Six pelicans
It may be hard (impossible?) to tell, but the six Australian Pelicans above are not the same six as in the feature photo. I photographed these birds on 3 April at The Entrance, which is on the Central Coast north of Sydney.
And, this fits very neatly into “Birds seen in the past two weeks“
I don’t know what this is, and couldn’t match it online. (Breaking news: it’s probably a yellow-faced honeyeater!) Photographed in Sydney.
Birds on a wire or fence is the Bird Weekly theme.
Australian Pelicans in Adelaide
Robin (the North American kind) in Stratford, Canada
Keen foraging, or synchronised swimming?
Posted for Becky’s SquareUp challenge. I’ve gone with “playing around with the word up”.
(Also sneaking this one is for Birds with butts in the air)
My first thought for the theme of “Birds beginning with C” was cormorants. The photo below deserves to be pulled out of the gallery above, in part because it may need an explanation! In China, cormorants have been used for centuries to catch fish for humans. This photo gallery from The Guardian has some stunning photos of the men and the birds in action. In my photo, I suspect the man was parading these cormorants through a busy tourist area in search of people willing to pay for a photo.
Cormorants being carried – Yangshuo, China
I discovered I have photos of other C birds too, lurking in the archives.
Black cockatoo – Alice Springs, Australia
Canada Geese — Stratford, Canada
Pied currawong – Sydney, Australia
Condors – Colca Canyon, Peru
Birds beginning with “C” is the Bird Weekly theme.
One wingtip drags in the water
I photographed these petrels in the Indian Ocean while sailing from South Africa to India on Lord Nelson in 2013. After leaving Durban, we swung south (way, way south) and east, giving a wide berth to Madagascar and any lurking pirates, before eventually heading northeast, back on track. The weather at 35deg South was not what we expected from the Indian Ocean — grey, chilly, spitting with rain. The bonus was the company of petrels and even albatrosses, following the ship. They never seemed to flap those long wings: a feather lifted here, a wing tilted there. Such effortless flyers. I watched them for hours (frankly, there was little else to do!).
Banking to turn
The pelicans were photographed in Cairns, not quite as exotic a destination as the southern Indian Ocean.
Birds with Long Wingspans is the Bird Weekly theme.
