Anyone who's been reading this site should have figured out by now that we like birds. (Well, to be truthful, one of us really likes birds and the other has a vague passing interest.)
It's difficult to get excited about mammals. Most of our native ones are nocturnal and hard to find, and there aren't that many of them left anyway. (Foxes and feral cats are a serious problem.) To get anywhere with fish you have to impale them on a hook, and hope they survive when you set them free. Then there are reptiles. Unfortunately, they are often hard to get a good look at since they usually subscribe to the Monty Python philosophy: "Run awy! Run away!". Probably just as well since it's almost impossible to tell the difference between the ones that can kill you and the ones that don't. Bugs, now there are plenty of them, but who could hope to idenify one out of over three-quarters of a million different species?
Our enthusiasm waxes and wanes. (How did wax end up with that meaning?) Take ravens as an example. There are half a dozen species of them and they all look the same. Sometimes it's easy to pick which one, because there are areas in which only one species exists. Sometimes we're lazy, and they're all just noisy crows. Occasionally we're in an area where just two species overlap, and we take the time to discern the difference between their calls and identify them that way. Mostly they're just noisy crows.
There are lots of birds that are almost impossible to identify. We allocate them into a pair of generic species classifications, greyous nondescriptous and brownous nondescriptous. If we're really enthusiastic about it, we might allocate them into their respective sub-species, greater and lesser. Fortunately, Australia is blessed with plenty of colourful birds that are easy to identify.
Like many people, when we make a positive identification for the first time, we annotate it in our bird book. We've been doing this for almost ten years, and amazingly, we still make annotations. We carry two bird books, Simpson & Day that we've had for ages, and we've recently aquired Micheal Morcombe (which is an excellent book). We recently aquired an Australian Mammals book too, but we've yet to determine how useful it will be.
We have some favourite birds. Major mitchell and gang gangs are very nice parrots, and oystercatchers are a nice seabird. Eagles are awesome raptors, but most of the raptors are impressive. Firetails are always fun to spot, and the honeyeaters are common companions. Corellas are probably the noisiest (yes, worse than crows).
There are some interesting puzzles, for which we are seeking answers. For example, why is it that so many seagulls have damaged or missing feet/legs? Why is it that even the experts cannot remotely agree on the classification of quail species?
From time to time we manage to snap off a decent photo (if they sit still long enough).
Some make it into the website, and others make it into the gallery.
As we have a slight green tinge to our attitudes (and voting), we believe in reuse and recycling.
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Sometimes we make lists of the birds we see. Some, like the list from our test drive, are still in use as bookmarks in the bird book. What else might we do with those lists.....
Kakadu
northern rainbow lorikeet, pheasant coucal, blue winged kookaburra,
forest kingfisher, azure kingfisher, collared kingfisher, silver crowned friarbird,
grey crowned babbler, lemon bellied flycatcher, shining flycatcher, leaden flycatcher,
spangled drongo, olive backed oriole, doubled barred finch, crimson finch,
red backed fairy wren, partridge pigeon, rainbow pitta, orange footed scrubfowl,
darter, pied cormorant, black cormorant, magpie goose, magpie lark, raja shelduck,
pacific black duck, green pygmy goose, plumed whistling duck, wandering whistling duck,
purple swamphen, pied herons, pacific heron, cattle egret, great egret, intermediate egret,
rufous night heron, royal spoonbill, glossy ibis, white ibis, straw necked ibis,
jabiru, brolga, comb crested jacana, masked lapwing, black fronted dotterel, little tern,
whistling kite, sea eagle, peaceful dove, emerald dove, bar shouldered dove,
chestnut quilled rock pigeon, red tailed black cockatoo, sulphur crested cockatoo,
little corella.
Victoria River
black fronted dotterel, white faced blue heron, rainbow bee eater, brown honeyeater,
dusky honeyeater, black chinned honeyeater, chestnut breasted manikin, great bowerbird,
silver crowned friarbird, torresian crow, peaceful dove, dollarbird, sulphur crested cockatoo,
egret, black kite, bar shouldered dove, magpie lark, restless flycatcher.
Desert Loop
crested pigeon, singing honeyeater, black fronted dotterel, red kneed dotterel,
black winged stilt, pink eared duck, orange chat, brown songlark, raven, welcome swallow,
black swallow, brown falcon, galah, corella, crimson chat, white winged fairy wren,
black kite, pelican, black cormorant, seagull, lapwing, night heron, clamorous reedwarbler,
magpie lark, purple swamp hen, eurasion coot, magpie, blue bonnet, richard's pipit,
willie wagtail, zebra finch, black tailed native hen.
Olgas - Uluru
ringneck parrot, mulga parrot, budgerigar, white plumed honeyeater, grey headed honeyeater,
grey fronted honeyeater, zebra finch, pied butcherbird, spiny cheeked honeyeater,
yellow throated miner, nankeen kestrel, whistling kite, western bowerbird,
grey cuckoo shrike.
Test Drive
great cormorant, pied cormorant, black swan, duck, white faced blue heron,
nankeen heron, great egret, australian ibis, brolga, black fronted dotterel,
tern, black kite, wedge tail eagle, brown falcon, peaceful dove, galah,
corella, eastern rosella, budgerigar, cockatiel, ringneck parrot, forest kingfisher,
kookaburra, rainbow bee eater, superb fairy wren, white plumed honeyeater,
yellow throated miner, noisy miner, magpie lark, magpie, black faced cuckoo shrike,
white breasted woodswallow, raven, white winged chough, apostlebird, fairy martin,
swallow, house sparrow, zebra finch, starling, red rumped grass parrot, willie wagtail,
pelican.