Starting to cool down as autumn passes, but some nice sunny days still to enjoy our recently re-boarded and re-roofed front verandah. The view through the trees and across the bird baths offers much daily bird activity to savour when you make the time to just sit and observe.
This a long post.
Long because there are a couple of new birds for our yard to show-off as well as some old favourites that enabled me to snap quite the range of behaviours that show glimpses of why birds are to be cherished. Many of the poses, in my view, demonstrate how the birds also seem to be just as curious about what we are up to, as we are of their behaviours.
You be the judge - and remember, if you click on an picture you will have access to just the pictures and larger versions of them showing more detail ... well worth it for many of these in my humble opinion 😉.
First up, we have had some cuckoos visit the front trees for the first time (that we have noticed). Sitting quietly on the front verandah, a shadow passes and there is movement noticed on some lower hanging branches of the trees. There, just sitting quietly in plain view, soundlessly but exhibiting no small degree of curiosity was a fan-tailed cuckoo. A little later, after that bird had moved on, another one perched on an even closer branch showing itself to be a young fan-tailed cuckoo. Even clearer poses showing the more patchy down on the breast.
Then a larger more distinctively striped oriental cuckoo turned up also being most curious about my activity. Initially I thought this was a pacific baza until it revealed itself more clearly. The oriental cuckoo is a vagrant so apparently not often sighted, making this an even more special treat. They were all very photogenic ...
Then, next day the young one turned up again for even more photogenic poses showing off it's curiosity.
This next sequence shows off a regular visitor to our bird baths around the garden - this time in the front yard. A lewin's honeyeater. In stark contrast to the statuesque poses of the cuckoos, these guys are all movement and constantly checking their surroundings. Checking out the bath first, then in various poses and positions after dunks in the water and shaking the excess off. Always fun to watch the antics of this not so shy bird.
If the level of activity increased from the cuckoos to the lewin's honeyeater, they move onto steroids with the brown thornbills! Tiny birds, hyperactive but it works for their safety as we seem to have had pairs in our yard for several years now. Always communicating with eachother as they move about the bushes, you hear them coming towards the birdbath in the morning moving clockwise and returning in the afternoon as they move anticlockwise returning to their nests. Regular as clockwork. They nearly always choose the small birdbath unless it is dry, when they will venture to the big one.
Quite the lenghty sequence for you below. I wanted to try to convey a sense of their hyperactivity (a challenge with the stills of course!) but also curiosity - perhaps hyeralertness - in the variety of ways they seem to be keeping an eye on the camera 😁. These little guys have a special place given their regular spot in our garden and their vivacious personalities Long may they live (buggar the King!).
I guarantee you will smile & love these tiny delights😍.
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