Wild Bird Wednesday and Nature Notes - Oh so Common!

Oh dear, just a couple of really common birds

and a fish, a fish?

To make matters worse, an imported pest fish!

One of our house sparrows, "so what"! I hear you say.

Well, this little bird kept its beak open flying about and landing 

here and there without closing it at all. I had to wonder whether 

it had tried to swallow something too big and now was stuck in

a very sticky situation.

This silly gull I met at the Murray River.

It picked up something it may have thought was a tasty

morsel

showed it to me and threw it into the river. Nothing is as it seems.

Conversely, a fisherman had pulled this beautiful almost 

2 pound carp out of the river and thrown it onto the lawn 

behind him. Australians, unlike Austrians, do not honour the 

humble carp and with the excuse of saying it tastes of mud

and has too many bones don't even think of eating it. 

Once it is caught, it is against the law to throw it back since 

they helping the extinction of our native fish.

Having spent my early youth in Europe and, in consequence,

being used to freshwater fish with bones one had to be wary of,

I was not going to let it go to waste.  You could not get a 

fresher fish. An hour after is stopped swimming in the river, it 

was in my pot and made the most delicious soup with 

the most delicate white flesh. Yummm!

Linking with Wild Bird Wednesday

and

Nature Notes

World Bird Wednesday - In Memoriam . . .

Last Saturday our beloved gander jumped the fence into the cow

paddock. The cows are very territorial and although they tolerate

the humans who feed them and even muzzle up to them to be

scratched, a few sheep who crawl through the fence and small

mobs of kangaroos, they have even looked askance at me crossing

their turf. The appearance of a large white, waddling bird seemed

cause for investigation, they all went to look and the result was one

dead gander literally cornered in the corner of the fence. Whether

he died of shock or of being muzzled we will never know . . .

My heart is heavy with loss, I found him as I climbed through a

kangaroo hole in the fence to feed him. He was my friend and

bridge to the wild birds accepting me as well and is sorely missed

and with him my hopes of goslings in the Spring.

Not much else to report except the European house sparrows

digging up those died up grass areas we laughingly call lawn.

They descend in numbers but are skittish to get a shot of.

Ha, gocha in the faraway tree.

At the lonely pond an unidentified cormorant circled and left.

My bird finder does not feature one with a totally white head and

dark belly and white around the vent. My hopes rest yet again

on Stuart M being able to identify it.

Thanks once again to Springman for hosting this wonderful bird meme.

SkyWatch ~ Here Comes the Sun . . .

This was our winter solstice sunrise . . .

here is the sun through the clouds, I have no idea what caused

the green flash, was it a gang of Leprechauns fresh over from

Ireland?

Thanks to Gaelyn, we now have an explanation of this rare

phenomenon. It seems I was very lucky to capture it . . .

who says it is not worth getting out of bed on a freezing morning

just to capture a sunrise?

After long deliberation (sleep) I am sticking to my guns. No

one has actually seen The Green Flash close up sooo my

theory has not been disproved, ergo, it is just as likely to be a

rare Leprechaun migration as anything else!

By the time there was real light, the Leprechauns had

disappeared

to be replaced by a few cold sparrows in the Nectarine tree.

They enlarge if you wish . . .

With thanks to the SkyWatch Team for the fun we share on a weekly basis.