Grey goshawk - this was a tremendously exciting find - a bird of prey I have not seen before. I think this is what it is even though the eyes didn't look red because it has the banding high on the breast but not on the tail, the legs and feet are yellow and the beak is black with a yellow base. I couldn't focus amongst the casuarinas but felt lucky to see it.
Grey goshawk
Magpie goose
Egret, probably intermediate - it has the yellow bill of non-breeding intermediate and great, but the greenish face of breeding intermediate and great
Superb fairy wren; male
Superb fairy wren; female
Nice set of photos Birdgirl. I love the Magpie goose. Great photos of the wrens. Your Goshawk is beautiful.
Excellent shots of the waterbirds and wrens Birdgirl. :)
Your raptor is 1000% grey phase Grey Goshawk. They are also in white and different colors interbreed. Well, they are the same species, just color variants. Not common at all. There was a nest in Northmead near Parramatta and a year ago another near Kurrajong, which I did not check this year for activity. :) Well done.
Lovely shots BIrdgirl..... the little female wren is a cracker and they are all beautiful
Sunshine Coast Queensland
Great Egret BTW. The giss looks exactly like it (got more photos just to be safe?)
The way to tell easily (if you can see) between Great and Intermediate Egrets is the gape. In Great the gape extends past the eye and in the Intermediate it does not, it stops under the eye. :)
See Intermediate Egret here:
http://amatteroflight.com/gallery2/d/3347-1/Intermediate-Egret-31.jpg
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And Great Egret here:
http://amatteroflight.com/gallery2/d/3937-1/Eastern-Great-Egret_2561.jpg
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The gapes are clearly visible and distinct in both birds.
Sorry for another post. Maybe in the new boards we will be able to edit our posts.
Next time you see flocks of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos or Corellas, have a close look, because occasionally (especially) white phase Grey Goshawks use the flock as a form of camouflage as they fly around with them then suddenly dash out to attack other bird species. It's a great example of symbiotic behavior! :)
Thanks everyone, it was a good day out. I keep hoping to see a white-bellied sea eagle, which are listed as being there, but I never have. I saw whistling kites, but they were too far away and there was a lot of cloud.
Windhover
Thanks for confirming the grey goshawk. Thanks also for the info on the grey goshawk flying with corellas - we have lots of little aND long-billed around here so I'll look more closely
Thanks also for the info on the egrets - I wasn't sure but picked intermediate because I didn't think it was overly big.
Great shots birdgirl - I love the wrens and the Magpie-goose.
I love grey goshawks - my husband, who is so far from a birdo, still holds over my head the day we had a grey goshawk (white phase) land in our teeny tiny townhouse courtyard years ago. I was upstairs and he came up telling me he had been calling me and had seen this big white hawk-think with orange legs. Of course I knew straight away what it was and showed him a picture in a field guide.
He still says thinks like 'hey remember when I saw that white hawk thing and you didn't'...
I had one land in the garden next door once (white phase)... I was so excited and it really is a beautiful looking bird. I can quite understand why it travels with the Corellas as that is what I thought it was at first.
Sunshine Coast Queensland
I have yet to se my first Grey Goshawk, if ever. You have a good eye spotting it in all that casaurina "pine-needles".
Your other photos are superb as usual :)
Taz
Thanks very much.
Holly, your story made me laugh. My husband always comes back from the model airfield saying he's seen heaps of BOP, but if I go out they have all gone
Great photos Birdgirl2009 :) On the 24th Feb I saw 7 Magpies chasing a Grey Goshawk for over an hour! I thought it was quite amusing. I did feel sorry for the goshawk though!
Elle