I have no idea where the last 12-months went, rushing past without a single post. I suppose I just got caught up with things, reviving my business after the debacle of a job that encouraged us to move here and reestablishing ourselves.
Now we have been here over 18-months I beginning to get a feel for the place. Emerald is hot and dry, not as dry as we experienced when we lived in Oman, but lacking the natural springs that came out of the mountains over there. The one river that flows through the town, the Nogoa is a tributary of the Fitzroy River. Its mud-grey turgid waters carve a steep banked slash across the country and I suspect the waters carry the agricultural run off that is part-blamed for the damage to the Great Barrier Reef. The land around the area is largely flat broken bush with stands of scrubby eucalypts blocking long views. It is a land of raptors, kites, hawks and falcons dotting the sky, whilst down in the long grass and hiding in the eucalypts small insectivores including Fairy Wrens, Finches and Thornbills skip from bush to bush in small flocks.
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| Yellow-rumped Thornbill |
The Yellow-rumped Thornbill is the largest of the Thornbill family weighing in at a hefty 9 grams and bill to tail end can be up to 12 cms. They appear in flocks and enjoy the harvest of insects they find in our garden trees.
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| Weebill |
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| Weebill |
The smallest bird in the garden, and indeed in all Australia, is the Weebill that comes in at a mere 6 grams and 8-9 cms in length. These tiny birds appear is flocks of a half dozen or more birds that skip through the canopies of the trees in search of insects. They are named after their tiny bills.
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| Male Red-backed Fairy Wren |
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| Female Red-backed Fairy Wren |
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| Male with a couple of his wives. |
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| Five of the girls nearby |
Last year we had a family of Superb Fairy Wrens, but in recent months they have been displaced by a largish family of Red-backed Fairy Wren. The group includes two males and around a dozen females who spend the day simply circling the house and sweeping up any insects they can find. These little fellows can weigh up to 10 grams and are longer, mostly because of their wonderful counterweight tails.
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| Plum Headed Finch |
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| Double-barred Finch |
Then of course there are the finches, and in our back yard that means the Plum Headed or Cherry Finch and the tiny Double-barred or Owl Finch which is only a tad bigger than the Weebill. The former tend to be less common and usually appear in pairs whilst the widespread Double-barred Finch is always present in a flock of a dozen or so birds.
Combine all this lot with a resident flock of 50+ European House Sparrows and the inevitable happens...
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| Collared Sparrowhawk |
Yup! We have an almost resident Collared Sparrowhawk. When we lived in Guanaba the Sparrowhawks and Goshawks had to put up with being harried by a mixture of Crows, Ravens, Butcherbirds, Australian Magpies and Currawongs but whilst these birds have some presence in Emerald they rarely frequent our garden and so the Sparrowhawk has an easier time of it.
Well that's it for now, I don't want to strain something on my return to the blog so I'll wish you a happy birding and see you soon (at least sooner than 12-months!).
