Nancy Street - Pets

[Gymnorhina, race hypoleuca] Various families of magpies has been visiting our home for so many years that they feel like part of the family. Each year they usually bring a set of new downy crying babies (3 babies arrived in 1994). Magpies like being hand fed tidbits of mince meat, sometimes 6 times or more per day, but we now limit them to 2 meals a day. They are so fearless that they sometimes walk in the back door while we're not home and search the kitchen floor for scraps of cat food. The gentle warbling of a magpie (called 'carolling') is a distinctly Australian and most relaxing bird song. International visitors should note that the Australian magpie is unique to Australia and parts of New Guinea. In settled areas magpies are very tame; while nesting they might be very aggressive towards humans to the point of occasionally inflicting damage; in natural bushland magpies are shy, in fact one of the most difficult birds to approach.



Mahpie baby late 2004	Magpies in the lime tree [2]	Magpies in the lime tree [1]

Thumbnails generated on 02/03/08 17:55:35

[Cracticus torquatus] BB is our nickname for Butcher Birds. They have a friendly disposition and beautiful songs that range from loud piping noises to soft warblings. Every year the BBs arrive with one or two new shy baby BBs. It only takes a couple of weeks to teach the new generation to catch pellets of mince meat in mid-air while performing a graceful aerobatic flip. From dawn to dusk the BBs announce themselves at irregular intervals with a raucous hiccupping song, that's the cue to announce "BB's here" and grab a ball of mince meat and launch it into the air. Why are they called butcher birds and why are they have the forbidding 'torquatus' in their name? Well, despite their friendly disposition they have rather bad habits: they like to rob nests and wedge their dead prey into the forks of branches or impale them on a broken branch. They even do this to the bits of mince meat.

Butcher Birds [10 Photos]

Thumbnails generated on 02/03/08 17:55:35

The ducks just drop into the backyard now and then when it takes their fancy and they see enough old bread scattered around the yard for a snack. Teal ducks are the most common visitors, but the ones pictured seems to be Pacific black ducks (?). The cats just don't know what to make of these things when they arrive, you can see them thinking "Yummy, it's a big bird. Hang on...it's a very big bird...too big in fact...I think I'll just watch from a distance. But it sure does leave a funny smell in the yard (sniff, sniff)".

Ducks [13 Photos]

Thumbnails generated on 02/03/08 17:55:36

Lorikeets [19 Photos]

			Galahs and Lorikeets

Rainbow lorikeet

Thumbnails generated on 02/03/08 17:55:37

Other Birds [27 Photos]
Thornbill	Thornbill	Gray Fantail			Galahs and Lorikeets
				Female mudlark	Spotted turtle dove
Female blackbird looking for meat	Blackbird swallowing meatball	Mangy blackbird	Seagull on Harley's roof	Seagull on the pergola
	One-Eye the crippled blackbird	Sparrow	Mother raven	Juvenile raven
(pink and gray) galah	Female blackbird	Male blackbird

Thumbnails generated on 02/03/08 17:55:38

Wagga Wagga Birds [11 Photos]

Thumbnails generated on 02/03/08 17:55:39

	Little Wattle Bird
	Red Wattle Bird
	Galah
	Crimson Rosella
	Silvereye
	Brown Goshawk
	Wagtail
	Thornbill
	Grey Fantail
	Noisy Miner
	Cockatoo
	Little Corella
	Striated Pardalote
	White Plumed Honeyeater
	Brown-Headed Honeyeater

	Mynah Bird
	Sparrow (becoming suspiciously rare)
	Starling (becoming quite rare)
	Blackbird
	Spotted Turtle Dove

	Lapwing
	Cormorant (2 types)
	Silver Gull
	Kookaburra
	Pigeon
	Swift or Swallow
	Common Koel (rarely seen in Victoria)