Thursday 19th September 2013, 10.20am (day 756)
‘”Nice weather for ducks”, they said. “Come to sunny Yorkshire”, they said. Well, this sucks. And all my friends have buggered off to Spain this morning without me.’
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: bird
Ducks, Brisbane River
Tuesday 30th April 2013, 2.30pm (day 614)
Last day of April, the third full month in a row spent outside the UK, but the last on this current run – by the end of May I will be home. Either way, it’s about time we had some more ducks on this blog. I like ducks, and whatever sub species these individuals are an example of, they arranged themselves rather fetchingly along the Brisbane River bank this afternoon.
Cassowary
Thursday 28th March 2013, 11.50am (day 581)
This is a female Southern Cassowary, Casuarius casuarius, the second-heaviest and third-tallest species of bird in the world. They have the lowest bird-song of all, a near-subsonic rumble, just at the edge of human hearing. Cassowaries play a vital role in maintaining rainforest in a healthy state, distributing many seeds, and it is unclear whether any other species perform this role for many plants. They have large territories and are thus a good ‘signal’ species: if the cassowaries are in good shape, the ecosystem’s in good shape. Except that there are only 1,500 cassowaries left in the wild in Queensland. Half of them die in car crashes.
Be nice to cassowaries. I find I am quite taken with them as a species: even in a continent full of beautiful birdlife, it stands out. This lovely resides at the Lone Pine zoo, and this shot was the culmination of a 15-minute modeling session in which Ms. Casuarius was cajoled into posing by yr. humble photographer.
Georg and the weka
Tuesday 26th February 2013, 6.35pm (day 551)
First day on the Heaphy Track. To save all three of them being just landscapes here is some human – and animal – interest. The bird is a weka, a flightless relative of the kiwi, unique to New Zealand and – this particular one anyway – seemingly well practiced in the art of thievery. This was taken at the shelter/campsite of Gouland Downs, a very atmospheric spot; comedy value was high as Georg, camping out, kept having the weka sneak up behind him, only to scurry away as he turned around. Here the nemeses come face to face with each other.
Heron, in Geelong
Friday 15th February 2013, 4.05pm (day 540)
Although I flew into Melbourne yesterday I’m not actually staying there this weekend, instead, I’m hanging out in Geelong which is a smaller city a bit further round the bay. I’m staying with an old university friend I haven’t seen in about ten years since she emigrated out here for work. There’s not an awful lot to Geelong but, like the rest of this country, it does have some cool wildlife. I was stalking this heron for a good 20 minutes from along the path by the bay near the marina, and got a few good shots, but this one I chose because the reeds just beneath the water give it a sort of texture, and the S-shape of its neck is just beautiful. It’s the second heron to appear on the blog and the first one was beautiful too.
Emu, at the Emu Ridge distillery
Wednesday 6th February 2013, 9.20am (day 531)
Toured Kangaroo Island today and saw plenty of interesting creatures both in the wild and in sanctuaries of one kind or another, including kangaroos, koalas, goannas, seals, wombats and more. Good landscapes too, but as I did a landscape yesterday, the wildlife theme is more appealing – and this emu wins because I love its deep red eye sitting in its otherwise bland plumage like a jewel. Vicious-looking thing however – was glad it was behind a fence.
Rook on the old bridge
Tuesday 16th October 2012, 3.20pm (day 418)
Very little opportunity to take photos of anything today, due to spending almost all of it sat at home working. Just as well this rather butch-looking bird was perched on the old bridge in town when I went to pick up Joe from school, therefore.
Bad photo, awesome subject
Saturday 15th September 2012, 11.40am (day 387)
I went on a walk today – the fifth-to-last one in my project to walk all the 214 ‘Wainwright’ fells in the English Lake District – and you can read about that on my other blog, and see many photos that are a lot better quality than this shoddy, out-of-focus shot. (Give me a couple of hours and I’ll have them up later today.) So why is this crappy picture the ‘Photo of the Day’, then?
Because this is a golden eagle goddammit. There are two – two – golden eagles in the whole of England. Scotland has quite a few – at least, if farmers and landowners can be exhorted to stop poisoning them (a disgusting example of environmental carnage, which the RSPB have long been campaigning against) – but England has just one breeding pair, who reside in Riggindale. This is a valley at the southern end of the reservoir of Haweswater, in the east of the district.
I was within a mile of that valley today, above the deep and remote coombe of Threshthwaite Cove, near the summit of Caudale Moor (fell #205). I saw this large bird fly through the cove and swoop up onto a promontory. I didn’t think, at first, what it might be, but I’d seen where it landed and saw that the rocky promontory was being touched very well by the sunlight, so I stopped for a few minutes to see if I could capture it. The more I took of it the more I thought, hang on, this is far too big to be a hawk or even a falcon. This picture above was my best effort, as it really was quite a way away and even at maximum (70x) zoom this is as good as it got. But I got enough other pictures, including of its face, to be very sure that what I saw and photographed here is, indeed, quite literally, the rarest bird in England.
I once knew someone who was completely inept at golf, a total novice, but who once flukily hit a hole-in-one, witnessed by many people. Seve Ballesteros went his whole career without hitting one. I feel like I may have done the birdwatching equivalent here. Sorry to anyone who has been twitching for decades and never got one like this, then. But now, at least, you know roughly where to find it.
The patient angler
Sunday 2nd September 2012, 11.25am (day 374)
When I was in the Lousiana swamp a few weeks back I saw alligators – we definitely don’t have them in Yorkshire. Cypresses and wolf spiders, spotted on the tour, are also not usually seen round here. But when the guide pointed out a sleek, tall drink of water of a bird with a beak like a dagger, a fish’s worst nightmare – oh yeah, we have them in Yorkshire. Really? Yes, really. Herons often fish in the river that runs through the centre of town. And here is one, just to prove it. Handsome beast, isn’t it?
Being 42 