Over the past week there’s finally been some decent rain around the Bellarine, and the weather seems more appropriate considering winter is just around the corner.
Unfortunately the rain hasn’t fallen where it is desperately needed in the west of the state.
I’ve spent more time than usual looking at birds in my garden recently.
To help me with monitoring garden birds I recently invested in a ‘BirdWeather PUC’, which is a small device that detects bird calls. It’s been interesting process getting the device set up, and it communicates with an app on my phone and generates a list of bird species that are detected.
I must say that some of the species that it lists I have never seen anywhere near my garden, such as a European greenfinch, so I’m not sure if there’s a bird that sounds similar that the device is wrongly identifying.
A large flock of little corella flew over the house calling raucously, and the device didn’t register anything, which was quite disappointing. Another time two eastern spinebills were drinking at the birdbath and because they didn’t call, the device didn’t register their presence.
There have been great egrets and cattle egrets registered, which is quite possible if they were calling while flying over the house. On the subject of birds flying over the house I did see a whistling kite fly overhead during the week, which was lovely.
I’ve had a pair of spotted pardalotes hanging around my garden. Usually they are high in the tree canopy feeding on insects, so they are difficult to photograph, but this pair have been feeding off autumn leaves on the ground.
The female of the pair (with the lighter plumage coloration) has been skimming along my windows feeding off insects on spider webs, which I’ve never noticed them doing before. I was a bit worried that the bird would crash into my windows, but it’s just been flying along the windows, so there have been no injuries. It’s been great to be able to observe these beautiful birds at close quarters.
In the paddocks near Jenelle Crescent in Ocean Grove, near Oakdene Estate, I noticed a male flame robin a few weeks ago and thought that an Australian hobby might have scared it off. I noticed the flame robin had moved further east, which is precisely where I spotted one of these birds last winter. And the same as last year when I tried to photograph this beautiful bird it flew off into the gardens surrounding the paddock and wouldn’t let me anywhere near it, which is precisely how it should behave when being wary in its environment.
The other bird I have been photographing recently was the little wattlebird, which is not as common in Ocean Grove compared to the larger red wattlebird. There’s a garden around the corner from my house that has a lovely pinkish-red grevillea, and the little wattlebirds are loving the nectar from the flowers. I hope the residents of the house aren’t too annoyed by my constant loitering outside their garden.
Neil from Ocean Grove has been getting back into photography after two hip replacements. He has been trying to photograph lorikeets in flight.
“They are like bullets so no chance picking them up and panning,” he said. “I have the camera on tripod pre-focussed just above a natural tree ‘bath’ high in the front garden. I sit in a chair and when I see something out of the corner of my eye I press the shutter and shoot nine frames a second. I need a new mirrorless that does 30 frames per second.”
Neil said the squabbling between musks and rainbows was hilarious.
