Our great southern migration

  The bottlebrush bloomed and the birds arrived en masse. Friday morning Scott came to get me - I needed to see what was going on in the "formal garden". We have two of these trees in the garden and the nectar-eating birds were busy. The initial pair of rainbow lorikeets permitted some birds to join them but many got relegated to other trees. The satin bowerbird seemed to be okay picking cherry blossoms to either eat or to decorate his bower: The yellow-faced  (below) and Lewin's honeyeaters were not too cowed and stayed sipping nectar The silvereyes occasionally popped over but mostly stayed in the pencil willow  This cutie popped up in the bay tree We saw an old friend! This was the first time we sighted a scarlet honeyeater on our farm.  The welcome swallows were buzzing around  as were the red wattlebirds We heard the gang-gangs fly past- no pics.  Our usual garden tenants, the crimson rosellas, were not to be seen that morning. They were back this morn...

  This guy was sitting across the river, waiting to be noticed. We were carefully watching the river for platypus (none seen) and then looked up to see him preening. Flame robin!  This small one is a scarlet honeyeater - they don't sit still very long and develop the red heads over time (like goldfinches turning more golden) Another small one with red parts - red-browed firetail finch. They are even smaller and are typically on the ground. One of the first small birds I chased down with the camera. This pic is one of Scott's.  Scott saw a firetail finch without a red brow as we were investigating a park in Victoria, Aus. However, I missed the shot and we didn't find it again. And this guy has a red butt - red-rumped parrot. We saw this particular parrot at Aunt Berenice's farm but found more on travels through Victoria We are currently in Goolwa, South Australia. To get to this state, we passed from New South Wales and through Victoria. We stopped at two cities along th...

  The bird life is truly amazing. The black cockatoos are hard to spot! They do have bright red in their tail and we have seen that a couple of times: This one is more convincing; however, the bird looks like one of those books where you combine head, torso and legs to make new creatures.  The sulfur crested cockatoos were on the power line when I first saw them. Not hiding. They weren't too shy and moved to a more picturesque location for me. ********************************************************** Addendum - Scott found the scarlet honeyeater again! And it left again. Looking a bit like a tiny superman, I think