And then it was off to Fogg Dam for a morning. Bit diappointing really, after all the hype it was really quiet, not many birds around. Apparently with the heavy rains, the birds have dispersed and I should come back in the dry. OK, I'm up for that. But I did get one very special bird there as compensation:
77) Crimson Finch - a lifer for me. What a spectacular little bird!
Wow, lots there I don't have. Looking at some pics I think Sue is correct with Grey Whistler. I'll put it as your number 74. Great set of photos and that Crimson finch!
I'm just catching up with all of your photos at once now and wow, what a portfolio.
It's so great to see the difference between our collections of birds from state to state, travel is obviously a factor in the ultimate number of birds we come up with. You've got so much variety and really interesting endemics, loving your photography.
Thanks for the descriptions of how you came about the photos, I haven't been adding much detail but it is fascinating to read yours so maybe I should follow suit...nice work!
78) Grey Whistler - one of those serendipitous shots which I'd misidentified, and Sue and Dev were kind enough to point out that this is a completely new bird to me - how exciting! He was together with some White-bellied Cuckooshrikes, but looking at him again, I can clearly see Sue and Dev are right, it is quite a different bird. Interestingly, female Golden Whistlers often stump me as well - I need to get better with that shape.
79) Leaden Flycatcher (female). This one took me some time to sort out - nearly indistinguishable from the Broad-billed Flycatcher which is only found in this region - but the latter apparently has slightly more graduation in the lengths of its tail feathers, and this little beauty is a female of the more widespread Leaden Flycatcher.
The NT was a bit of a masterclass in flycatchers for me, there were more flycatchers than you could shake a stick at, from the ubiquitous Willie Wagtail to ones I'd never seen like the Lemon-breasted. And given the density of the flies up there and their propensity for flying into your eyeballs and up your nose, I was having fantasies about tame flycatchers. Wouldn't it be cool to have a couple of flycatchers on each shoulder, picking the flies off you and allowing you to concentrate on photography? Haha - things you think about while being tortured by flies...
Thanks for the nice comments and ID assistance, Sue & Dev. Danika, thanks for the comments, appreciated. Yes, travelling certainly does help with variety - just about everythign I saw in the NT was a different species to those in Sydney. I'm lucky enough to travel across the country for work, and often manage to sneak off for a few hours to take photos, or else extend by a day or two for more interesting trips. Yes, it would be great to know more about the birds you are posting, about you, your photography & gear, whatever - its about us and our Big Years, not just the birds, so please do post up anything you care to share, we are really interested :-)
Apologies, Alex, not wishing to steal you post but for comparison, here is a picture of a Broad-billed Flycatcher which shows the undertail really well. Also note that you skipped 74 as Dev pointed out earlier so you might want to post one more. Love all the shots and stories... send a Flycatcher my way for the midges.
Let me replace it here with a poor EBC shot, which I'll include as another lifer for me that I only discovered in reviewing photos. I never got a really good view of it, and couldn't ID at the time, just a few hurried photos - but I believe this is a Varied Triller. What a pity I couldn't enjoy watching it for a bit longer.
And back to the regular p[rogram. Managed to process a few more from the NT last night.
80) the regular crow/raven in the NT is the Torresian Crow - very similar to the familiar Australian Raven in looks and behaviour. Something I noted with a lot of birds in the extreme heat and humidity was that they walked or sat with their beaks open, trying to get cool - they obviously suffer in the heat like we do.
82) Intermediate Egret. These were a surprise, as they are quite rare down South, but they were the most common egret in the wetlands and waterways of the Kakadu, and I saw hundreds of them foraging in the reeds around Yellow Water. You can distinguish them from the similar Great Egret by the shorter neck and black legs below the knees, as well as the lovely wispy plumes. No fact sheet
84) The Blue-faced Honeyeater is one of my favourite honeyeaters, such dramatic colouring. I finally got a shot I quite like showing that gorgous blue and contrasting yellow eye.
86) Eastern Koel - a more familiar bird, I heard them calling all over the NT. Finally caught one in the open eating palm berries at Cooinda. This is the male bird.
87) Blue-winged Kookaburra. We kept hearing a dreadful racket outside our accommodation, and I went out several times before finding out who it was. These guys make a very different sound to our Laughing Kookaburras, but once you know what it is, you can hear the resemblance. Very cool birds indeed, and something I've wanted to see for a long time.
