observing birds

Crows are surprisingly shy birds, despite their size and loud talk.  They can make a varitey of sounds and use their limited vocabulary quite imaginatively. 

Crows are interested and friendly and always show their gratitude. They are very intuitive birds and are quick at understanding one's words and intentions.

 Babblers are flock birds. They flit about enormously and are very hard to catch for even a second's stillness. I guess they rely on their constant movement to confuse any predators. When they saw me trying to photograph them, at first they were nervous. Then they liked the attention and actually stood still for half a second and I managed to get a few reasonable shots.

The birds love having a few short naps during the day.  We call them 'trancing' because they look like they have gone into a trance.  In this slideshow we catch Dimpy the pied-butcherbird go off into a trance with Renuthri his Noisy-miner friend and other noisy-miner cousins keeping watch around him.

Baby Kerry like all his siblings before him loved having a bath from the first time he visited us.  On the day of these slides, he was preening himself after a first dip by the time we got out with the camera. He looked so cute and fluffy as he preened himself that we couldn't resist taking a few shots and then much to our delight he obliged us by taking a second dip.  Little Chipkin too enjoyed the fun watching from below.