January 10, 2016 – Birds as Poetry —— Just because I WANDER

Scarlet Robin, a Season of Change

In the You Yangs, looking for Red-capped Robins. What we did find is this handsome (?) young male just moulting out of his juvenile feathers and into his marvellous Male Adult feathers.

Long, long term readers may well recall, but you don’t lose points for not recalling that a number of years back I encountered another young male at Woodlands who subsequently stayed on, and became quite the dominate male in the area.

See here, Scarlet Robin, female?

and here, as it became more apparent he was not a she

I also featured this new bird about 4 weeks back when we came across it earlier in the season. The shot is over on Flickr.

So here he is in all his resplendant dress. Well perhaps not so much at the moment, but given a few more weeks, and he’ll be the best looking bird.

DWJ_8988 — Now don’t you look just a bit funny with some feathers in place and some still to change

DWJ_9044 — A fine wing stretch. His head is in the shadow of a branch

DWJ_8982 — His consort. I am not sure if its a sibling, or in fact a female that he is wooing. They were together about4 weeks back, so it might be they are related. We shall see.

DWJ_9021 — All the colours are starting to give the right indications.

DWJ_8990 — Another view of the consort. She seems to keep up a constant chatter with him.

You deserve a break, and I’ve got two days off from Blogging 101. Phew!

EE, Mr An Onymous and I had the chance the other day to take a bus tour to a wetlands that is managed by Parks Vic, but not accessible to the public. It is an old saltworks on the edge of the bay at Point Cook, Victoria.

One of the highlights of the day was discovering (well it was pointed out to us by the ever helpful Libby the bus driver), a recently hatched White-headed Stilt chick (Yes, I know, I know, we call them Black-winged Stilts, but that is in the world of bird names, so, well, (as Paris Hilton was wont to say,) So, Yesterday!

Mum White-headed Stilt was not to impressed to have half a dozen eager photographers too close to her young, and kept issuing warnings to us and instructions to the little one about how to look its best for camera.

The little dude still has lots of down feathers and spent a lot of time preening at them to get rid of them. They must itch or annoy I think.
Enjoy. We did.