Author: David Jenkins

Its almost becoming a complaint I can put to music. “No Redcaps about at the moment”. No access to the Bandicoot Big Brother House.  blah blah blah.

We’ve been lucky enough to be put on to a pair of Eastern Yellow Robins, so we’ve taken to travelling out there of late.

As it turns out, we’ve spotted three birds.  A pair and a helper.  The ever reliable HANZAB tells the tale of how the helpers are called in to assist with nesting duties.  I’m going to call the second one a male, as it seems to get chased by the male, and there has been a number of branch dancing performances with one bird flying off backward.  A pretty sure sign of defeat in the territory stakes, I’m told.

Still it flys in with building material and the odd grub or two for food. The female readily accepts it, but the male will come in and round it up for another flying round trees and branch dance session.  Time will tell.

I’ve also been lucky with the light.  Soft mostly, and once a little rain to and sunshine to reflect back into the shadows. Nice, I couldn’t do that in a studio.

We’ll see how they go over the next few weeks, and continue to look for redcaps, and of course the Kestrel patrol. Not having much luck there either. See the first couple of sentences. <gg>

It’s been a few days since we’ve ventured out.  A few home things being a bit more pressing than normal.

There are a number of birds at nest in the Woodlands Park area, and the main one is the Tawny Frogmouth, near the carpark.  Just down the track a bit, is a Brown Goshawk, and just inside the carpark area is a Black-faced Cuckoo Shrike.  We found anther Brown Goshawk today down by the Sugar Gums, and the only ones that seem to be in recession are the robins.

Not that that is stopping the Will o’Scarlet.  He is like Eddie Everywhere, and came bowling up to meet me in the morning sunshine.
Every-time I see him I amazed at the transformation from the scruffy little chap that first appeared nearly a year ago.

Remember from yesterday.  See below, if you missed the great missive.

The White-winged Choughs bailed up something on the ground and were very agitated.

On the way back from the long walk around the long paddock, I stopped off at roadway where all the fuss took place, and there in the sun was the biggest lizard.  This one is at least 75-90 cm. And about the size around of my wrist. (These are approximate dimensions only, I had no intention of disturbing it for several reasons. ) I also decided “gardening’ to tidy up was out of the question.

No wonder the Choughs were a bit careful about their interaction.

By the time I got organised the sun had disappeared behind cloud, but I took it anyway.

How old do these things grow?

I had to get some prints framed today, and dropped by the printer place.  “No worries, be ready in a couple of hours.” Good. But what to do in the meantime. So…

I thought if I’m going to drive home and find stuff to do, I might just as easily go look for birds. As the weather had taken a particularly fine turn of events, it didn’t take me too long to get the car pointing in the right direction.

Didn’t have a arsenal of photo gear, but reckoned a 300mm and a 1.4 TC would do ok.  No tripod, just a monopod, but it was only for  a look see anyway.

Went down to where I’d seen the Scarlet Robin earlier in the week, settled in and did what I like doing. Waiting. No fidgeting, no walking about, no peering with binoculars. Just. Waiting.

After about 15 minutes, the birds had pretty much returned to normal, and the Thornbills, Fantails and Wagtails were feeding as usual. But no Robins.  Another 15 minutes went by, and a black/white and red blur zipped by about 50 metres away, and at first I thought it was Lochie, but no, it was the Scarlet Male.  I waited, and after about 10 minutes the black/white and red, zipped past my shoulder and landed about 10 metres away, in the sunshine.  This was more like it.

To cut a long story short, I spent about the next hour or so moving closer, and watching him fly away, but then the distances got less, a lot less, and eventually he seemed quite ready to accept my advances.

There was no sign of any female Scarlet, although a lone Red-capped Female did make several appearances.  So I wonder if this might be the same pair from earlier in the year.  Looks like another sitting and waiting job next week.