Fantastic series of shots, Alex so difficult to choose a favourite... maybe Crimson Finch & Blue-winged Kookaburra. They do make a fantastic noise! Can confirm the Varied Triller, maybe a female. Great to hear the stories around each one. Seems the trip & new camera gear were successful on several levels. Surprised no Red-collared Lorrikeet as yet. Great work.
Thanks Sue, appreciated :-) Yes, I'm so enjoung the new camera and lens. They aren't magic, I still stuff up a lot, but my keeper rate has soared, and as I'm understanding the camera more I'm slowly getting better quality too.
I heard and saw Red-collared Lorikeet often, but had surprisingly few opportunities to photograph them. I think I did get some EBC-type shots - still have a lot to process. More excitingly I know I got some shots of a completely new lorikeet for me.
I am looking forward to the new Lorrikeet... clownish perhaps? I like that Blue-faced Honeyeater as well and you are getting some nice bokeh in your shots.
Some more from Kakadu - what an awesome place for birds, even in the off season. I reckon a serious birder could clock up some big numbers here - photographing them is a little trickier. So lets start this session with a batch of EBC shots - ones that are poor but I'm posting anyway because who knows if I'll get to see one again this year ?
88) Brolga. I've so wanted to see one and never have - well, I finally did, but it was about a kilometer away! So here is a super zoomed and then super-cropped Brolga, until I see one again.
89) Yellow Oriole - I thought this was my familiar Olive-backed Oriole, but the tummy looked very yellow - and it is indeed a Yellow Oriole, a lifer for me and a very poor photo! I had a lot of fun trying to photograph them, as did they - they wouldn't fly away, just played ring-a-ring-a-rosies with me around the trees. He would peek out, see me & retreat. I'd go around the other way, and he'd be peering around the trunk waiting for me, then would hop away again. Rinse & repeat until I got tired. This happened with several different birds, they are all in on the game.
90) Little Kingfisher - a very poor shot - taken at long range from a fast-moving boat, I had one chance and blew it. It is a top-end only bird and quite rare though, so I'm going to include it anyway as it is identifiable
91) Pied Cormorant - a bird I've seen a lot, so tried for something different with a BIF shot. Getting there slowly.
92) Australasian Darter (female) - another common bird in typical pose
93) Paperbark Flycatcher - another new flycatcher for me, typically neat, beautiful and not scared of people. I'd struggle to distinguish them from the Restless Flycatcher, but there is no overlap in their ranges in the Kakadu, don't you love that? :-)
Nice lot of birds Alex. Remember half the fun is the chase... it took me years to get a decent shot of a Little Kingfisher despite many efforts in Cairns and NT. I was told where to find them but they seemed to be holidaying whenever I was about.
94) Great-billed Heron - saw this guy on a very productive Yellow-water Cruise - not specifically a bird cruise, and in fact nobody seemed that interested in the birds (just more boring crocs ho hum... :-) but I got to see a lot of birds including some special ones like this .
95) Saw a couple of new honeyeaters in the Kakadu that are pretty much local only - the Bar-breasted Honeyeater here had a nest over the water, and I saw her hawking insects and returning to the nest to feed chicks - very cool. Pretty stripes too. Nest shot below. She was the only one of them that I saw.
96) The Rufous-banded Honeyeaters were quite common thoough, and I had a few cracks at photographing them .Subtly beautiful slender little honeyeaters .
97) Finally we get to Sue's lorikeets :-) First is this Red-Collared Lorikeet - basically the replacement for our Rainbow Lorikeet, and until recently a subspecies only. Now declared a full species in its own right, you can tell the difference by the orange or red nape, whereas our Rainbow has a lime-green nape. Or you can just say "I'm in the Kakadu, and therefore that is a Red-Collared (the ranges don't overlap)
98) And yes, a little clown-like, our next lorikeet is the Varied Lorikeet - a lifer for me, and a very exciting inclusion in a mixed flock with the Red-Collared above. What a funky parrot, and a strict top end specialist.
99) Green Pygmy-goose. I'd been hoping to see these, and indeed they were all over Yellow Water. They generally kept their distance though, and with the very dark eye on dark feathered head I found them hard to photograph. I eventually got a couple of OK shots.
