SINce Brians Soup Kitchen…became more widely known..
there are heaps of these blighters, and more arriving every day. Sigh..well, ok, not that bad, but it seems as if we are keeping the entire Alexandra Hills Population of winged critters..and the rest of them..in one bit, and in good flying order.
We thought we had storm birds, see picture.  however, according to a publication from the qld museum, red eyes and a forked tail means..a spangled Drongo.  Who’d have thought it?!! Our Drongo swoops on his meat, grabs it midflight in his talons..spectacular to see.The real storm bird, is eastern or common Koel, has red eyes, and is more prevalent before or during storms, no forked tail however.

The Drongo is a mimic..the local one, inappropriately nicknamed stormy, also imitates butcher birds.  The koel is a cuckoo, female white bits here and there…theres a bird with a black head, competes with the drongo for meat bits. Stay tuned for further h’identification of aforedescribed tweety boid.
I digress.

A recent arrival is a pair of willy wagtails. I have only ever seen them..in qld..on the Cleveland Showgrounds, away from the big-eye-birds..(which seem to be in plague proportions a street or two away from there..) In WA, they are commonplace, well, out at Beacon they are at any rate.

The Brian threw some mince meat to ..stormy, or whatever the pet name was, who/which began the downward swoop, claws outstretched..and he then perceived a black and white streak, emanating from ..the rooftop probably. Stormys claws didn’t garner the reward expected, in fact I imagine they weren’t that far off getting a willywagtail instead, which managed to steal the mince, and scarper. Quite successfully, I might add. Their alarm calls seem to have a dual purpose..watch out, and…feed me!

Butcher birds abound, and have their moments. Butch is the preferred pet name, but we do have a Geoffrey or similar. Gregory?..anyway…Edward I am told.

Magpies..well. Hardly a rare sight, but the sods seem to keep all other birds away, IF they are fed in the back yard. Not feeding them seems to work well! They fly in, or hop around hopefully..the females do get more sympathy when they have a nest full, on account of they will fly home, and distribute. Unlike the males, which just..gorge themselves, given half a chance. Their call is delightful, I’m sure you will agree.

Crows..keep their distance, but do hang around and watch.. they clean up after all the rest of them..usually early morning or so.

Kookaburras only turn up here and there, sadly!  They can give the errant magpie a hiding here and there, and we did have one from Tanderra st..Blue..that landed on the Soup Kitchens shoulder..quite startling him, since we thought Blue was long gone.

The occasional Ibis..now, in Tassie, they are rare enough that they are treated with..wonder, delight, that sort of thing. I talk about the home town mid-east coast. Here, sunny Queensland,  they are found populating tips, beaches, roads, verges,..anywhere, in fact, and are treated with disdain, if not outright hostility. Sad, hey. The occasional one here doesn’t let humans within cooee,..and lets admit, why would you anyway?  Apparently one enterprising..restauranteur maybe..did find a use for them..he lowered their population quite successfully, until the powers that be discovered what he was up to..:)

Spur winged plovers..not here exactly..down the road a bit, in fact nesting on verges, roundabouts, strrrange places. Little salt and pepper shakers as we call the chicks, are a delight to see.

Lorikeets..thousands at the old place, drive you batty if the soup kitchen didn’t load up their plates with bread and honey sunday mornings.  Maybe hundreds, but you get the picture. The occasional one here.

Honeyeaters..several small finch varieties, and a large type fronts here and there, following the nectar around.

This is getting bigger than Ben Hur..lots of tweety birds around..

the end!