Pacific Baza and Osprey from the Top End

I had a couple of enjoyable experiences with the Pacific Baza at Nitmuluk, Katherine, which flew across the road and sat on a branch just above the road, and the Osprey at Gunlom Billabong. Here are the photos.

Pacific Baza

Osprey

Birds of Prey from trip to Darwin

By far the most numerous BoP were the Black Kites, circling around various places in Darwin in large numbers. They would be followed by Whistling Kites, but I did see a few others this trip. Probably the most exciting was the Pacific Baza.

Pacific Baza

Australian Hobby

Black Kite

Whistling Kite

Pacific Baza, Northern Rosella, Red-collared Rainbow Lorikeets and other photos of birds around Batchelor

After the heolter skelter the boys and I have been doing over the past week, today was one of those days where we just relaxed around the campground at Batchelor. Swims in the pool, mini-golf, washing and walking around bird watching was the order of the day.

The main excitement came in the late afternoon when a Pacific Baza decided the clump of trees around our campervan was a good place to hunt. We were treated to some tremendous views near the van, then the boys went chasing it around the campground for the next half an hour.

The first inkling was a large bird moved from one tree to another out of the corner of my eye. I knew it was large, so not most of the species we had been seeing. I ran around to the other side of the trees, hoping for a Collared Sparrowhawk or similar. When I saw the little crest on the head I called to the boys to grab their cameras and said there was a Picfic Baza. No, this isn't a typo, my son Banjo called the Pacific Baza a Picfic Baza in 2010 when we were travelling around WA. The boys didn't need much bidding. We were quite surprised how large it was, how large the wingspan, how small its moves from tree to tree or even within a tree were the majority of the time. It allowed great views.

Pacific Baza

While the boys chased the Pacific Baza, some Northern Rosellas flew into the top of a nearby tree

Northern Rosellas

The day started early as my youngest son spent two hours waiting for and eventually getting some wonderful, almost professional quality video of some Red-collared Rainbow Lorikeets. Check out his blog to see some of the video on his blog (see the blog post here.) I took a few snaps as well.

Olive-backed Oriole

Pacific Baza

This species has a special place in our family as it was known all around WA in 2010 as the "Picfic Baza". When I realised what it was, I was very excited. However, it didn't look like I thought it would and it was after a couple of photos that I realised there was something wrong. I stopped taking photos and was a bit horrified to see the poor bird's left eye was covered by some sort of growth. I wondered later if this wasn't the reason why I was able to stand and watch this bird for 5 minutes without it really noticing I was there, or if it did, it certainly didn't seem worried by my presence, 50 feet away and all the way down on the ground admittedly, but more often than not, when I get this close to a bird, and bird of prey especially, they tend to fly off fairly quickly.