Day: March 4, 2023

NOT IN MY GARDEN

~ Janet McKee ~ Leave a comment

Different birds to add to one’s list.

Something Over Tea

You see enough of the regular visitors to our garden, so I thought of spreading my wings a little to show you a sampling of some of the many other birds we see in this country. First up though is a native of Australia that turns up in odd places – the Black Swan:

The rest of the birds on show today are indigenous and the first of these is a large local resident at some lakes, dams and rivers – the Goliath Heron:

A bird that is ubiquitous all over South Africa – and which is making increasing inroads in the UK – is the Egyptian Goose:

Some time ago I proudly showed you photographs of the flamingos we were able to observe in the West Coast National Park. This flock of Greater Flamingos is flying over a dam in Gauteng:

Although I do not see…

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Return of Bird of the Week: Parakeet Auklet

~ Janet McKee ~ 3 Comments

Maybe more(?) than you need to know but well worth reading.

Wickersham's Conscience

Parakeet Auklet, St. Paul Island, Pribilof Islands, Alaska

We’re continuing to look at Alcids, one of the families of small, diving seabirds of the Northern Hemisphere. This is the first auklet we’ll look at, the Parakeet Auklet, a species of the North Pacific Ocean.

This is a beautiful seabird whose white irides (the area of the eye surrounding the iris) stand out dramatically from the black head, along with the striking, ornamental white facial plumes. The bright orange bill is nearly round. The breeding colonies are not large, and not densely populated, but you’d think otherwise from the sound, near-continuous whiney calls during courtship.

Courtship behavior, Parakeet Auklets, St. Paul Island, Pribilof Islands, Alaska

Parakeet Auklets have the widest range of any of the Alaskan auklets, spanning the northern Gulf of Alaska, most of the Bering Sea, the north Pacific south of the Aleutian Islands, and the Sea of Okhotsk…

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