100) And for my century, another lifer and a super cool exciting bird for me - the Comb-crested Jacana. I've long known and loved the African Jacana, but if anything this little guy is even more special. Look at those feet! They would give me nightmares if they were attached to me. But very useful if I could ever learn to use them without falling flat on my face, I reckon you'd need the wings to avoid that. Anyway, I'm really pleased with the first photo, and the second just cos I love Jacanas, and he seems to be consulting his reflection - "who is the fairest Jacana of all?" You are, petal.
Thanks Dev & Sue - appreciated :-) Yes, we got lucky with the weather in the end, and I was able to get in a good few birding walks by myself before the family woke up, so was lucky to get some great birds. I did wonder how the Green Pygmy-geese survived on the water, there were a LOT of crocs. More birds to come soon, but here is one of the locals for a bit of variety.
Thanks Dale, appreciated :-) Looks like it is going to be wet all weekend (we are getting some great rain in Sydney, as well as the rest of the east coast, hooray!) so I can hopefully finish processing my NT birds and get some more up on the weekend.
OK, rainy day, have managed finally to complete processing my NT birds. A couple of poor EBC shots that I will keep to myself in the hope of getting better pics locally, but here are the rest, including some ordinary shots of birds that I can't replace in NSW.
101) Great Bowerbird - not the best shot, but it will do. These spectacular birds are quite common across the top end - but I was struggling badly with a fogged lens at the time, and this is the best shot I got of him
102) Little Corella - also common across the top end (and much of Australia). They formed great squawking flocks in the evenings going home to roost, as the flying foxes blackened the sky coming on to their evening shift. Made for some spectacular sunset viewing (but too hard to photograph). In the day, they would break up into small social groups and forage in the grasses.
103) Brush Cuckoo - he was perched on the tallest stick on the tallest tree for miles, singing his heart out, which is how I found him. a very long distance shot and mega-crop. These are apparently a local ssp. dumetorum, a slightly smaller version resident in the NT, unlike our more familiar ssp. variolosus which flies north to PNG for the winter.
As before, there are few factsheets for NT-specific birds, so if I don't post one there wasn't one available.
104) Spangled Drongo - fairly common for my QLD friends, but I've never seen one so was very excited to see them all over our motel grounds. Gee they make a racket! Very striking birds, never caught one in the sunlight which is a pity
105) Shining Flycatcher - the final flycatcher in my flycatcher masterclass :-) I saw a few of these beautiful birds, both male (pure black) and the cinnamon & black female, including at a nest, so here are a few photos.
While cleaning up I found a couple of photos that I preferred to those already posted, so have a bonus Crimson Finch and a better Yellow Oriole showing the front clearly.
And the last few from the NT, I'll close out with 3 lifers for me:
106) Red-winged Parrot. I get super excited about new parrots! And now I have a Red-winged to go with my Blue-winged from Tassie. I saw these two females (no males, which are more spectacular by the look of it) at Pine Creek on the roadside.
107) Bush Stone-curlew. I flushed 3 of them on an early morning walk, and they made themselves scarce before I could life the camera. I've wanted to see them for so long, and I was really disappointed. But coming back to camp the next day they were on the roadside, and using the car as a hide I got some decent shots. What striking birds they are.
108) Jabiru (Black-necked Stork) - this is the bird I most wanted to see in the NT, and after a few missed opportunities this guy was kind enough to give me a few cracks at capturing him on film. Awesome, iconic birds, shot about 50kms from the town of Jabiru :-)
And that it is for the NT trip - despite my initial dispair about the rain, it turned out to be very productive and hugely enjoyable, so don't be put off by the off-season, it is definitely worth visiting in the wet as well as the dry
Fantastic shots, Alex... I want to go there again. Cannot choose a favourite as all good. I do think the female Shining Flycatcher is more comely than the male.
You miscounted and used 103 twice so you actually have one bird more in your count. Well done.
Some great shots there Alex. Love the Flycatchders and the Jabiru is a favourite of mine. I think the great Bowerbird photo turned out pretty nice. Not the perfect habitat but still a clear shot and one I would be happy with for sure.
Oh my word Alex, you've got some amazing captures here, I would be on cloud 109 just seeing some of these. Do you have a favourite so far for the year?
Thanks all for the kind comments. Annie, its so hard to pick favourites! I love the little Comb-crested Jacana - but probably like my Cattle Egret & matching cow (Egret Cattle) shot best as I love a good visual pun :-)
The recent rains have filled our local ponds, and the birds are coming back quickly, hooray! It was so depressing over Christmas, but the grass is knee high, the trees are recovering well, and the Avocets and Stilts are back. Here is a bonus Red-necked Avocet (repeat) and #109 Pied Stilt (Black-winged Stilt).
