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.
This large flightless bird is our first anniversary Bird of the Week. I have to confess that, even though Mrs. Schmitz and me travelled to North Queensland where this largest Australian bird’s main distribution area is located, the photo you can see here was taken in Taronga Zoo in Sydney.
The Ringneck is a endemic parrot native to Australia with a couple of subspecies that differ considerably in colouration. And here it is where it gets complicated and a bit confusing. Traditionally, two species were recognised in the genus Barnardius, the Port Lincoln Parrot (Barnardius zonarius) and the Mallee Ringneck (Barnardius barnardi), but the two species readily interbred at the contact zone and that’s why they are now considered one species.
Also known as the Red-capped Dotterel is a small plover which inhabits coastal estuaries, bays, beaches, sand flats and mudflats of Australia. We came across the specimen shown here near the small town of Lake Conjola situated on the South Coast of New South Wales approximately 200 km south of Sydney.
