sulpher crested cockatoo

Balyang: 24/11/2015

December 1, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

I’m just going to use dates rather then come up with creative titles for my Balyang visits. I’m just there so darn much. Fortunately, I’ll probably only be visiting for another couple of weeks. I’ll still continue to go to mums and explore the Barwon, just not as the pace I’ve been currently doing.

This current birding project has actually been incredibly exhausting!

Anyway, I was photographing these cockatoos below because I thought the increased number of birds meant I had a better chance of getting a poop shot. I didn’t notice until later that one of them had fruit in its mouth!

I got these generic house sparrow shots while waiting for it to do something else. I’ve learned from experience that they don’t give any warning beforehand! It is an interesting challenge, trying to get lovely photos of them.

There was a lot of young people feeding bread to the birds there, which was annoying. I’m too shy to say anything at this point.

This swamphen saw a silver gull land with a large piece of bread and decided that it wanted some! 🙂 It kinda looks like a dinosaur here.

These long billed corellas were grooming each other and then had a nap. Not from a great angle, but that was because I was lying down on the ground photographing lorikeets.

I nearly got shat on several times while trying to get photos of lorikeets doing the same thing. I had a couple of near misses when trying to get the shots.

I spent ages just watching about 10 of them fly around above me. I got to get a very close look at the colours of their tail. I probably shouldn’t dismiss them as a photographic subject so quickly.

Finally, the red wattlebirds are still working hard feeding their chicks. They have been a consistent background call for the past 6 weeks or so.

As mentioned, it has been an exhausting month. At least 10k+ photos taken at this one location, all of which is painstakingly documented. I definitely wont be doing it again next year. However I’ve learned so much. I’ve got so many questions to seek answers for, which I’ll be doing when things slow down. I can start working on guides for certain birdwatching locations.

It has also taught me so much about managing anxiety and birding with patience. I’ll definitely be writing more about that late.

Balyang: Early November

November 18, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

This trip took place on November 9.

There is a problem with repeated visits to the one location. You see all these interesting things that warrant documenting. Yet, that don’t fit into a normal narrative. Normally this is fine. Lately, however, it means a whole bunch of posts titled ‘Location: other.’

I have no idea if there is an easier way to process these notes. Feel free to email me with ideas. For now, as I have a small readership, this will do.

I saw this raven while walking along a street towards Balyang. I’m assuming the purple bit is a gape and that it indicates it is a juvenile.

There was a raven seemingly collecting nesting material. It did drop it, without provocation from the cantankerous willy wagtail.

A beautiful long billed corella was hanging around. It was coorporative for my project of taking photos of birds drinking. As was this red rumped parrot.

I was photographing the white faced heron when I saw what I’m assuming is the parent flew towards it. I have no idea why they still hang out and what the dynamics are of their relationship.

I hate mynas – but I still enjoy getting photos of them with food in their mouth.

There was a lot of activity in the tree above me at one point. I’m assuming some of these are juveniles.

The above is a sulpher crested cockatoo without the crest. At first I wondered whether it was a hybrid, as I don’t believe I’ve seen one without a crest before. It made no sense. Could it be a young?

I asked online and they said it could have lost its crest for a number of reasons. I don’t think it is a juvenile. I’ll tell you why in a future post. Babies, babies galore at the moment!

There appears to be ducklings galore too, but they never hang around for long. I think they realize pretty quickly that it isn’t safe.

I also saw these two feral ducks mating. Couldn’t understand why the duck was sitting so funny in the water until I saw the other ducks head bob up. Apparently this makes me a perv. I reckon it just makes me weird. Science is science. And I can never compete with the other birders so I need unusual areas where no-one will bother to compete.

A juvenile masked lapwing. I was disappointed to miss out again on seeing a younger one, however that disappointment didn’t last long. I love the markings on its feathers and the shorter wattle.

Another corella. Perhaps the same one?

This eurasion coot photo almost isn’t worth sharing. Really, I was trying to get a poop shot. I *just* missed. I still love it poking its little tongue out.

I kinda can’t wait until the mating/breeding season is over and I can start revisiting other places again. It’s going to be weird NOT posting daily.

Mating Tree at Balyang

November 1, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

There is a tree at Balyang that is very popular during the Spring. It is the ones that the cormorants have chosen for their nests – and it looks like many other birds have followed suit.

This tree is in the centre of the larger lake. Many birds enjoy hanging out here because they are safe from the plethora of young children who visit.

