Bird of the Week - Bernhard Schmitz Photography

Whilst I’m a fairly novice bird watcher, Suki the cat had always a great interest in birds for her own reasons. With the exception of cooked specimens, I tended to ignore feathered animals before I moved to Australia in late 2005 to join Mrs. Schmitz in Sydney. This changed soon after we settled in the suburb of North Bondi where the sheer abundance of colourful and exotic species sparked my interest in avian topics. I started to write down bird inspired observations which I put on this little weekly blog about Australia, Sydney and the feathered and not feathered locals.

Bernhard Schmitz & Suki the cat

SEE BIRD OF THE WEEK ARCHIVE >

The Sooty Tern (Onychoprion fuscatus) or Rußseeschwalbe 2011/02/03

The Sooty Tern a seabird of the tropical oceans that breeds on islands like Penguin Island near Perth and got its Hawaiian name ‘ewa ‘ewa, which roughly means "cacophony", not without reason.

The Black Kite (Milvus migrans) or Schwarzmilan 2011/01/25

Meet the Black Kite, a raptor that Mrs Schmitz called “a better accessory than the newest it-bag” after a close and personal fitting session at the Eagle Heritage Raptor Wildlife Centre near Margaret River.

The White-browed Scrubwren (Sericornis frontalis) or Weißbrauensericornis 2011/01/20

Small brown and hyperactive birds like this White-browed Scrubwren are often hard to identify and often referred to as LBBs, which stands for Little Brown Bird – a birdwatchers acronym for an indistinct or unknown small dark bird.

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