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24 Jul 2013

Treechange?

I know I haven't posted much lately but this was not a usual occurrence and I just had to share :). I had a nice surprise this morning when some of our seachange neighbours decided to spend the morning having a treechange and visit the farm. I've identified them as best I can from my bird book but no guarantees it's correct as the Australian pelican is the only one that I've seen here on infrequent occasions previously. Love the shy skinny friend that was invited along :). I'm thinking the eurasian coot may already be a sneaky visitor though and the one who dives out of sight if the dog is with me!
Ducks, well a duck is a duck and in Winter the plumage isn't very distincitive.


The pelican enjoying the sunshine and the still but not very warm air. See the new visitor hiding behind the tufts of grass.



LOOK, my hydrofoil impersonation!



That's better. Dam water is damn cold on your feet! 



Not a very good photo as I couldn't venture any closer without risking my subject flying off. I think this is a Pacific Heron but would be grateful for any advice from someone more knowledgeable about these things.



Lol, just cooting around pretending I can't be seen!
   



A duck is a duck but I think these are Chestnut teal because of the white feathers on the side and the dark heads. Looks like 3 young bachelors. Chestnut teal are quite common in Australia but usually we just have here what we call wood ducks.  So many of them look similar until they fly off and, if you're quick and close enough, you can see any white patterning under the wings to identify them. I didn't want to spook these into flight as I didn't want our seachangers to be disturbed.
It's awful to have a holiday and discover the occupiers of the place next to you are noisy hooligans!

Hoping you enjoyed  the visitors as much as I did :D.
Cheers,
Rob xo


3 comments:

  1. Love the birds!! I remember my first sighting of pelicans ... 25 years ago at Mandurah. I still marvel when I see them and we see them regularly on the Irwin River estuary at Dongara. The 'stranger' does look like a Heron, but cannot identify which species.

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  2. What great pictures Rob!

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  3. Love the photos, Robyn. Actually I think a pelican was spotted on a dam around Inglewood or Goondiwindi a couple of weeks ago as it was on our local news. I only saw one at the beach when we were there but years ago there were lots of them. It is nice to see one inland though.

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