King Parrot & Royal Spoonbill.

This immature male King Parrot came to our feeder the other morning for a quick feed. It is always good to see that they are still around.

Australian King Parrot (Alisterus scapularis)

Just down the road from our place is a park with a pond and sometimes you can be lucky to see Spoonbills there, as I was the other day. 

Royal Spoonbill (Platalea regia)

 

 For more birds visit Wild Bird Wednesday.

Birds of Brooloo Park

We are conducting a series of regular bird surveys through the Mary Valley with the aim of establishing a bird trail. The first place we visited was Brooloo Park Eco Retreat & Equine Resort. On this first visit we recorded 65 species over the 2 days we were there. A pretty good count considering it's Winter. (click on photos to enlarge)

Jacky Winter (Microeca fascinans)

We don't get to see too many Jacky Winter around our area anymore, so we were very happy to see at least 2 pair on the property.

Forgot to get the name of the horse, but the 2 spoonbills caught my eye as it was unusual to have one of each species together. They flew in together, were feeding together, and flew off together.

Royal Spoonbill (Platalea regia) (Front)

Yellow-billed Spoonbill (Platalea flavipes) (Rear)

Azure Kingfisher (Alcedo azurea)

The Azure Kingfisher is one of the hardest to get a photo of, because most of the time all you see is a bird flying really fast along a creek. At one of the camping spots on the property where we were having lunch, we noticed this one just sitting on a branch in the deep shade by Coonoongibber Creek. You would think with the colours in this bird it would be easy to see, but as I walked down to the creek to take photos, I was surprised to find it sitting just on the other side.

Brooloo Park

Coonoongibber Creek

Black-winged Stilt and Royal Spoonbill

A visit to the local sewage ponds is one of the few places where Black-winged Stilt and Royal Spoonbill can be found on a regular basis. During our last bird count at this site we had 11 species of birds - Pacific Black Duck, Grey Teal, Chestnut Teal, Little Black Cormorant, Cattle Egret, Australian White Ibis, Royal Spoonbill, Purple Swamphen, Black-winged Stilt, Black-fronted Dotterel and Masked Lapwing.

Click on photos to enlarge

Black-winged Stilt (Himantopus himantopus)

Black-winged Stilt and Royal Spoonbill

Royal Spoonbill (Platalea regia)

Black-winged Stilt, Royal Spoonbill and Australian White Ibis (Threskiornis molucca)