Thought you might like to see this little apricot thief ........
Going .....Going......Gone !
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Nice Photos corballyp! Great action shots too...Thanks for sharing!
M.M.
Nice photos, corballyp! They are a magnificent bird, even from a distance, so its amazing seeing them so close up!
I hope you've got some apricots left for yourself :)
Ryu
Canberra
Aiming for DSLR-quality shots with a bridge camera
Excellent photos.
It has a guilty look there in #3 - caught in the act.
The big question... which do you like more? Home grown apricots or visiting YTBCs?
Cheers
Tim
Brisbane
Hi Tim,
We feel very privelidged to be able to get up close to these wonderful visitors - they regularly feed in a Pin Cushion Hakea just over our back fence in the council reserve which borders our place. This was the first time we have ever seen the Black Cockatoos raid the fruit trees and we have been here in Mount Barker for 11 years. Normally we don't see them around until the seed pods ripen on the Hakea in February. Just lately, for about the last month they have been patrolling the district in small groups of about four to six birds. We are wondering if this early arrival has any meaning or not.
This morning, we had Sulphur Crested Cockatoos raiding the satsuma plum next to the apricot and we also have a 12 meter high nashi pear tree which I have let go into a specimen tree because it looks so good during spring and summer. We net off a few of the lower branches and leave the rest for the Rainbow Lorikeets and Wattle Birds, who normally don't wait until the fruit is ripe. They are all gluttonous and cheeky little thieves and you know what - we wouldn't have it any other way. I like to think that them getting stuck into our fruit trees is us paying them back a little for stealing their habitat.
We get our fair share of fruit and I will only net a tree if we are planning to preserve or jam any fruit that year. And with my new camera, I think I am going to get some fine picture opportunities !
Those Cockatoos & Lorikeets are certainly providing you with a lot of enjoyment, corballyp.
Sadly, while the Yellow-tailed Cockatoos enjoy feasting on your fruit & the Pin Cushion Hakea Hakea laurina fruits these plants don't nearly substitute for their original habitat. The Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo depends for its existence in the Mt Lofty Ranges on very old Eucalypts with very deep hollows in which to breed. In spite of all the awareness of & publicity about the precarious existence of Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos in the Ranges these trees continue to be vandalised & destroyed by greedy developers & others who have an obsessive need to "tidy up" their properties. You would be aware that what remains of the birds' habitat in Mt Barker is now under severe threat from the massive new housing developments which are chewing up land at the expense of beautiful birds like the Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos. Anything people can do to halt this desecration would be most welcome.
stop breeding and stop immigration else there will always be a need for new housing
Peter
Would you stop breeding entirely, Peter? Or would you ensure deaths are greater than replacement until our population became more sustainable - assuming each individual consumed sustainably?
I dont have the answer but I know that it is not the entire fault of developers - they like any business are meeting a demand
breeding - the China experiment did not work but every country needs to look at what is sustainable on thier land mass
I regularly get a laugh when overseas people say that Australia is underpopulated
Peter
There are also a lot of Australians who believe Australia is underpopulated, Peter. In this day & age, when our very planet is threatened by over exploitation by humans, it's appalling that there is such a low level of understanding about natural resources. It makes me wonder just who is in control of information in this country.
Australia is overpopulated in my opinion. The state of our so-called wilderness areas, the River Murray, our forests & scrublands, our wetlands, the Great Barrier Reef, many of our beaches & seas etc, etc, is a clear indication that Australia is overpopulated. And the double whammy is that many in that overpopulation don't give a damn.
I heard on Radion National on the weekend that "anthropology is the study of what separates humans from other animals". Surely, one essential difference is that humans are hell bent on destroying the environment which sustains them whereas other animals tend to live far more in harmony with the natural world which sustains them. That said, humans have the potential to reverse the destruction they foist on the planet but are poorly motivated to do so.