Wild Bird Wednesday 601 - Cattle Egret

There is some dispute over the taxonomy of this week's WBW bird - its a Cattle Egret, which some authorities split into two species, while other consider them to be a single species.

I'll go with the taxonomy that is used by eBird which makes these Eastern Cattle Egrets (Bubulcus coromandus)

Originally native to parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe, it has undergone a rapid expansion in its distribution and successfully colonised much of the rest of the world in the last century.

These pictures were taken at large colony in Bali, Indonesia.  The colony stretches down the main street of a village of Petula, and the birds are noisy, conspicuous and a little smelly!

We had to dodge very heavy rain storms during the day, and its reasonable to say that some of the egrets looked a little less than happy about the weather!

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Wild Bird Wednesday 600 - Bee Hummingbird

 Welcome to the 600th WBW! And as this is a special week, we have a special bird.

The Bee Hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae) is endemic to Cuba, and is also the smallest known bird in the world.

Females weigh 2.6 g and are 6.1 cm long, the males are slightly smaller with an average weight of 1.95 g and length of 5.5 cm.  In other words we are looking at a bird which is about the same size as the first joint of your thumb, and a weight (mass really!) of about 1/2 a sugar cube.

By any measure, that's small.

The male has bluish upper parts, and the rest of the underparts mostly greyish white.  Females are bluish green with a pale grey underside. Like all hummingbirds, this species lays two eggs - they are about the size of a frozen pea!

As you can see from the final picture, these birds were active around species feeders - but what a sight!

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Wild Bird Wednesday 599 - Glossy Ibis

The Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus) is the least abundant of the three species of Ibis we have in Victoria.  It's always I good species to find - and one that I don't see all that often.

I knew, but had forgotten (!), that two had been seen at Werribee in recent weeks and when I happened upon then I was rather pleased.  

These have to have been two of the busiest bird I have ever watched, they were feeding ceaselessly for the 20 minutes I watched them.  I really was a case of head down and feed.  They also had a remarkable knack of hiding behind small plants!

I think that these pictures do show the glossy nature of their plumage - although it took a large number of pictures to catch the iridedsence of their plumage.

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Wild Bird Wednesday 598 - Eastern Screech Owl

The Eastern Screech Owl (Megascops asio) is a small owl that is relatively common in Eastern North America, from Canada to Mexico.

This bird has a regular roost in a public park near Waterloo, Ontario.  I wonder how many people walk past it each day and done notice it.  If the truth be told I only saw the bird on my second visit to the site - and then it was so inconspicuous that we almost missed it.

I did hope that it would oblige me by opening at least one eye at some time - but no.

So, these are sone shots for a rather still owl!

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Wild Bird Wednesday 597 - Tufted Titmouse

Welcome to 2024!

The Tufted Titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor) is a member of the chickadee family, so it's related to the Black-Capped Chickadee I posted a few weeks ago.

These birds - there were two - were feeding on seed left by many birders, and this may explain why they were still present in winter in Ontario.  On the other hand, there is climate change.  What ever the reason these birds are now being seen further north in winter than in the past.

As with all of my Canadian birds, I am grateful to David for showing them to me!

What a great little bird to start a new year of WBWs.

Its does not take much imagination to work out how the bird got its common name!

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