Bird Week? Well, that was the idea when I started it over one month ago now. And yet, I’m still only at bird #6. Good thing I didn’t call it ‘Bird Month’… I might have felt beholden to sharing 30 birds instead of just seven.

Today’s bird is quite clearly a pelican, an Australian Pelican to be precise. They breed over on Mud Island at the south end of Port Phillip Bay. When they get old enough and start exploring, they eventually make it over to Phillip Island and San Remo. Every day at noon, a local organisation feeds the pelicans. They often take in the injured ones and nurse them back to health.

Over time, the birds have become pretty good at figuring out when feeding happens and turn up in varying numbers as the morning gets on. This was about an hour before feeding time when the pelicans are just patiently milling about waiting for happy hour.

 

No post last night as I took the family to the new Cirque du Soleil show called Ovo. It was a bit irresponsible of me considering today was the kids’ first day back at school, but it seems the excitement plus the exhaustion (got to bed after midnight) appear to have balanced out and they enjoyed their first day back.

I hope you like birds because that’s what I’m going with this week. Today it’s this very colourful little Gouldian Finch.

 

It’s bird week on In Search of Style, starting with this little pair of tawny frogmouths.

After three days of fishing in the Southern Ocean, these guys deserve a rest.

Home to a colony of Australian sea lions, Seal Bay was a great spot to get up close to the local wildlife. National park rangers take groups of 20 to 30 people down to the beach at a time. The logic is that the sea lions will not attack something bigger (like a group of 20 people) than themselves. As such, we were strongly cautioned not to get separated from the group (like, say by lying in the sand taking pictures and not noticing the group moving on…) and not to get too close to the sea lions as they could become aggressive.

The sea lions spend three days at sea catching fish and feeding. They then return to this beach to rest and restore their energy before heading back out to sea. As a result, we saw a lot of very sleepy looking sea lions.

New photography hasn’t been much of a priority lately so I’m going to continue drawing on the archives a bit. I’m actually going through a whole new batch of old photos. I recently sent a collection of slides and negatives to ScanCafe to have them digitized. While I was excited to have access to these images online, I’m still working out whether or not I’m happy with the job they’ve done. I’ll post some samples soon and share my thoughts on the quality of this service.

 

Okay, so apparently yesterday’s image wasn’t to everyone’s taste… bit too far off the rails? Hopefully, this one wins you back a bit!

This is a Magpie Goose flying over the Mamukala Wetlands in Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory, Australia. For bird enthusiasts, Kakadu is a spectacular destination. The isolation, the greenery, the warmth, the abundant water all make it prime territory for a wide variety of birds.

Places like this one are quiet (except for the occasional bus load of tourists) with lots of bird watching opportunities. Further south, in the thick of the park, there are cruises out on the water ways that will tire out your trigger finger with the number of birds in residence.

 

I’ve had this picture for a long time. I originally didn’t care for it. In fact, I cared so little for it that I don’t even have the original image. I cropped it this way a few years ago.

Coming back to this shot today, I found that I actually like the movement, the shape of the bird, its foot out and ready to land, the head turned away as if it has been distracted at the last moment. It is, by no means, a sharp, beautifully focused picture of a bird straight out of a bird book, but I think I like it better this way.

This owl clearly has his eye on a target as I followed his flight with this panning shot.