A New View

Greetings - some of you may have noticed I have been a bit slow to reply to comments and such like for the last couple of weeks.  I assume that you will have worked out that I am out and about on a bit of an adventure.

At present I am in Grindelwald in Switzerland - with a glass of local wine, watching the clouds lens in and out over the Eiger. Sometimes you just have to take a hit for the team!

This is the view from my new (but temporary) back door!

I may remain a little distracted for a while - but normal service will resume soon!  

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

Wild Bird Wednesday 260 - Brown Quail

This weeks bird for WBW is wild, but not native where I found it.

This is a family of Brown Quail (Coturnix ypsilophora) on top of the highest point of Rangitoto Island is a volcanic island in the Hauraki Gulf near Auckland, New Zealand.

I was rather pleased to find these birds as this was one of the hottest walks I have done in a very long time - at time I thought I was going to melt out of the bottom of my shoes.

These birds are not native to New Zealand, they have been introduced from Australia.  I would suspect that apple cores are not the natural food - but who can tell.

This family of birds was taking shelter from the sun under some rather dense bushes - so in the end I'm pleased with these pictures.

By the time this post goes live I will be in the middle of an adventure, so I'm not sure what my connectivity will be like - so, please be patient!

As ever, to join in with WBW, just click the blue button below the thumbnails.  SM

An InLinkz Link-up

Wild Bird Wednesday 259 - Silver / Red Beaked Gull

A little bit more taxonomic confusion here.  For a long time, this bird was considered a full species - The Red-Beacked Gull, and it was only found in New Zealand.  Now it is considered a subspecies of the Silver Gull (Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae).

These pictures were taken in Aukland harbour in New Zealand.  At the time I can remember thinking, I really can't see a difference between this bird and the Silver Gulls see on a daily basis.

As you may have gathered by now, I like many different sorts of birds - but the silver, grey and white combination sported by gulls really is rather magnificent.

So, this weeks WBW is brought to you by the Silver / Red Beaked Gull.

As ever, to join in with WBW, just click the blue button below the thumbnails.  SM

An InLinkz Link-up

Simplicity

I suspect that this will be a very busy week!

I found this flower on the lawn of my hotel in Jakarta earlier in the year.  I liked its simplicity then and I still like it now.

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

Wild Bird Wednesday 258 - Nankeen Night Heron

More shots from the trip on Yellow Water this week for Wild Bird Wednesday.  As you may have gathered from the number of shots that this trip created, Kakadu is a remarkable place - with an abundance of things to point lenses at.

These birds are Nankeen Night Herons (Nycticorax caledonicus).  And had I known the stories behind both of these names, I would have posted these images a lot sooner.  Nankeen comes from Nanking, a town in China that produced a yellowish cotton cloth - which apparently was a similar colour to parts of this bird.  I suppose this makes some sense.  The scientific name means (and I assure that this is true!) Scottish Nightraven - which is about as wrong as it can get.

I do like this kind of thing.

Theses are three different birds - the ones with stripes are young birds, and the others are adults.  In the adult bird you can just about see the long white plume that come off the back of its head.

As ever, to join in with WBW, just click the blue button below the thumbnails.  SM

An InLinkz Link-up

Egret in Fading Light

These are some shots of an Intermediate Egret (I think) in some rather nice late afternoon / evening light.

I saw this bird on a cruise around Yellow Water, which is a fabulous area of the Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory, Australia.

I like the way the light is catching the outstretched feathers.

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