Some more locals from the Landing Lights Wetland and surrounds:
110) Red-whiskered Bulbul. These are very common in this area, with their distinctive chirruping call and cheeky crests. I think they love the local market garden produce.
111) Red-browed Finch - the rains have brought them back, and they are in all the hedges and darting out to feed on the grass. They can be quite confiding, but it took me a while to get one in the right light and pose.
Bonus White-faced Heron (39) just because I like them (and this shot)
112) Australian White Ibis. The poor bin chicken is much derided - but when you see them in their proper element, they are quite a beautiful bird
113) Sacred Kingfisher - I was quite excited to see one of these at the wetlands - didn't get close so this is a big crop, I hope to get more chances to see and photograph them.
114) Chestnut Teal. One of the more common waterbirds, but I find it quite hard to take good photos of them. Finally got some good light, proximity and a bit of action for these two shots. Now to work on an exciting Grey Teal shot!
115) Yellow-rumped Thornbill. Thornbills are my nemesis, most of them just flit about the treetops, incessantly in motion and so far away its difficult to see what they are, let alone capture any kind of shot. But these Yellow-rumped are the largest of the thornbills, and often come down to the grass to feed, so if you are patient along the edge of trees and grass, you can get a few opportunities.
75) Orange-footed Scrubfowl - I'd really been hoping to see one of these - and they were common as brush turkeys are in Sydney, so I saw a few .
76) Radjah Shelduck - got a fleeting glimpse of this guy before he took off into the rain. Quite an unusual looking duck .
And then it was off to Fogg Dam for a morning. Bit diappointing really, after all the hype it was really quiet, not many birds around. Apparently with the heavy rains, the birds have dispersed and I should come back in the dry. OK, I'm up for that. But I did get one very special bird there as compensation:
77) Crimson Finch - a lifer for me. What a spectacular little bird!
Wow, lots there I don't have. Looking at some pics I think Sue is correct with Grey Whistler. I'll put it as your number 74. Great set of photos and that Crimson finch!
I'm just catching up with all of your photos at once now and wow, what a portfolio.
It's so great to see the difference between our collections of birds from state to state, travel is obviously a factor in the ultimate number of birds we come up with. You've got so much variety and really interesting endemics, loving your photography.
Thanks for the descriptions of how you came about the photos, I haven't been adding much detail but it is fascinating to read yours so maybe I should follow suit...nice work!
78) Grey Whistler - one of those serendipitous shots which I'd misidentified, and Sue and Dev were kind enough to point out that this is a completely new bird to me - how exciting! He was together with some White-bellied Cuckooshrikes, but looking at him again, I can clearly see Sue and Dev are right, it is quite a different bird. Interestingly, female Golden Whistlers often stump me as well - I need to get better with that shape.
79) Leaden Flycatcher (female). This one took me some time to sort out - nearly indistinguishable from the Broad-billed Flycatcher which is only found in this region - but the latter apparently has slightly more graduation in the lengths of its tail feathers, and this little beauty is a female of the more widespread Leaden Flycatcher.
The NT was a bit of a masterclass in flycatchers for me, there were more flycatchers than you could shake a stick at, from the ubiquitous Willie Wagtail to ones I'd never seen like the Lemon-breasted. And given the density of the flies up there and their propensity for flying into your eyeballs and up your nose, I was having fantasies about tame flycatchers. Wouldn't it be cool to have a couple of flycatchers on each shoulder, picking the flies off you and allowing you to concentrate on photography? Haha - things you think about while being tortured by flies...
Thanks for the nice comments and ID assistance, Sue & Dev. Danika, thanks for the comments, appreciated. Yes, travelling certainly does help with variety - just about everythign I saw in the NT was a different species to those in Sydney. I'm lucky enough to travel across the country for work, and often manage to sneak off for a few hours to take photos, or else extend by a day or two for more interesting trips. Yes, it would be great to know more about the birds you are posting, about you, your photography & gear, whatever - its about us and our Big Years, not just the birds, so please do post up anything you care to share, we are really interested :-)
Apologies, Alex, not wishing to steal you post but for comparison, here is a picture of a Broad-billed Flycatcher which shows the undertail really well. Also note that you skipped 74 as Dev pointed out earlier so you might want to post one more. Love all the shots and stories... send a Flycatcher my way for the midges.
That was all Sue, I merely just researched what she said and confirmed. I've never been up that way so they are all new to me
Oops - thanks for that catch Dev, I did miss #74.
Let me replace it here with a poor EBC shot, which I'll include as another lifer for me that I only discovered in reviewing photos. I never got a really good view of it, and couldn't ID at the time, just a few hurried photos - but I believe this is a Varied Triller. What a pity I couldn't enjoy watching it for a bit longer.
And back to the regular p[rogram. Managed to process a few more from the NT last night.
80) the regular crow/raven in the NT is the Torresian Crow - very similar to the familiar Australian Raven in looks and behaviour. Something I noted with a lot of birds in the extreme heat and humidity was that they walked or sat with their beaks open, trying to get cool - they obviously suffer in the heat like we do.
81) Bar-shouldered Dove - these were the common doves in the north, very pretty.
82) Intermediate Egret. These were a surprise, as they are quite rare down South, but they were the most common egret in the wetlands and waterways of the Kakadu, and I saw hundreds of them foraging in the reeds around Yellow Water. You can distinguish them from the similar Great Egret by the shorter neck and black legs below the knees, as well as the lovely wispy plumes. No fact sheet
83) Little Friarbird were reasonably common across Darwin and the Kakadu
84) The Blue-faced Honeyeater is one of my favourite honeyeaters, such dramatic colouring. I finally got a shot I quite like showing that gorgous blue and contrasting yellow eye.
85) The White-throated Honeyeater was a new bird for me - very neat, striking honeyeater. No fact sheet
86) Eastern Koel - a more familiar bird, I heard them calling all over the NT. Finally caught one in the open eating palm berries at Cooinda. This is the male bird.
87) Blue-winged Kookaburra. We kept hearing a dreadful racket outside our accommodation, and I went out several times before finding out who it was. These guys make a very different sound to our Laughing Kookaburras, but once you know what it is, you can hear the resemblance. Very cool birds indeed, and something I've wanted to see for a long time.
Fantastic series of shots, Alex so difficult to choose a favourite... maybe Crimson Finch & Blue-winged Kookaburra. They do make a fantastic noise! Can confirm the Varied Triller, maybe a female. Great to hear the stories around each one. Seems the trip & new camera gear were successful on several levels. Surprised no Red-collared Lorrikeet as yet. Great work.
Thanks Sue, appreciated :-) Yes, I'm so enjoung the new camera and lens. They aren't magic, I still stuff up a lot, but my keeper rate has soared, and as I'm understanding the camera more I'm slowly getting better quality too.
I heard and saw Red-collared Lorikeet often, but had surprisingly few opportunities to photograph them. I think I did get some EBC-type shots - still have a lot to process. More excitingly I know I got some shots of a completely new lorikeet for me.
Glad it ended up,ok for you Alex. I can only repeat comments from others, well done on a great set.
Dale Huonville, Tasmania
I am looking forward to the new Lorrikeet... clownish perhaps? I like that Blue-faced Honeyeater as well and you are getting some nice bokeh in your shots.
Some more from Kakadu - what an awesome place for birds, even in the off season. I reckon a serious birder could clock up some big numbers here - photographing them is a little trickier. So lets start this session with a batch of EBC shots - ones that are poor but I'm posting anyway because who knows if I'll get to see one again this year ?
88) Brolga. I've so wanted to see one and never have - well, I finally did, but it was about a kilometer away! So here is a super zoomed and then super-cropped Brolga, until I see one again.
89) Yellow Oriole - I thought this was my familiar Olive-backed Oriole, but the tummy looked very yellow - and it is indeed a Yellow Oriole, a lifer for me and a very poor photo! I had a lot of fun trying to photograph them, as did they - they wouldn't fly away, just played ring-a-ring-a-rosies with me around the trees. He would peek out, see me & retreat. I'd go around the other way, and he'd be peering around the trunk waiting for me, then would hop away again. Rinse & repeat until I got tired. This happened with several different birds, they are all in on the game.
90) Little Kingfisher - a very poor shot - taken at long range from a fast-moving boat, I had one chance and blew it. It is a top-end only bird and quite rare though, so I'm going to include it anyway as it is identifiable
Okay - back to normal photos.
91) Pied Cormorant - a bird I've seen a lot, so tried for something different with a BIF shot. Getting there slowly.
