The rain has been and the birds have followed - back in familiar territory

After a long time neck-craning, it is nice to be back in the smaller trees and familiar territory of the Northern Territory. It was interesting to go from the straw-coloured grasses of the last part of SA to the lush green in the NT from the border all the way up to Alice springs. Alas the Poo Ponds are closed, so the unusual waders like a Ruff will probably be missed, but the budgies are back, Crimson Chats everywhere, and another lifer for the year, Red-chested Buttonquail. They are slippery little buggers, but identifiable by their "Oooom" call. They almost wait until you step on them, then fly off and quickly run along the ground away from where they land. As yet, no photos, but hopefully in the coming days/weeks.

Some birds are much more photogenic and co-operative.

Here are a few since I arrived back in Alice.

Painted Finches

Crimson Chats

Brown Falcon

Pied Honeyeaters

White-winged Triller

Spinifexbird

Grey-crowned Babbler

Australian Ringneck

The birds and the bees - photos from Alice Springs

Recently I've been restricted to local birding, but still managed a few nice shots. Some excitement around the house was a bee swarm, not a hive, just a huge group of bees all clumped together in the lemon tree. They stayed for a couple of days then flew off. The internet was very useful to work out what was likely to happen.

The local sewage ponds in Alice Springs are being visited by the returning long-range migrants/waders, and ID can be a bit tricky as most of the time they don't stand next to each other, but there are a few I have managed to work out after seeing them in flight and hearing them as they fly off.

The Bee Swarm

Grey-crowned Babblers in the backyard

Black-winged Stilt 

Common Greenshank

Common Sandpiper

Grey Teals

Pacific Black Duck 

Red-necked Avocets

Variegated Fairy-wrens

Grey-crowned Babbler and Port Lincoln Parrot

These two are a couple of the locals around my house. The Babblers are normally in groups of 5-10 and the Parrots are normally in 2s or 3s around the house.

Grey-crowned Babbler

Port Lincoln Parrot

Babblers, Honeyeaters and Kingfishers

Our garden is obviously the dinner table for these three species at the moment. We normally have birds in the yard, but at the moment we have families of birds visiting consistently. Late yesterday afternoon I heard a ruckus in the front yard and went out with the camera to investigate. The Grey-crowned Babblers are noisy most of the time when they get in a group, but when they are joined by the Spiny-cheeked Honeyeaters and the Sacred Kingfishers, something is happening out of the ordinary. They seemed less perturbed by my presence than something else in the garden - it turned out to be a young cat, and they managed as a group to chase it off. Personally I wouldn't want to be swooped and pecked with any of these beaks!

Grey-crowned Babblers:

Spiny-cheeked Honeyeaters:

Sacred Kingfishers:

Started off with a feed on the neighbours tree:

(I love the desperation of the one on the left)

Then swooped the cat and sat right above me:

Also had a pair of Black-faced Cuckoo-shrikes sitting in the neighbours yard:

Grey-crowned Babblers

These guys were in the front yard yesterday: