Nothing stick-in-the-mud about these birds

Call them slick or quick in the mud, just don't call them stick-in-the-mud. Some of the lively birds looking good as water evaporates in Townsville Common Conservation Park lately:

Comb-crested Jacana slurps up a gelatinous treat (a favourite with young Magpie Geese also).

Magpie-Lark splits time between bathing and breakfasting.

White-browed Crake ventures out from safety of bulrushes in search of grub.

Buff-banded Rail forages below tower hide (ignoring crowd of chatty birders above it).

  

Sea-Eagle catch carries catches

All go for immature White-bellied Sea-Eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster) above coastal cattle country today.

First, male Magpie-lark (Grallina cyanoleuca) rises in David v Goliath attack.

Pint-size Peewee gets to see the mighty talons.

Point made and points taken, moving on.

What's that, down there?

Oops, sorry madam. 

Female Black-necked Stork (Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus) gets in a flap.

But she's not the target.

Got you this time.

Off to down the catch.

First, must fight off thieving Black Kite (Milvus migrans).


All inside ten minutes of second- or third-year bird's morning.

Balanced diet continued

White-bellied Cuckoo-Shrike (Coracina papuensis) unknowingly continues my previous theme of a balanced diet with a caterpillar about to be part of breakfast at Tyto this week. Bird wasn't willing to stick around and let me move to better lighting.

Magpie-Lark (Grallina cycanoleuca) even less helpful. So quick on the swallow that its prey, a small grasshopper, was disappearing even as I lifted the camera.

White-browed Robin (Poecilodryas superciliosa) made no effort to co-operate with my would-be dietary theme. It's only contribution to balanced anything was to balance briefly on a shaded branch.

Tawny Grassbird (Megalurus timoriensis) also proved impossible to catch with anything resembling food in bill. Not so surprising since most of its food is caught and consumed within long grasses.

Miss wagtail, tern, turn to lark

Drove out to a series of treatment ponds this afternoon to check for Yellow Wagtails, migrants at this time of year from Japan and northeast Russia. The birds like areas of drying sludge and sometimes associate with Australasian Pipits. No sign of birds and shortage of sludge.

And no luck trying to capture flight shots of Whiskered Terns snatching flying insects from just above the surface of two ponds. A female Magpie-Lark (Granilla cyanoleuca) took a calmer path through the air, because it was not interested in hawking for tiny elusive prey.

White-breasted Woodswallows (Artamus leucorynchus) are very interested in flying prey. But this bird was even more interested in a series of intricate wing flapping and tail twitching exercises. I'm not sure what this behaviour - confined, in my experience, to solitary birds - means. Perhaps no more than avian PE.