Ornithologia, or the Birds in my life ....

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Birds. Don’t know much about them. John and I used to have a Bird Book when we were little. And a pack of cards with Birds of New Zealand on them. Of course, you could go out in the bush, around Lake Rotoiti, and spot the tuis and bellbirds and fantails … and oh, how Dad teased us that we would find a kakapo. Or even a kiwi.

I think my favourite bird memory dates from the 1970s, when, visiting my parents, and taking off my mountain boots on their cottage steps, I saw five different species of native bird perched on one and the same manuka shrub. Never forgotten that.

Of course, it’s all different now. There’s hardly a native around on our farm at Gerolstein. The plovers, starlings, blackbirds, sparrows, finches and horrid magpies scare away any there might be. Sometimes we just hear a bellbird…

Well, if you can’t beat ‘em … so we’ve given way to the immigrants in a big way. Gerolstein’s birds are now dominated by forty peafowl…

Of course, over here I guess it’s I who am the immigrant. Even though I don’t chase the locals away. Far from it! But Australia seems to have done better at preserving its own creatures …

Last time I was here, I met these fellers (are they locals?)

Loie Fuller the shag

And in Sydney we had fun feeding flying meatballs to the kookaburras …

But the reason I’m blogging this blog is to post, on something less ephemeral than facebook, some of the ornifotos I’ve snapped, mostly on my own terrasse, these last weeks, so that I don’t lose them  ...

The colourful lorakeet with his/her pal/baby

 And the grumpy, get-outa-my-way-fellers one that likes to eat out of my hand

While the little one just says ‘Please sir, I want some more’

Then there is the lovely blue-eyed Honeycatcher

And the stern looking Noisy Friarbird. "I sentence you to be burned at the stake...'

And all sorts of black-n-white fellers who seems to prefer cake

There’s a tiny black one, with a big tail, too. But he won’t sit still long enough for me to get an unfuzzy snap … his tail seems to be wagging his body rather than vice versa. I guess he has to be the wee wagtail

And another tiny one, with a Gonzo beak …whom I have only seen once ... up there ....

Who would have thought they would give me such pleasure, as they swoop across my terrasse, dangle from the palms, gobble up the crumbs and, yes, occasionally pay the kitchen or the lounge  a visit…

Is this ALL for little me … oh boy!

Yes, you cute wee feller, it’s all yours …

And here's a post-scriptum latecomer