Birding on the move

Musk Lorikeet

After a long absence here - I am now back. Sorry about that. Life happens.

Earlier in the year my wife and I travelled to Sydney to stay with our son and his family. While there we have the delight of looking after our two grandchildren during school holidays. Soon I will get around to showing a few of the photos taken on that trip. Mind you, a four-year-old and a seven-year-old are not easy to look after and the birding excursions were limited. I am so thankful that both of them are starting to take an interest in birds. I wonder where that came from?

On our way to returning home to Murray Bridge, we called on our daughter in Clare in the mid-north of South Australia. Over the next two months, we had many trips to and from Clare. These trips were to help our daughter pack up all of her belongings ready for storage at our place. All of her furniture and most of her books and clothing and personal belongings are now in storage in a shipping container in our paddock (see photo below).

During this busy time I had very few opportunities to go birding, or to take photos of birds, and certainly not much time or energy to be writing posts here on this site or on my other site (Trevor's Birding). The photo of  Musk Lorikeet (above) was taken during one brief break from packing and cleaning. 

Every day we were staying with our daughter we heard dozens of Musk Lorikeets feeding in the eucalyptus tree overhanging her back garden. This species is a common parrot here in South Australia and they can be very noisy when feeding. This often happens with loose flocks of many dozens in the one tree. While it is hard to see the green feathers of the bird in the photo, blending in with the leaves, the red feathers on the forehead and crown show up brilliantly.

By the way, I case my readers are curious about it, my daughter's belongings are being stored here at our home while she teaches in Ethiopia for the next two years. Although she has not updated her site since her last visit there a few years ago, you can follow her adventures on Rose's Travel Jottings here. She is planning on updating her travel site regularly. 

And I hope to update this site every week too. 

Musk Lorikeet

Musk Lorikeet

Musk Lorikeets are beautiful little parrots found in many places throughout southern and eastern Australia. They can be noisy when feeding on the flowers of eucalyptus trees. The bird shown above, however, was having a good feed on the buds of an almond tree in my daughter's neighbour's garden.

You can read more about Australian birds, along with many photos of them on my other site, Trevor's Birding.

Beautiful Australian Lorikeets

Red-collared Lorikeets, Adelaide Zoo, South Australia

One of my favourite places to visit is my local zoo in Adelaide, South Australia. The zoo has an excellent collection of birds, both Australian and exotic. There are also several walk through aviaries where the visitor can get up really close to the birds.

The photo of Red-collared Lorikeets was taken in one of the walk through aviaries. I had accidentally timed my visit to coincide with one of the keepers coming to feed the birds. I had "captive" subjects for my camera (in two senses).

Red-collared Lorikeets are a race of the more common Rainbow Lorikeet and are found in northern parts of our continent.

To see more photos of birds and to read more about Australia go to my other site Trevor's Birding.