
We have often had brush turkeys visit, but until now they had been very transitory and buggared off after sratching around for a day or two at most. This time we had a team of three and they were in no hurry to head anywhere ... between our yard, the backyard next door and the spare green space along the road out front, these three decided they were on a clean up mission. And can they move some earth and anything else in their way in a hurry - very powerful legs & feet. After a losing battlle with them for a couple of weeks (though they did a good job clearing weeds out back for us!) I borrowed a trap from a friend. A successful capture happened on the very first afternoon it was set and the bigger dominant turkey at that ... not happy (the brush turkey ... I was ecstatic)! However, once relocated the issue has not been an issue (at least for the time being).
So I could not resist sharing a few photos in this post of a couple of the protaginists in action. The first one is a younger one (smaller yellow collar), while the next one is the gang leader in action and the final two the third gang member (you can see the yellow collar is a different size on each bird).
One sunny afternoon I decided to set up with my book and a folding chair in the backyard quite close to the bananas. I figured I could get some reading done on a lovely warm winter afternoon. As a bonus I had my camera and hoped by sitting quietly reading, the blue-faced honeyeaters might just go about their business and not feel threatened, allowing me to get some photos of them feeding from a bit closer than I had managed before. Here is a sample of my bonus 😀.
As I have noted in various posts, always amazing how agile and acrobatic birds are. They seem to be able to latch on to just about anything and eat from any angle!
Since the focus is on the garden, this fellow is included as the blue-tongue lizard was taking advantage of the sun trap. It is really bronzed up too ... perhaps taking too much advantage!
Our two remaining chickens wandering the garden beds too ... much more domesticated and less aggressive in their scratching around than the brush turkeys!
Here I snapped a pied currawong in one of teh front yeard trees devoid of her foliage coat. Not so clear in the form and plummage of the whole bird, but certainly those bright yellow eyes are clear. I really included this photo because it captured the powerful black bill open mid-call. Quite a lovely sound too.
The next set shows a variety of birds and their activity on our front bird bath. Each having fun while all carefully checking surroundings constantly ... and even a few full-on glares at the photographer too 😜. You will see the pied butcherbird, lewin's honeyeater, pied currawong, noisy miner and a peewee (magpie lark). The lush green foliage offers a dappled background in the sunlight too. Enjoy.
And finally for this post, I had been trying (rather unsuccessfully) to photograph some blue-faced honeyeaters across the road in low hanging branches. I had just turned to head back down the driveway feeling a little disheartened when I saw this noisy miner fly into the plumbago bush near the letterbox. Really close and seemingly not worried about my proximity at all. I gratefully snapped the two close-ups shared here, and only noticed on review the insect it had caught and was in the process of savouring. Quite the treat (for the miner and the photographer 😁).
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