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.
Scaly-breasted lorikeets have similar habits to the related Rainbow Lorikeet (see BOTW#2), and the two species often group together in mixed flocks but they are much harder to detect compared to the spectacular plumaged cousins because their predominantly green plumage blends so well with foliage. Both species are very fond of nectar and are often seen in gardens and parklands, even in suburbs of large cities.
This nice dabbling duck and his female partner were our direct neighbours at our last Camping trip to Jarvis Bay, one of our favourite places in New South Wales. It was there where Mrs Schmitz, as mentioned in BOTW#58, caught a bad cold after a chilling night. I have to confess that even I felt a bit cool that night despite the fact that we where sleeping in brand new sleeping bags in our also brand new tent.
This weeks Bird Of The Week is a small colourful species of estrildid finch endemic in Southeastern Australia that is quite uncommon but can regularly be found in the world’s second oldest purposed national park - The Royal National Park on the fringes of greater Sydney.
