suprises and disapointments

See all the bee photos I took on the last day of 2008? That same day I had three wonderful sunrises! For the last week or so I've noticed a little bird flying low catching flies through my veggie garden. I couldn't quite make out what he was. Looking through The Slater Field Guide to Australian Birds, a wonderful book given to me by my fellow co-worker and nature photographer, the closest that resembled this bird was a 'Fly Catcher'. That was pretty cool I thought but I'd love to get a closer look at him one day if he returns.

To my surprise he did. I was up in a part of the garden that I don't often go as it looks a little snaky, but there is a large native shrub growing there and its in full flower. There where a lot of little brown beetles on the bush and as I was investigating a bird flew right next to me and busied himself having a good feed of beetles he was there for about 2 minutes with me just looking on. I didn't have the camera so I made some mental notes about his markings. After he left i ran inside to look through my book and found that he was indeed a member of the Fly Catcher genus but he was a Mountain Fantail! The book described him perfectly. he used his fan tail to flush out the little bugs and then gobbled them up.

Knowing he's an occasional visitor I'll be stalking that shrub until I can get a photo of him!

My story doesn't end here. later on in the day when taking the bee photo's below, deep in concentration I could hear something fluttering just behind me. as I finished taking some bee photo's and the camera was rendering ....which does take a while I turned around to see another beautiful bird that i had not seen in my garden before he flew in front of me and landed on a post jut a meter away

Do you think I had time to get a photo of him???no such luck as the camera still had not stopped rendering my last shots and by the time it had the bird had flown. But I did get a good look at him and again ran to my book for reference. This bird was I'm sure an Eastern Spine bill!!! His colours and unmistakable long beak plus his fluttering of wings as he flew are just as described in the book!!

But wait there's more. I resumed taking photo's of bee's for most of the afternoon. When I felt I had enough photo's to work on I looked up and was stunned at seeing a young Kookaburra just a few feet away from me. how long had this quiet visitor been sitting there for?

Unfortunately where he was sitting was in amongst some branches but did manage a few shots before he flew off. If I see him again I may try feeding him a lizard or a worm or two!

Skink