Birds from Australia.

Here you can see just how close the nest is to the roof.

# 20

2 out so far.
The one on the top right looks hungry.
He is trying to eat his leg/worm.

# 21

This was the next day.
You can see the first two now have down.
The third one still has white things like feathers.

# 22

oh how neat Ginger. I have seen the wagtails when I went to Finland in 2001. Acutally I saw 90 species of birds. Had 2 nice men for the birding groups there take me birdwatching. I toured all around Turku with Dr Leto and another day Helsinki with a businessman. I hate I forget his name. They were both so great to take the time to show me around

We will be all eyes, watching that little bundle grow!

Thanks ginger for the inside view!

Here is mum back on the young.
I never saw the male sit on the young only the eggs.

# 23

Ginger, Do you have any Schaft Tail finches?
Mickey

This is a neat Idea for a bird feeder,
3 pieces of 2"x 5" on a few bricks,
A bit of seed and stand back. Walla!!

# 24

Schaft Tail finches.
MickeyAz, I`m not big on names.
Show us a pic. and I`ll tell you.
Yesterday while up the mountain
I did see at least 3 kinds of finches
not sure what any of them were.
But if there was a keen interest
I would try to take some Pics. and include them here. Kell

Shaft-tail Finch

http://www.efinch.com/species/shaft.htm

Now I can look up which parrots they are, Australian King-parrot, underneath a Crimson Rosella? You are so lucky to have those flying free!

No wallaby1,
I have Never seen this bird in the wild.
Do you have it in captivity ?
I see it is banded.

No I don't have it, but I didn't ask the question! I don'tknow where it originates from..

In the 'Additional notes' it states "The Shaft-tail finch is very similar to another Australian Grassfinch, the Parson or Black Throated finch (Poephila cincta). "

It would appear interbreeding goes on.

We do have the shafttails here in the states in captivity. Sold at most local bird sales.
I have owned some, but no luck breeding them myself.

interbreeding /
Would that be in the wild or in cages?
I don`t know any one near me who breed Finches,
So I can`t even ask any of the locals.

So if once you have a pair of these,
Will they breed TRUE?
Or as so many cross breeds do .
Will they revert back ?

This statement is on the above site

"The most notable difference is the Parson has a shorter tail and black beak. The two should not be housed together. In spite of the beak color, which is often a sexual trigger and species indicator, the two species will hybridize. It has been reported that the hybrids are fertile. The same has been reported for the Masked Grassfinch (Poephila personata) so Shafttails should not be housed with them either."

Sorry wallaby1
I got a bit lost in the threads.
I see now it was MickeyAz,
Who asked the question.

wallaby1
Thanks for the last post.
That answers all my questions.
I will now endeavour to hunt down a breeder in my area
and try to get some Pics.

A "Birds Eye View" of the feeder.

# 25

Sleeping soundly.

# 26

Taken up the mountain yesterday.

# 27

Here`s a completely new one.
This Bird flew into my Studio this afternoon.
Don`t know naught about It.
I took about 20 Pics. of IT, Then let it go.
Any one know what it could be ???

# 28


This message was edited Jan 6, 2007 8:01 PM

The Regent Honeyeater looks close, the female has the warty skin under the eye. It could be a young bird, it's difficult to know what other colouring it has by the pic.

http://birdsinbackyards.net/finder/display.cfm?id=153

Maybe this Pic. will show some more colour ?

# 29


This message was edited Jan 7, 2007 3:58 AM

It was a little more still in this Pic.

# 30

The description of the regent Honeyeater goes:

"The striking Regent Honeyeater has a black head, neck and upper breast, a lemon yellow back and breast scaled black, with the underparts grading into a white rump, black wings with conspicuous yellow patches, and a black tail edged yellow. In males, the dark eye is surrounded by yellowish warty bare skin. Females are smaller, with a bare yellowish patch under the eye only, and have less black on the throat.

Young birds resemble females, but are browner and have a paler bill. This species is gregarious, moving in flocks. It bobs its head when calling."

It could be a young bird, I separated that part as it mentions 'browner' 'paler bill'

Thank you wallaby1
That gives me a place to start looking.
It may be endemic to Australia ?
It never came back the rest of the day.
It could have been lost and saw my friendly looking studio,
And decided to drop in and say hello.
I`ll look out for it today.

It is rare and endangered, now only found from the Northern parts of Victoria into Sthn QLD, it seems less than 1500 birds left. It doesn't seem to fit anything else, it's the warty skin under the eye which picks it out from others.

I am looking for a pic of a juvenile bird, haven't found one but this site show several pics. The white under the wings isn't mentioned either.

http://photogallery.canberrabirds.org.au/Honeyeaters.htm#WPHE

http://www.birdsaustralia.com.au/birds/regent.html

http://photogallery.canberrabirds.org.au/images/Honeyeater_Regent2_Dabb.jpg
This one seems to be getting close.

Yes I think we are looking at a young bird, I looked through others and this is looking like the one. Besides no others I saw have the warty skin under the eye.

It's rare, so look after it! A young bird is more likely to get 'lost' in your studio too.

I did learn one other thing from your links.
I was holding the bird wrong.
It would appear one holds its legs only.
I had it in one hand and the camera in the other.
and didn`t want to loose it before I got some Pics.
Oh well all history now.
It looked like an angel as it was flying off.
With all that white under the wings. Kell

That's the beauty of DG, we can all learn so much just by our interest.

I think not many people could say they have had one of those in their hands anyway.

I wonder if you could contact a bird organisation to check it out, they may appreciate knowing where these birds are.

This message was edited Jan 6, 2007 8:24 PM

Not sure if there is a Bird forum in Aus ?

Ginger, I'm just gonna hijack your thread. I'm too big a chicken to start another one for this. LOL

For the rest of you, here are a few bird pics taken at work yesterday.

pic 1

pic 2. Oh yeah, I was dared to start my own thread with this but decided to use this one instead. Who knows, these birds might live in Aust too. LOL

Almost as colourfull as our Aussie Parrots .
Cheep to feed as well.

Here are some more.

Last one needs to go on a diet ?

Another

One more and I am done.

LOL, yeah, they are cheap to feed!! That's why we have those in there instead of real ones.