Little Lorikeet – Birds as Poetry —— Just because I WANDER

Our first real day out after 4 months of Lockdown.

The title of the blog says more to my hairstyle than it does to the fact we were out and about.

At the moment, Willie Nelson and I have similar hairstyles. 🙂
So hum a few bars of “I’m on the Road Again, life I love is making photos with my friend, and I’ can’t wait to be on the Road Again.”

Where else would we have started than a trip to “The Office”.

As it turned out not a bad choice for a day out. We loaded up IamGrey and with a sandwich and a cuppa it looked to be a good day.

Here is a quick selection from the day.

First up for the day. Purple-crowned Lorikeets. Each time I find these little birds I always come away feeling better about life and the world in general. They have such calming attitudes

This pair have a nesting site that is regularly used. I was really happy to find them out enjoying the sunshine

Another pair of Purple-crowned have a solid branch for their site. This one is blocking the hole so that marauding Rainbow Lorikeets will not bother its young.

There has always been a steady number of Little Lorikeets at the Office.
I was hoping they might be nesting, but this one did not seem to be interested.
It took me quite awhile to find it amongst the canopy. For all their bright colours they are muted in the shadows of the leaves and blend in so well.

A recently fledged Fantail Cuckoo. Another score for EE.
It sat for quite a time, as we ate our sandwich and enjoyed the Earl’s good blend.
It no doubt has been hosted by some unfortunate thronbill or wren.
It took off to a bush, and I followed to see where it had gone.

Not the best photo I ever made, but does show the activity.
The young bird quite happily called in “Scrubwrenese” and within a few moments a White-browed Scrubwren arrived with food, followed immediately by a second one.
So perhaps the Scrubbies have been host to this rather large youngster.

After following a lot of calling noises we located a pair of Australian Hobby that have settled into nesting. The local Red Wattlebirds have taken exception to the visitors and kept up a running battle with both birds.
No doubt their numbers will diminish when the young Hobbys are hatched.

The never ending battle.
Wagtail on Raven

And so humming a few more bars of Willie Nelson’s tune, we headed back to IamGrey and home.

We don’t get many Little Lorikeets down around The Office area. But there are several pairs that seem to come and go on a regular basis, and I suspect they might always be in the area, just too high up to notice.

With reports of Purple-crowned Lorikeets in the general area, we wondered if they might be at The Office, so took Dolly on a bit of a traverse to see what we could find. Despite EE’s best attempts, we couldn’t spot, let alone hear them. We were getting ready for the trek back out, when the “rattley rolling, squeaky” call came from a tree behind. And there was a pair of Little Lorikeets engaged in some preening and pairbonding alopreening.

I think the photos tell the story.

Enjoy