I’ve written before about the sulpher crested cockatoo nesting in this tree – and the cormorants that sometimes don’t enjoy their presence! You can read more about that here.

Last Wednesday, a cockatoo (it may not have been part of the pair) flew a little bit too close to this great cormorant. It certainly told him or her off!

Mud lark

This tree is a fair way away, so I’ve been photographing this little mudlark nest from a distance. I had assumed that they were incubating the eggs, despite both parents flying and swapping duties frequently. I zoomed in on the photos later and could see the tail from a younger bird. In the next photo, I could see a babies head! How awesome is that? The parents are doing a fantastic job. Of course, I’d love to get better photos but it’s not feasible here. I’m just happy to see babies 🙂

Barwon river mudlarks

Earlier in the week, I was walking to Balyang from Queens Park after looking for the tawny frogmouth nest.

I was keeping an eye out for any nests. A friend had seen a black faced cuckoo shrike nest and, me being me, I thought it could be fun to photograph. I had no luck finding it – granted, I wasn’t looking particularly hard – but I did see these mudlarks. I initially thought they were adults until I saw them from the front.

😉 I was hoping I’d get some mating shots but it looks like I’m a little too late in the season for that!

Cormorants

Interestingly, I also saw a couple of cormorants displaying courtship behaviour. It was odd, as I hadn’t seen any for two weeks. No idea what brought it on – maybe the heat? I didn’t have a brief “Glenn, I’m borrowing your camera moment” so I could take a video.

Below is the video I took the first time I saw courtship behaviour. I couldn’t find any videos or information online to show Glenn and Seth, so I decided to make my own.

Elsewhere

This teal has been taking advantage of the nest box, which is amazing to see. I haven’t really seen any baby ducks, or swamphens, this season. I’m not sure why. I have seen wood ducks that are several weeks old, which has been beautiful.

I can’t make sense of who breeds when, and why.

These two long billed corellas have been busy protecting their nest for a while. I usually only see just one in their but try to give them a lot of space. It doesn’t help that other photographers pretty much set up their tripods next to the tree – although they are fairly high up and should be safe 🙂 I mostly avoid this tree because there is a sulpher crested cockatoo nesting at about 2 meters high and it is very flighty. I’m not sure I like their chances!

Attack of the Willy Wagtail!

October 14, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

After I went to Eastern Beach, I decided to stay at my parents for a couple of days and explore the Barwon River. I like checking it out every couple of weeks.

I got some brilliant photos of cormorants which I will be sharing in the coming days. Todays post centers on the interaction between this cockatoo and willy wagtail.

I was photographing cormorants when I heard a commotion above me. I looked up and saw the wagtail flying and attacking a much larger bird. It reminded me of when I saw the moorhen attack a kangaroo at Currumbin. Nothing gets in the way of parenthood and territories.

The photos didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped, but that is to be expected when the photographic situation changes quickly. I did get a couple where you can clearly see the wagtails feet on the cockatoos back, which is awesome. Ironically I was in the exact area the next day to get some more cormorant nesting photos when I saw the wagtail attacking a raven near this same tree. Some things never change 🙂

Cacatua Galore-ita at Balyang Sanctuary

September 1, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

Technically the title of this post is a useless pun. See, Galahs used to be classified under the ‘cacatua galerita’ – the same genus that corellas and cockatoos used to belong to. Then it all got reclassified. So, the above is a play on words that only cockatoo nerds AND word nerds will get. Aren’t I a ‘hoot?’

Anyway, Sethy and I went to check out Balyang Sanctuary a short while after getting back from Eastern Beach. It was a lovely day and I wanted to suss out whether there was any breeding/nesting behaviour going on or any baby birds. Basically, I was doing investigative work for Glenn.

There wasn’t much of that going on – so no need for us to go out to the other side of town. However there were a lot of cockatoos.

Cuddling Corellas

I looked up and was fortunate to see these two corellas canoodling. I was hoping it may lead to mating behaviour but it was just kissing. The photo quality turned out crap, it needed a lot of editing just to get to this point, but I believe the birds themselves are adorable.

Cockatoos in a hollow

I was fortunate enough to find cockatoos apparently preparing a nest. They were very, very defensive. I didn’t see them chuck much bark out so the images are a bit meh. Still thought it was interesting.

Then there are the generic other images one gets when the light is awesome and the birds are settling down. It was a mediocre shoot – I’m not really sure it’s worth me going back there other then when I’m with Seth.