A graphic depiction of the stunning male Regent Bowerbird is used as the logo for O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat in Lamington National Park in Queensland, Australia. The males and females are quite different in appearance but are both quite beautiful. The males construct a bower decorated with items like shells and leaves that will attract females. The first image is a male, the second, a female.
The Superb Fairy Wren is a very tiny bird that lives in the Southeast part of Australia, including Queensland in the midst of Lamington National Park. These tiny wrens seem never to keep still. We followed a couple of pairs around the O’Reilly’s compound as they searched for something to feast on. The grass was still covered with dew in the early morning when we went looking for them and this little male Superb Fairy Wren has a couple of dew drops on his cheek feathers, the result of foraging in the dewy grasses.
Australian King-Parrots in Lamington National Park in Queensland, Australia seem to have adjusted well to the presence of humans in their range in Coastal Eastern Australia. Here at O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat in the midst of Lamington National Park, they know that humans sometimes are a source of treats and they will gather excitedly in nearby trees and watch for anyone they think might have one to give them. Large groups of Crimson Rosellas and King-Parrots gather excitedly to watch and wait. It is quite the show as the gregarious birds fly from one person to another, then perch atop cameras, lenses, and flashes. They will land on shoulders, arms and heads by ones, twos, and even threes. One landed on top of my flash while I was handholding the rig, throwing the rig out of balance and making it a bit unwieldy. Another bird was comfortable enough to eat something while perched atop my camera gear, then to wipe its beak off on my flash. I guess I’m lucky that I avoided getting whitewashed by the swarm of birds surrounding us in the roadway at O’Reilly’s. This male, perched on a branch overlooking the walkway, looks as if he is searching for an opening so he could join in the frenzy. I can attest to the fact that the claws on their feet are quite sharp and it took a while for the sensation of a Parrot dancing on my head to subside.
The little Piping Plovers that we photographed at the Salisbury Salt Marsh Wildlife Area were absolutely adorable. This little one seemed to be trying to see its reflection as it dug into the sand with its beak in search of something edible. When there is a tiny surface of water over the sand, these little shorebirds will scuffle their feet back and forth in an effort to uncover a delectable morsel to eat.
Many small shorebirds look so much alike it’s nice to have Merlin’s photo ID app to help with identification once I’ve taken the photograph. This is a Semipalmated Sandpiper, still in its breeding plumage, taken on Red River Beach on Cape Cod, Massachussetts. It has extracted some sort of morsel from the surf debris and is attempting to move it into its throat to swallow it by manipulating its beak.
No sooner had we laid down in the sand on Cape Cod’s Red River Beach, than the shorebirds we’d waited for all week walked right up to us. This Sanderling was happy to wait for the foamy surf to subside a bit to grab any tasty morsels that might be waiting there.
Just a couple of days after I spotted the mostly unopened cluster of chive flowers, I thought to check on the progress and saw that almost all the buds were open. I got my ZMC105 Macro lens again and focused on the cluster and took a few shots. I didn’t use a tripod and didn’t take multiples for a stacked image at a small focal length. I just wanted a single image of the flower cluster at f/8. As I hovered over the flower cluster, moving up and down over it, keeping the center flowers in focus, I noticed a dark line on one of the flowers was moving. As I peered closer I saw there was a visitor, a tiny hairy spider moving out from under one of the flowers. It is really tiny as the flowers are barely a quarter of an inch. This was the furthest it ventured out while I was focused on it. When I bent down again to try to get more of the spider in the frame, it had completely disappeared.
I have become obsessed with solving the New York Time’s daily Spelling Bee, a fairly recent addition to the New York Times Crossword Puzzle App to which I’ve subscribed for years. I used to start my day with the crossword. Now, even before I get out of bed, I look at the Spelling Bee to see how difficult it will be that day. It’s a simple game. Identify as many words as possible from 7 letters. One specified letter must appear in all words. Words must be at least four letters with no maximum length. Scores depend on the length of the word. Rankings, based on the daily score, are based on a percentage of possible points in a puzzle. Some days I solve it in a few minutes. Other days, it takes repeat visits to the App throughout the course of the day. Although the top ranking is “Genius,” identifying all of the possible words makes one a “Queen Bee.” I didn’t even know about Queen Bee status when I first started playing. On days that I stagnate at the “Amazing” level (“Genius is the next higher level, the level I try for every day) and can’t come up with another word, I admit that I resort to looking at the daily hints. After all, I am obsessed with getting to the “Genius” level. Of course the “Queen Bee” is the ultimate goal and I have done it a few times but for the most part, I’m satisfied with “Genius.” Not that it means anything to anybody but I can’t allow myself to be defeated by seven letters. The daily hints message always has a different photograph of a honeybee so when I took this photograph with my Nikon ZMC105mm macro lens, I thought of the Spelling Bee. And now, oh dear, the NYT Crossword App has added Wordle! One more word game to obsess about!
It’s fascinating to watch birds eat fish whole, flipping and turning the fish so that it will enter the beak headfirst and, ideally, slide down the gullet with a couple of gulps. The adult Least Terns were ferrying their catch to their offspring in the nesting area on Duxbury Beach near Plymouth, Mass. This young Least Tern is already adept at flipping and maneuvering a small fish, whose life is gradually ebbing while the bird tries to swallow it whole. The little fish was in a losing battle but so too, as it turned out, was the small Tern. The bird was unable to swallow the fish but it put forth a valiant effort. We watched for a couple of minutes as the bird tried over and over to flip the fish up and into its beak, then gulping unsuccessfully to swallow it. By now the fish was completely coated with sand making it even more unlikely that the fish would just slip into the throat. Finally, the little fish was no longer flapping its tail in protest and the little Tern gave up too, unable to squeeze the fish into its throat. It left the fish on the sand and went in search of another.