92) Australasian Darter (female) - another common bird in typical pose
93) Paperbark Flycatcher - another new flycatcher for me, typically neat, beautiful and not scared of people. I'd struggle to distinguish them from the Restless Flycatcher, but there is no overlap in their ranges in the Kakadu, don't you love that? :-)
Nice lot of birds Alex. Remember half the fun is the chase... it took me years to get a decent shot of a Little Kingfisher despite many efforts in Cairns and NT. I was told where to find them but they seemed to be holidaying whenever I was about.
94) Great-billed Heron - saw this guy on a very productive Yellow-water Cruise - not specifically a bird cruise, and in fact nobody seemed that interested in the birds (just more boring crocs ho hum... :-) but I got to see a lot of birds including some special ones like this .
95) Saw a couple of new honeyeaters in the Kakadu that are pretty much local only - the Bar-breasted Honeyeater here had a nest over the water, and I saw her hawking insects and returning to the nest to feed chicks - very cool. Pretty stripes too. Nest shot below. She was the only one of them that I saw.
96) The Rufous-banded Honeyeaters were quite common thoough, and I had a few cracks at photographing them .Subtly beautiful slender little honeyeaters .
Now, I am jealous... you got 'Great Bill' and I miss him every time... it flies off as I appear. Great shots.
97) Finally we get to Sue's lorikeets :-) First is this Red-Collared Lorikeet - basically the replacement for our Rainbow Lorikeet, and until recently a subspecies only. Now declared a full species in its own right, you can tell the difference by the orange or red nape, whereas our Rainbow has a lime-green nape. Or you can just say "I'm in the Kakadu, and therefore that is a Red-Collared (the ranges don't overlap)
98) And yes, a little clown-like, our next lorikeet is the Varied Lorikeet - a lifer for me, and a very exciting inclusion in a mixed flock with the Red-Collared above. What a funky parrot, and a strict top end specialist.
99) Green Pygmy-goose. I'd been hoping to see these, and indeed they were all over Yellow Water. They generally kept their distance though, and with the very dark eye on dark feathered head I found them hard to photograph. I eventually got a couple of OK shots.
100) And for my century, another lifer and a super cool exciting bird for me - the Comb-crested Jacana. I've long known and loved the African Jacana, but if anything this little guy is even more special. Look at those feet! They would give me nightmares if they were attached to me. But very useful if I could ever learn to use them without falling flat on my face, I reckon you'd need the wings to avoid that. Anyway, I'm really pleased with the first photo, and the second just cos I love Jacanas, and he seems to be consulting his reflection - "who is the fairest Jacana of all?" You are, petal.
And with 100 not out, I'm retiring for the night. A few more to come, but it may take a few days to process & post.
I'm impressed, speechless and extremely jealous. Well done Alex!
Thanks Dev & Sue - appreciated :-) Yes, we got lucky with the weather in the end, and I was able to get in a good few birding walks by myself before the family woke up, so was lucky to get some great birds. I did wonder how the Green Pygmy-geese survived on the water, there were a LOT of crocs. More birds to come soon, but here is one of the locals for a bit of variety.
Like Dev, I am also jealous, you posting some impressive birds, and great photos. Thanks.
Dale Huonville, Tasmania
Thanks Dale, appreciated :-) Looks like it is going to be wet all weekend (we are getting some great rain in Sydney, as well as the rest of the east coast, hooray!) so I can hopefully finish processing my NT birds and get some more up on the weekend.
OK, rainy day, have managed finally to complete processing my NT birds. A couple of poor EBC shots that I will keep to myself in the hope of getting better pics locally, but here are the rest, including some ordinary shots of birds that I can't replace in NSW.
101) Great Bowerbird - not the best shot, but it will do. These spectacular birds are quite common across the top end - but I was struggling badly with a fogged lens at the time, and this is the best shot I got of him
102) Little Corella - also common across the top end (and much of Australia). They formed great squawking flocks in the evenings going home to roost, as the flying foxes blackened the sky coming on to their evening shift. Made for some spectacular sunset viewing (but too hard to photograph). In the day, they would break up into small social groups and forage in the grasses.
103) Brush Cuckoo - he was perched on the tallest stick on the tallest tree for miles, singing his heart out, which is how I found him. a very long distance shot and mega-crop. These are apparently a local ssp. dumetorum, a slightly smaller version resident in the NT, unlike our more familiar ssp. variolosus which flies north to PNG for the winter.
