Well if nothing else, the ground is getting a fair old drenching. Keeping your Downwardly Mobile scribe inside too.
But the wet weather has certainly played its magic across the Crake and Rail communities.
We have been over the past few weeks monitoring a pair of Willie Wagtails that have set up a nest in a tree in the foyer area of a local Uni gym.
Sunday morning on the way home, we picked up a sandwich and some coffee and headed for said gym carpark. The weather was overcast, but not threatening, so we were going to use one of the picnic tables on the gym lawn for lunch.
Normally, I’d stop, EE would walk across the lawn and I’d park IamGrey and head back. But the lawn was little minature lakes, so it seemed best to stop at the ‘drier’ carpark.
Oh, she said, look a Coot has it two little young ones out in the grass. And sure enough, and who dear reader would argue with that observation. Click, click, click from that side of the vehicle.
I looked out and saw, just in front of the bonnet, another Coot, and thought, Oh, its a bit seperate from the family, until it cocked its head, and lo, it was a Buff-banded Rail.
Now its nigh on impossible to get a photographer to change from photographing one subject to taking interest in something more interesting. And with fear that I’d frighten the Rail, I backed the car ever slowly about 10m. Then, of course EE spied it and the door of the IamGrey slowly began to open. My camera was securely in the back, so I slipped along the edge to retrieve it, knowing full well that the bird will have taken the hint and fled.
But this one was a calm as they come. Sunday morning at the gym, no other people around, it felt pretty comfortable.
It foraged quite near us, then scampered back into the reeds, to emege again down near the table where we’d adjourned to have lunch and contemplate our fortunate state at seeing it so well.
It strolled about the path, then into the grass and about 10 minutes later slipped away, to come out again and let us ‘creep’ quietly up on it. Cool as.
In the end, time ran out, but the Rail was still going.
Was hoping to post these on Flickr, but for some reason, my Flickr account has been hijacked to another user id. So all I get to see is their pictures and contacts. So until I feel comfortable with Flickr again, most of the next couple of weeks shall be here on the blog. Hopefully won’t bore you with too many stories and same pics. Couple of interesting developments in the field at present.
I’ve had several email me and say that the Flickr photos are getting up, but I can’t see or comment on any at all. They tell me my Flickr Stream needs a complete rebuild and may take “Some hours depending on the size of the photos, and links.” I’ll get over it. 🙂
Birds as Poetry —— Just because I WANDER doesn't mean I'm LOST 