Willie Wagtail

April 18, 2015April 18, 2015Posted in Western Treatment Plant, Willie WagtailTagged Western Treatment Plant, Willie Wagtail4 Comments

DWJ_4921 - Version 2 — Not sure if you know. But if you click on the image it will go to a larger size Click a second time and it will go to full size. Worth it to see the priceless expression here Enjoy

This is Gate Willie.

It has a territory by the main gate at Paradise Road entrance at Western Treatment Plant.
His (?) job in the world is to give lectures to all those who would dare to open the gate and enter the Paradise Road area.
and a good job he does too.

Wagtail Construction Zone Update

October 28, 2013Posted in UncategorizedTagged Willie Wagtail1 Comment

As reported previously, all three wagtail pairs lost their nests (would have been eggs at that stage), about 2 weeks back. Not sure how, but the number of Kookaburras, Ravens, Grey Shrike-thrush and other predators would have made short work of it all.

So the good news of course ,is you can’t keep a good wagtail down, and after a little searching in the morning we found all three hard at work and one who had really jumped the gun and had the nest, and the chicks, at least two, hatched.

Well done Mum’s. Let’s hope for a little more compassion from your neighbours.

Just a step ahead. This one is feeding some very tiny beaks just visible. She also took away a feces sack

Hard at work still, but again the nest is really well stitched to the branch.

Repelling Boarders. This bird was taking no chances and would have just about been impossible to get out. No doubt the little claws are gripping very tightly inside. Not the extra strong binding to the branch on this one. — Repelling Boarders. This bird was taking no chances and would have just about been impossible to get out. No doubt the little claws are gripping very tightly inside.
Not the extra strong binding to the branch on this one.

Young Little Eagles in a fair breeze

January 9, 2012January 16, 2012Posted in Little EagleTagged Little Eagle, Willie WagtailLeave a comment

Over the past few months it has become one of my challenges to find where a pair of Little Eagles had nested this season. I had a rough idea, but heavy chain fences and hard to get to locations had pretty well extinguished any chances of finding the location. Over the past few weeks things have changed a bit as the young are now on the wing.

Lots of activity in the air today, and we spotted 4 birds. One was definitely an older bird with lighter colouring and a tail that looked in need of a few feathers. One other bird was a bit more elusive and could well have been a young bird or perhaps the other of the parent pair.

Two of them were young birds, lovely rich cinnamon and ginger colours. They are masters of the air already and in a good breeze, they manoeuvred over our location in fine style. The camera says that the closest I recorded was 35 metres, like it just passed overhead. One made a pass over some small dense scrub at the end of a dam, and went down to just over the scrub height. All hell broke loose as the various inhabitants including ducks, grebes, cormorants and a few assorted cuckoos, wagtails and the like took off in all directions with honks, squawks and chatter. It took a trip around the dam to gain height and had a second go, fluttering down like a leaf swaying from one side to the other just loosing height, but this time the wagtail contingent were ready and it got a right royal chattering and dive bombing from the squadron.

A couple of other shots are in the Little Eagle page here.