January 2026 – Birds as Poetry —— Just because I WANDER doesn't mean I'm LOST

When I first heard the call, I couldn’t quite place it.

Sounded a bit like a Woodswallow? But, not the usual call of the Dusky Woodswallow that we see in the area. Some years back we would get good numbers of the Dusky and they would nest among the River Red-gums.

But this call was different. Hard to tell when the birds were hawking for insects high up in the sky. Then I got a good glimpse of one, and it was grey-backed, and had a brillant white breast.
A White-breasted Woodswallow.
Normally the White-breasted do not come down this far south, and stay the northern side of the hills.
In the end I found five of them flitting about between the trees and working through the sky above.

In the river flats area of the Murray River where I grew up, it was not unusual to see large flocks of them each year. They are a communal bird and sometimes we’d see 50 or more of them along a power-line or 10-15 on a long horizontal branch. They played “Roll over and one fell out”, as one would land on the branch near the trunk of the tree and everybody would shuffle up the branch, until the one of the end had nowhere to go and would fly.

Time to sit down and wait. They began to come down lower and take rest breaks on some of the older stumps and trees in an open area. I was as eager to make some photos as they were to be back in the air hunting but we both compromised.

For about three weeks they were domicle in the one open area along the creekline, but eventually they disappeared.

Here are few from the first couple of weeks.

A quick review of birding social media pages in Victoria, Australia, will bring lots of hits for one of the latest ‘must see, must have’ birds in our area.
Several months ago, a Barking Owl, began its ‘woof woof’ calls along the banks of the Werribee River.
Like all media senstations, what began as a trickle quickly escalated into a flood of postings and every birder and photographer worth their “Hits Record” began the, as Pooh would say, “Expotition” to find the Owl.
Unlike Owl, in the Pooh stories, this one did not have a notice at the door. For those who have forgotten (how could you!) , here are the notices from “Winnie the Pooh (1926)

two notices (which were written by Christopher Robin):"PLES RING IF AN RNSER IS REQIRD", and "PLEZ CNOKE IF AN RNSR IS NOT REQIRD"

You might also recall that the cord for the bell-ringer was in fact Eyore’s tail. But that is another blog.
Owl also lived in a tree, “He lives in a tree known as The Chestnuts,” described as an “old world residence of great charm”, and spells his name, “Wol”

And there any similarities between Pooh’s friend and THE Owl end.

Referred to by those who know, or wish to know, or are searching for, as “THE” Owl, as in ‘Have you seen THE owl”, or, “THE Owl is on the tree by the ford.” Or, “Here are 47 of my photos, taken with my new Cannikony with the 200-3,400 zoom lens at 64000 ISO and processed from a ‘raw’ file in the latest CapShop software using a LUT designed by little eleves in a forest of the wol.
3,590 hits and counting. “

EE and I had generally left the owl in peace since its arrival. And as EE had thrown a fetlock, we had been spending less and less time in the area, until finally surgery brought our adventures to a stand still (pun sort of intended)

So being cognisant that I’m going to add to the internest incest of “THE Owl” here are a few from the past few months.

Enjoy