As before, there are few factsheets for NT-specific birds, so if I don't post one there wasn't one available.
104) Spangled Drongo - fairly common for my QLD friends, but I've never seen one so was very excited to see them all over our motel grounds. Gee they make a racket! Very striking birds, never caught one in the sunlight which is a pity
105) Shining Flycatcher - the final flycatcher in my flycatcher masterclass :-) I saw a few of these beautiful birds, both male (pure black) and the cinnamon & black female, including at a nest, so here are a few photos.
While cleaning up I found a couple of photos that I preferred to those already posted, so have a bonus Crimson Finch and a better Yellow Oriole showing the front clearly.
And the last few from the NT, I'll close out with 3 lifers for me:
106) Red-winged Parrot. I get super excited about new parrots! And now I have a Red-winged to go with my Blue-winged from Tassie. I saw these two females (no males, which are more spectacular by the look of it) at Pine Creek on the roadside.
107) Bush Stone-curlew. I flushed 3 of them on an early morning walk, and they made themselves scarce before I could life the camera. I've wanted to see them for so long, and I was really disappointed. But coming back to camp the next day they were on the roadside, and using the car as a hide I got some decent shots. What striking birds they are.
108) Jabiru (Black-necked Stork) - this is the bird I most wanted to see in the NT, and after a few missed opportunities this guy was kind enough to give me a few cracks at capturing him on film. Awesome, iconic birds, shot about 50kms from the town of Jabiru :-)
And that it is for the NT trip - despite my initial dispair about the rain, it turned out to be very productive and hugely enjoyable, so don't be put off by the off-season, it is definitely worth visiting in the wet as well as the dry
Fantastic shots, Alex... I want to go there again. Cannot choose a favourite as all good. I do think the female Shining Flycatcher is more comely than the male.
You miscounted and used 103 twice so you actually have one bird more in your count. Well done.
Thanks Sue - I fixed the count .
Looks like you and your new camera gear are getting along quite nicely. Some lovely photos Alex. Thanks
Dale Huonville, Tasmania
Some great shots there Alex. Love the Flycatchders and the Jabiru is a favourite of mine. I think the great Bowerbird photo turned out pretty nice. Not the perfect habitat but still a clear shot and one I would be happy with for sure.
Oh my word Alex, you've got some amazing captures here, I would be on cloud 109 just seeing some of these. Do you have a favourite so far for the year?
West Coast Tasmania
Thanks all for the kind comments. Annie, its so hard to pick favourites! I love the little Comb-crested Jacana - but probably like my Cattle Egret & matching cow (Egret Cattle) shot best as I love a good visual pun :-)
The recent rains have filled our local ponds, and the birds are coming back quickly, hooray! It was so depressing over Christmas, but the grass is knee high, the trees are recovering well, and the Avocets and Stilts are back. Here is a bonus Red-necked Avocet (repeat) and #109 Pied Stilt (Black-winged Stilt).
Some more locals from the Landing Lights Wetland and surrounds:
110) Red-whiskered Bulbul. These are very common in this area, with their distinctive chirruping call and cheeky crests. I think they love the local market garden produce.
111) Red-browed Finch - the rains have brought them back, and they are in all the hedges and darting out to feed on the grass. They can be quite confiding, but it took me a while to get one in the right light and pose.
Bonus White-faced Heron (39) just because I like them (and this shot)
Still at the Landing Lights
112) Australian White Ibis. The poor bin chicken is much derided - but when you see them in their proper element, they are quite a beautiful bird
113) Sacred Kingfisher - I was quite excited to see one of these at the wetlands - didn't get close so this is a big crop, I hope to get more chances to see and photograph them.
114) Chestnut Teal. One of the more common waterbirds, but I find it quite hard to take good photos of them. Finally got some good light, proximity and a bit of action for these two shots. Now to work on an exciting Grey Teal shot!
115) Yellow-rumped Thornbill. Thornbills are my nemesis, most of them just flit about the treetops, incessantly in motion and so far away its difficult to see what they are, let alone capture any kind of shot. But these Yellow-rumped are the largest of the thornbills, and often come down to the grass to feed, so if you are patient along the edge of trees and grass, you can get a few opportunities.
Gorgeous photos Alex, and looks like a young Sacred Kingfisher with that scalloped chest?
HI Karen - thanks :-) Yes, good call, the juvenile Sacred Kingfishers have a distinctly scalloped buff chest, as evidenced in that shot.
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