Questing birds

Each day here in Shepp I pull on my coat, wrap a scarf around my neck then head out the front door to take my daily walk. 

  MyVeryBestFriendCarmel lives in a residential area and my daily walk takes me along the same two or three streets, past houses and their gardens, some well cared for and some not.  Late one afternoon I changed direction and ventured out onto a reserve at the back of the houses; boys were playing football in the chill of the oncoming night, their bikes tossed down on the grass.

As the days passed I found these walks were as much a bird observation exercise as a physical exercise; different birds frequent particular areas depending of the time of day.

Galahs were the dominant group and these birds were on a daily quest for food.  A large group was always foraging in an open area at the start of Pig-iron Drive; they left the ground turned over in their search for buried insects and other choice food items.  These grey and pink birds in their various subspecies are found almost all over Australia; they prefer open country, so the area round Shepp suits them. Often when walking I would come upon a small flock that would immediately take to the air as I drew closer, then settle again only a short distance away.   When I drew near to them again they repeated the process, occasionally flying back to an area behind me, as if it had just occurred to them there was a way to avoid being constantly being interrupted in their food search.

Another day a pair of plovers stalked around a front garden on their thin red legs.  I treat these birds with a great deal of caution, especially at nesting time.  I still have memories of a country childhood and being swooped by plovers intent on protecting their newly hatched chicks.

The best bird find of all was a wary blue crane; the name blue crane is erroneous, the correct name is white-faced heron.  These elegant wading birds are wide spread through south eastern Australia and prefer a low altitude habitat.  They also prefer gardens with unprotected fish ponds which make for a ready take-away meal though any fish pond in this garden was not immediately obvious.

White faced heron

Late one evening, shortly after coming inside from a walk, I saw a tiny bird flitting around on the top of a tall cacti plant in the next door garden, silhouetted against the last light of the day.  It was blue wren having once last frenzied hip-hop dance before night replaced day.

Walking in my local suburbs in Melbourne I would very rarely see any of these birds although on a moonlit night I may hear plovers.