merops ornatus

Rainbow Bee-eater

Miraculously we had heavy rain last night which put the fires out. Two houses lost.

these birds arrive in the south of western australia to breed before heading north

Making our way back towards the car, we spotted a distant bee-eater. Fortunately he flew towards us, but didn't make life that easy, as we spent the next five minutes or so chasing him from tree to tree before I could get a picture. It seems ages since I had last seen one.

After lunch we went off exploring more of the reserve and turned up at the delightfully named Gum Hole. A large water hole in the middle of nowhere. These lovely bee-eaters are found over most of Australia and really are very colourful.

On a dead tree in the middle of the dam was a pretty Rainbow Bee-eater.

We took the track down towards the beach, but it took an awful long time to reach it, as the land to the right of the path had ummm.... well.... quite a bit of interest for us birders! A small flock of Little Corellas flew noisily around the top of a distant tree, but an old dead tree nearer to...

Another image from the Queensland trip.

Common everywhere on our trip.

I'm back after a long absence. Been very busy setting up a video recording business to record some of our local artists in the folk scene and other genres. Also Adelaide in the summer is not the best birding! But just got back from 3 weeks in Darwin and Kakadu, so I've at last got a few...

Another excellent morning at Pengilly Scrub.

Hooray, the Bee-eaters have returned to Pengilly!