Eagle Eyed Visitors.

[lynx42]

We had three visitors yesterday during lunch.

The old dead gumtree was hit by lightening a couple of years ago and died as a result. It is now the stopping place for hundreds of birds each day and yesterday there were a large number of Starlings having a rest.

Suddenly three Wedge Tailed Eagles took roost and the Starlings froze. The eagles surveyed their resting place and sat for about 15 minutes during which the other birds didn't move a muscle.









The Wedge Tailed Eagle is Australia's largest raptor with wingspan of over 2.1 metres. It is not often seen in towns but as we live a few km. out of town we see them occasionally.

Regards Rick.

[hrpearce]

Take a shovel and bag over and collect the fertilizer for your garden

[aj.lec]

They are a magnificent bird

[Tony Wheeler]

Great photos Rick, esp. with the starlings for scale. They look like fleas next to the wedgies! Reminds me of this NT photo I took many years ago. We were driving along the Stuart Hwy which was still dirt in those days, when we saw in the distance what we thought was a man standing in the middle of the road. As we got closer he appeared to be standing on something, which turned out to be a dead roo. However it wasn't until we got quite close that we realized it wasn't a man, when he started to take flight down the road. I caught up with him and followed close behind for several hundred metres as he lumbered along trying to get airborne, with a full belly and a VC Valiant driving up his arse! We couldn't believe the size of him, he completely dwarfed the bonnet. Wingspan must have been a good 3 metres, we never knew they grew that big. Eventually he got up enough air speed to bank away from the road, and we watched him lumber away and slowly gain enough height to land in a tree. I screwed in my old 200mm telephoto and took this photo from the car, then hopped out and tried to approach him for a closer shot. Unfortunately he took off again before I could get much closer, so the only record I have is this giant chook in a tree!

[maple_leaf_eh]

I worked at a provincial park years ago as a park ranger. One of my jobs was to patrol the roads and campsites to make sure people weren't partying too heartily and keeping other campers awake. One of the loops was the furthest away from the gates, so we tended to assign it last. So it was the least peopled of the 5 or 6 loops. One night I had just turned the corner to creep around the gravel in first gear at low rpms, when a huge white flash appeared in the windshield. In a second I realized it was a Great Horned Owl flying at about 6' range.

[Bob Carriere]

Bart the backyard barred owl..... photo by my wife...

She calls him by name and he comes for his regular feeding...... landing next to her feet. He is diving from a tree branch ....... for lunch!!!!

Cheers

[Lynn Eades]

Wow Bob! that's quite something! Is that something that has happened slowly with an adult bird or did it start from when it was a chick?

[Tony Wheeler]

Stunning photo Bob, sounds like Bart is quite a character. Occasionally a kookaburra will hang around for a feed on my clothes line, but usually they resist taming and disappear after several days. I think owls are more territorial as a rule, evidently Bart has staked out his patch.

[Lynn Eades]

I have a story about a Kookaburra. We were travelling through Gregory National Park (south of Darwin) While stopped for lunch we walked along a stream and spotted a Kookaburra quite close. First he appeared to be blind, but then opened his eye to look at us (Chris and I) He didn't fly away, but was a bit high for a decent photo, so I decided to try something that worked with a Budgie.
I picked up a stick, which I put up against his chest and he climbed up onto it. This enabled me to bring him down to our level to take a photo. Wouldn't you know it! The film was finished. I went back to the Landcruiser, found another, and brought it back. I left Chris with the stick to hold,then I put the film in the camera, and we took photos, taking turns to get each other with the bird. After what probably amounted to 10 minutes of passing our Kookaburra back and forwards, talking to it and each other, and holding it's weight on a stick,(it was heavy!) I poked the stick back up by it's branch, rubbing it's chest against the branch, The kookaburra climbed back on to were he was when we first saw him.
This is a pretty remote part of Australia, and I would speculate that this Kookaburra had never seen a human before, and wasn't the slightest bit concerned about what we were.
I am sorry that I cannot post a photo. This was in the days of films and the photos are in storage at home in N.Z.

Rick we have just about collided with your big beautiful eagle. (two feeding on a road kill roo).
They are a very majestic creature. In the moment of being close you get a glimpse of the power, the size, and the beauty. For me animals bring highlights to my life.
Note. I believe Australia has two kinds of Kookaburra. There is a larger noisy one with lots of blue colour. These are common on the east coast of Australia and also found in the bush around my sister's place at Wainui (north of Auckland, N.Z.) This one we met (same as Tony's photo) was a smaller, of a more creamy colour. I believe they are no where near as vocal as the blue ones.

[Bob Carriere]

My wife is am amateur photographer..... she has been doingds owls in WInter..... the Snowy Owl amd the Grey Grey.....but they come on a cycle..... this years was the SNowy Owl....last year none could be found but Great Great were plentiful. she usually photogra[h them at day break in waist deep snow and -30 C.

This one she called Bart was a chance encounter in our back yard...... she calls him and he comes repeatedly to pick up his live mice..... 3 or 4 at a sitting. He literaly comes within a few inches of Joyce.

On some encounters with Great Grey she has actually petted the bird while he was stationary in from of her.

We are hoping that he will stay for the summer.... he is a a young yearling and may not have mated yet.

I have my CMPs and Joyce has her camera equipment and the Owls.

Cheers

[colin jones]

Tony, a very nice shot. Even more rare these days is what he's sitting on. It would be "I think" a 1960ish Hills Hoist from the days when every house had one. These days you wouldn't fit one in with the size of the back yards.

[Lynn Eades]

Colin,Most back yards in "Na Zealun" used to sport them as well. (a Hills hoist that is) We had the big one with the wind up gearbox.

BTW. N.Z. had the worlds biggest raptor (The Haast Eagle) until he was starved into extinction (by the demise of the Moa)
He would have been something to see The females were bigger, an some would possibly have reached a 3 metre wing span. It appears they were maybe 40 % bigger in the body for a given wing span, than other eagles.

[colin jones]

Hi Lynn, we too had the big wind up gearbox type. There's probably still lots of them out there as they were definitely built to last or should I say "something to hang on to"

[Tony Wheeler]

Of course these days the Hills hoist has been rediscovered by a new generation, used in conjunction with another iconic Australian invention in a variation of the popular Australian TV game show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqFFyW01FXA