Wild Bird Wednesday 400 - Azure Kingfisher

Well, I don't think I would have imagined I would get to 400 consecutive WBWs when I picked up the torch from World Bird Wednesday - but here we are.

I also don't think I could have imagined what would be happening around the world during this week either.  I suspect few of us would have.

I feel a protracted period of garden birding and archive mining coming on.

This week's bird is a Azure Kingfisher (Alcedo azurea).  It occurs across the north and east of Australia, and also into Tasmania.

This bird was perched up on some bushes by the side of Yellow Waters, a large area of wetland in Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory.  I saw this bird during one of the regular boat trips that go out onto Yellow Waters.  A moving boat and a small bird are not that easy to combine.

As ever (possibly more than ever) , you can join in with WBW by clicking on the link below - and also as ever, please feel free to share WBW with other bloggers.

Stay safe, and stay home.  SM

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Wild Bird Wednesday 399 - White-bellied Sea Eagle

We live in strange times.

This is a White-bellied Sea Eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster), resting in a tree in the Yellow Waters area of Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory.

What a remarkable bird. With a wing span around 2 meters, and larger in the females, this is not a bird to be messed with.

This bird was just sitting in its tree, waiting for its dinner to make a mistake! Unfortunately, we left before it sat down to a meal.

As ever (possibly more than ever) , you can join in with WBW by clicking on the link below - and also as ever, please feel free to share WBW with other bloggers.

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Wild Bird Wednesday - Great Bowerbird

The Great Bowerbird (Chlamydera nuchalis) is found along the northern edge of Australia - its is large for a bowerbird and has an 'erectile pink crest' on the nape of its neck.  You can see this feature in a few of the pictures here.

I managed to find a bird attending its bower in - surprise, surprise - a camp site near Katherine in the Northern Territory.

The bower conforms wonderfully to the text book description with two arched walls of sticks and a collection of pale stones and shells in front of it.  This bird had added (sadly) a few pale grey plastic items to its bower as well.  It was, just as the books suggest, under a leafy shrub.

The bird outside of the bower was clearly used to scavenging scraps from campers and the like.  He had a 'feed me now!' look in his eye!

As ever, you can join in with WBW by clicking on the link below - and also as ever, please feel free to share WBW with other bloggers.

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Out and About in Tromso

As part of our recent trip to the Northern Hemisphere, we went to Tromso - which is a city in Norway north of the Arctic Circle.  We were there in January, and it was cold (by Australian standards) and dark for most of the day.  In a surprise for me there was a period of 'dusk' from about 10 am to 2pm, when the light had a wonderful blue cast.

I love the place.

The two pictures above show a little bit of "Northern Lights" - they green sections over the horizon are the lights.  It was very hard to see anything convincingly 'lights like' with the naked eye, but I hope that the camera does not lie!

The view from our front door!

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

Wild Bird Wednesday 398 - Welcome Swallow

Unlike the Barn Swallow which I grew up with the Welcome Swallow (Hirundo neoxena) is with us all year, and is not a harbinger of spring.

While some birds from Tasmania head north into Queensland in the winter, we have these birds with us all year.

In a couple of the pictures you can see that the gape of the beak is yellow: this means this is a young bird.  As February (when the pictures were taken) is near the end of the breeding season for these birds, I suspect that a few second broods were produced.

As you can see from the pictures, I was not in a nature reserve to take these images - in fact it's a building site for a new sports facility.  I think the birds were taking advantage of the insects that were flying over a new bass sports oval.

As ever, you can join in with WBW by clicking on the link below - and also as ever, please feel free to share WBW with other bloggers.

I find it hard to believe that I have been doing WBW for almost 400 weeks, without missing a week.  We used to get 70 are so bloggers linking up - but now we just have a nard core of about 20!  So, all messages of encouragement are very welcome!  SM

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