Blaxland Birds

The little Willie Wagtail was too big for one page in Linda’s sketch book. Or did she want to wag its tail?

This beautiful sketch by Linda can’t do justice to its real talent, the superb mimicry of the songs of its competitors. Turn the sound up and have a listen:

And yes, we’ve got them on video scratching around our “bird bath” . For far away readers, “wij hebben geen tuin” [ we don’t have a garden], but a national park :-). Anyway, video from behind our house:

My full Lyrebird post here or the boring details on wikipedia.

A lovely rendering of the Red-browed Finch by Linda. One of those little birds that never stops and always looks busy. Too busy to have a drink at our water bowl and pose for the camera…

Birds in Backyards entry

We used to see these a lot when we lived in Kingswood (a while back, …cough). Linda, once you listen to their call you’ll never call them Magpie-larks again….

Magpie-lark in wikipedia

It was so easy for Linda to fall in love with the colours, but what is really striking about these birds is their sheer arrogance. They know they’re beautiful and think they know it all… [this is the couple which breeds in our tree every year]

No love at first sight for the Noisy Friarbird, but Linda did a good job capturing a specimen on her Instagram account . Who needs ugly ducklings when you have Noisy Friarbirds?

The Noisy Friarbird’s call on youtube.
In our backyard and on wikipedia

Hard for me to catch on camera because of their small size and hyper-active behaviour, Linda beautifully captured this couple with her pen and brush.

More:
Birds-in-backyards
Cheeky

We’ve not yet spotted the Crested Pigeon on our “BirdBath” camera, although they do live around our place. Linda‘s bird is keen to impress.

More:
Wikipedia

A familiar sight around our house, although suffering a bit from the seeming epidemic of Sulphur Crested Cockatoos. Linda has the bird “giving us the eye” like they do!

More:
Wikipedia entry
At the water bowl and waiting turns.

Linda has a better bird “eye” then us. This one has escaped us sofar “in the wild”. More about the Eastern Spinebill at Birdsinbackyards.net