Cool Birds

I’m hazarding a guess that I’m not the only birdwatcher on this forum so I’m starting a thread for talking about any cool birds people have seen lately.

I’ll start it off. Over Christmas, my dad took me down to a rainforest he’s planted at the bottom of their hill. The whole time we were down there, one of these guys followed us around: http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/species/Rhipidura-rufifrons. Rufous fantails are super territorial and they furiously shake their little rumps at you to let you know you’re in their zone. They also have angry eyebrow marks so their glare at you while they do it. It’s cute as fuck.

Do they swoop at you?

A young owl had a go at my dad’s head once. Fortunately, he ducked out of the way in time.

I would see a number come across the consultation table and then there were the people who would bring in half dead non-native or native species expecting a quick fix for zero monies.

If they are anything like Willy Wagtails (who are from the same genus but with black and white markings and a non fanning tail) they just wave their tails displaying all their might.

Yeah, no swooping. Just furious, intimidating rump shaking.

We met a bunch of birdwatchers in Sydney, and almost participated in a bird census while we were there!

I think I had the most fun interacting with birds there, compared to everything else we did. We kept track of who all we saw in different places along the way, and after the first week we started being able to identify a lot of Australian birds on sight.

Yeah, I listened to your Sydney podcast. I didn’t know the Centennial Park cockatoos were so friendly. It’s not far from my sister’s place so I am definitely going for a run there the next time I visit. Cockatoos are rad guys.

There is a similar situation over here in a park a few kilometres from my place where a very large population of Galahs will eat whatever you want and are not shy at all.

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