Bird Watching: DAILY PICS VOL. 24, 1 by kennedyh

kennedyh wrote:
Pelle has asked me to kick off the next volume of our Daily Birds chronicle, so here we go! This new thread is a continuation from this one: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/778168/

Last Saturday I was helping in a plant survey of Dutson Downs, here in Victoria, Australia. As we drove in to the first site, we came on a flock of White-browed Woodswallows (Artamus superciliosus), hawking for insect and landing now and then on the barbed wire fence between the bush and a paddock. I got the driver to stop and I took a couple of pictures, but I was the wrong side of the car and good not get very close. An hour or two later we came back the same way and I was now on the right side to photograph from the car. We edged fairly close and I managed this picture of a male White-browed Wood-swallow. These lovely birds are not common in my area. We usually only see the Dusky wood-swallow (Artamus cyanopterus), so I was very pleased at this, my first chance to photograph White-browed Woodswallows in the wild.
Despite the name, these are not closely related to swallows, but like swallow, they hawk for insects on the wing, although unlike swallows, they frequently perch between short feeding flights. Here is the White-browed Wood-swallow

This message was edited Oct 14, 2007 10:41 PM