We’ve done our week up at the family acres, and enjoyed some great family time. Super fun to catch up with the relatives and share memories, food and great conversation. But. The heat was not enjoyable. Funny, we all noted as little kids, we were much too busy running under the sprinkler on the lawn and enjoying cold drinks to really notice how hot it actually was.
Don’t start me on ‘global warming’. It was always hot, with many days over 100 F, (38C) so not much has changed.
We had the opportunity to fit in a bit of bird photography, and choose the early morning cool as the best time. Evenings are good too, but there is always a lot of dust in the air and the colour temperature brings white balance complications.
One spot at the Murray Downs Golf Resort is a haven for Rainbow Bee-eaters and White-breasted Woodswallows. They congregate there in large numbers, so it was a good place to start.
And we weren’t disappointed
Not only Bee-eaters, and Woodswallows there were Blue-faced Honeyeaters, Peaceful Doves and White-winged Choughs, to name a few.
White-breasted Woodswallows hang out together in colonies; here the young are waiting for a morning meal. The adults seem to need a rest
While in the next tree the food is delivered to a couple of young Bee-eaters 
Delivery is a never-ending business
Peaceful Doves have been nesting in a large peppercorn tree by the path for the past couple of seasons, and this year is no exception
Blue-faced Honeyeaters in the gardens at the Swan Hill Golf Club Resort
Who’s been messing up ‘my table’, a Honeyeater seems annoyed by the human litterbugs
When its hot you get a cool drink anyway you can. Sipping up water on a table, that still had a pool of water from early morning watering at the resort.
More Postcards from Goschen to come.
Enjoy
Birds as Poetry —— Just because I WANDER - --doesn't mean I'm LOST 
Good to hear you enjoyed yourselves and the birds! Lovely shots – I really like the row of White-breasted Woodswallows, but they are all beautiful. Thanks!
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Thanks Eleanor, this is such a small show of the many birds in the area. Must be in the hundreds. Mostly young, so they have has a good season.
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Lovely shots Davis, the Blue -faced are often seen at open air cafes up north of here. Nice pics of the immatures as well. Stunning Bee-eater shots, I would love to see some more on my travels to get shots like yours. It is always a delight to see woodswallows huddled together in a row. Yes, early morning is the best birding time to catch the morning chorus before the heat of the day. The early bird catches the bird in this case. Have a great long weekend!
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Hi AB, thanks for that. I don’t ever recall them in the area when I was a little tacker. These ones have settled into life in a golf resort, -plenty of grevillia and bottlebrush, so they are another species that have adapted well to humans. They are under constant pressure from hoards of Noisy Miners. But it seems to work out for them.
As I noted for Eleanor, the Woodswallows were in huge numbers. several hundreds and the young put up such a racket at feeding time.
Got some more of the Bee-eaters to come. I think the water features at the golf course has given the large dragon flys a perfect home and the Bee-eaters have certainly no difficulty in dropping of a branch, circling round and returning with a meal. Hardly any energy used.
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Memories of growing up in Mildura! Hot days spent under the sprinkler or swimming in the river.
Some wonderful shots, always great to see.
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G,day Dave, yep, our lawns were always green over summer, as the street kids moved from yard to yard. I guess the one thing that we do remember is that once the sun had gone down it was always cooler in the evenings and I supposed we stayed up extra late without daylight saving. 🙂
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