Wild Bird Wednesday 250 (!) - Common Hawk-cuckoo

We are still in India and still at the Sultanpur National Park for the 250th edition of Wild Bird Wednesday.

And I am still too busy for a long post!  Anyway.........

These birds are Common Hawk-cuckoos (Hierococcyx varius).  This species is also known as the 'Brain Fever' bird - as its call sounds like the words brain fever, repeated over and over again!

Like most cuckoos these birds are brood parasites, often laying their eggs in the nests of Babblers.  This species has evolved to minic sparrowhawk-like birds of prey in flight, which often causes smaller birds to panic and start alarm calling when the cuckoo passes.  Maybe this helps the cuckoo locate nests to lay it's eggs in.

This birds are about 34cm long and can be seen over much of India.

As ever, you can join in with WBW by clicking the blue button that will appear at the bottom of the page.  Cheers  SM

An InLinkz Link-up

Sunday

Sunday was, to use a sporting cliche, a game of two halves.

The morning was spent in fruitless searching for Powerful Owls, although I did find a rather nice tree.  The afternoon was a family trip to the football, where we found a bird that was not a Powerful Owl, watched the sunset light up the clouds and then kicked a football on the hallowed turf of the MCG.

The not Powerful Owls won the game - which was good for me - and even better for them as their season has been a disaster to this point!  The victory was followed by pizza and red-wine.

A rather fine day I must say!

You can find more shots from around the world at Our World Tuesday.

Wild Bird Wednesday 249 - Spot-Billed Duck

Just a brief post this week - life getting in the way of blogging!

These are Spot-Billed Ducks (Anas poecilorhyncha) from Sultanpur National Park, which is the same location as the owls from the last two weeks, and the source of most of my Indian bird pictures.

These ducks are in the same genus as the Mallard and are found in three distinct populations -  an Indian population, a Chinese population and a third in Burma.  These may or may not be three different species, or three sub-species of the same one, depending on which expert you ask.

All I know is that these ducks were in India and that they look rather splendid.  Once again, it was a bit like photographing through a fog and these images are not as crisp as I would like.  Oh well.

As ever, you can join in with WBW by clicking on the link below:

An InLinkz Link-up

Down by the Pond

Just to prove that I don't spend my whole life jetting of to far flung and exotic locations, these picture were taken next to the Freeway about ten minutes from my house!  As you may have guessed it was a busy weekend - but I sneaked out for an hour on Sunday, just to see what I could find.

And what I did find was a Dusky Moorhen, checking out its reflection, and some kind of rather weird and wonderful domestic duck hybrid sort of thing.  While the duck is clearly a 'plastic' - I did rather like it, especially its colours.

You can find more shots from around the world at Our World Tuesday.

Wild Bird Wednesday 248 - Spotted Owlet

We stay in India and with owls for this week's WBW.

These are pictures of Spotted Owlets from Sultanpur National Park, which is the same location as last weeks owls.

The Spotted Owlet (Athene brama) is a small owl that is widespread through out much of Asia.  This is a small owl, with a height of about 20cm.  Picking up on a comment from last week, this owl will look familiar to many people as it is in the same genus as the Little Owl and Burrowing Owl.

To ensure there is some continuity from last week's WBW there are also some more annoying sticks!

You can make all of the pictures bigger, but I would recommend doing so for the last image - if you do you can see how one of the eyes of this owl looks much mope 'open' than the other - presumably this is because owl's left eye is in shade.

As ever, you can join in with WBW by clicking on the link below:

An InLinkz Link-up

A walk on the beach

We spent Sunday wandering between Point Lonsdale and Queenscliff - we probably saw more dogs than people - and there weren't that many dogs!  Less than 2 hours from Melbourne - check out the crowds!

You can find more shots from around the world at Our World Tuesday.