A FINE WEEKEND

After last weekends weather we've had a lovely clear and sunny couple of days and the birds are enjoying it too. We had a couple of locals drop by for a snack.

Pale-headed Rosellas snacking on the seeds of the introduced
Mexican sunflower.

 These  birds are favourites of mine with their pastel colours and chuckling contact calls.

Another parrot species common to coastal Qld is the gaudy Rainbow Lorikeet, 

always willing to pose for a snap.

Rainbow Lorikeet 

The black and white brigade were out and about too. 

Australian Magpie

Magpie-lark - this is the male with his black throat and bib.

WET,WET,WET

It's been wet and windy here in SEQ the last few days, so no new bird pics from this week.

Wet out the back.

Wet out the front.

I've included a couple of photos my wife took last year of an inquisitive Striated Pardalote checking out it's reflection in our tinted front window.

This is a bird of the Melancephalus race common in S.E.Qld

The photos were taken from less than half a metre away
through the glass with a basic point & shoot.

BACKYARD PICS

My first ever blog! So please excuse my amateurish attempts, 

but I will try to make it as interesting as possible. 

A friend has just purchased a new digital SLR and has lent me his old Panasonic FZ20, a 12x optical zoom point and shoot. So I've taken a few shots from my back verandah up here at beautiful Kureelpa, in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, Queensland.

Scarlet Honeyeater

We've had lots of these visiting the flowering shrubs the last few weeks. 

Spangled Drongo

A favourite of mine with it's scolding calls and mimicry of birds such as Grey Butcherbird,

 Lewins Honeyeater and Pale-headed Rosella.

Lewins Honeyeater

A resident species with its machine gun calls, is one of the first to start off the dawn chorus.

Varied Triller

We have a pair that regularly visit. I think this one is the male.

All the photos above were taken at  the 12x optical range. I'm looking at purchasing one of the newer "bridge" cameras on the market with optical zooms that go up to 30x but was wondering about camera shake when photographing at that range.