Our home at Sandy Beach backs onto the bush, so birds abound. Here are three of the feathered friend species who make us smile daily.
Brush Turkeys
We affectionately call the Brush Turkeys ‘the chooks’. There is a group of about a dozen just outside our back gate, busily scratching around in the nearby woodland as they rack up the vegetation looking for grubs and building mounds. They are a protected species. As you can see they are big and a bit odd looking. The local neighbours have a love/hate relationship with them because they are quite comical to watch but are unstoppable landscaping machines. The males, recognisable by their bald red head and bright yellow wattle hanging from the neck, build massive compost mounds out of leaf litter to incubate their eggs, while the females scratch for grubs. We have finally figured out why we have so many rocks in our garden: it stops the chooks from destroying the beds! The previous owners of our place replaced light mulch with river pebbles and although we were tempted to remove them at first, we have left the rockeries where they are and have managed to keep the turkeys off our garden to date. It might be a different matter once we get our veggie patch organised!
Rainbow Bee-Eaters
The Rainbow Bee-Eaters are brilliantly coloured birds which are ground-nesting in the grassy reserve just off the beach. Their vibrant green, blue, yellow and chestnut plumage is striking, particularly when the sun hits them. Always in pairs, they are believed to mate for life. The male will bring the female insects while she digs the burrow that will be their nest. And as it is breeding season right now, it is a treat to see them with their iridescent colours and acrobatic flying a few meters from our home. They are particularly active first thing in the morning, so as Wade grabs his board to go for a surf, Chris grabs her camera!
Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos
These large cockatoos are unmistakable with their loud wailing call as they perch in the native trees on dusk. A group of 6 to 8 cockatoos are daily visitors in the late afternoon but there are occasions when a huge flock of several dozen birds raucously descend on the banksias. They are loud, active, playful, and we love watching them although they are difficult to photograph in the diminishing light.
It is joyful being able to reconnect with nature from our new land base! We hope you too enjoy this return to bird photography.
Wow! You guys have very beautiful birds hanging around your new home, how wonderful! The turkeys are interesting because of the mounds. I hope you guys are well!! It’s good to hear from you. 😎☺️
Hi John, we are really well and happy. We feel we have made the right choice in setting here. Great region, neighbourhood and lifestyle.
That’s so excellent, I’m happy for you both! Next up is a voyage on Anui. 😎🌴
Yes, it’s coming up soon… Early October … two months on board! Hope you are well… keep thinking of you with your heart issues!
That’s great! I always look forward to your updates and lovely photos. Thank you! My ticker is ticking along nicely and I’m three months out from 66 years young. 👍🏻😎
Excellent! Just turned 69 last month and Wade turns 67 next month so not as young as you!
Age is just a number, so some say!
Fantastic. ‘Look forward tp visiting your avian neighbours when we can. xx
Sounds good, it will be nice to see you, although it might have to be in December when we get back from bringing Anui up as we are running out of free time!
What a great surprise to open my computer to this! Not just to hear from you but see some of your new neighbours 🙂 ! My current home also backs onto greenery with a named national park not far away but, except for both black and yellow cockatoos who regularly check I have not left anything edible on the patio table we lack your excitement. Have never met any brush turkeys here . . . hmm, they are big enough to make a mess and not apologize . . . great to hear from you . . . and we all would love to hear more when you find the time . . .
Morning Eha,
It has been really nice to settle in to a routine and enjoy the new environment. We are delighted with our new abode and love it here. The birds have been great fun and so spectacular, hence the post!
Small improvements are underway: fixing the rusty cabana, cleaning up the garden, starting to make wicking beds so they are ready to plant veggies in when we get back from sailing Anui up, adding an Ironbark handrail to the stairs so we have something to grab at night, the solar panel and battery for self sufficiency… it has been going non stop but we are starting to slow the pace down and just relax.
Ha! Thanks for all the ‘extras’ . . . having seen your previous photos my imagination can put those into place 🙂 ! Love the idea of that ironbark rail! And . . . simply cannot believe how fast time passes . . . your journey to bring the Anui to her new home is not that far away! Am wondering whether you will have the time to take darling Bengie to her final resting place . . . sorry, some sad thoughts remain . . .
We intend to go down to the Bass Strait Islands first from Melbourne to scatter Bengie’s ashes. We have our favourite spot and one where she had beach wanders from when she was a kitten to the very last time in her nineteenth year, so it is quite meaningful. We miss her a lot… she would have gone wild with curiosity here!
Yes it is the beautiful birds in our home I miss when on our sailing adventures that is why we could never be liveaboards!
Well these days we are like you two, enjoying both the ocean and the land!
Great to see you settled in with friendly neighbours, feathered and otherwise!
We have a couple of golden pendas on the footpath outside our house in Trinity Beach. The rainbow bee eaters love settling in them for the night at certain times of year. They are so gorgeous! Love your photos of them.
Birds are endlessly fascinating to watch, although we could have done without the shag party up the spreaders for our last night in Arlie! The evidence took some scrubbing to remove…
Ah, the shags and other seabirds roosting on Anui at night are something we definitely don’t miss. The worst we have had were at Marion Reef, way out at the Coral sea atolls!
Nice to hear from you… 🥰
You two are never far from our thoughts – any time I coil a line the ‘Wade Way’!
And we’re still waiting on a reef window… sigh…
Gee, the lack of opportunity to get to the reef must weigh on you! I miss the snorkeling… my gear and underwater camera are on Anui. But once we are back from bringing the boat home, I will investigate the local rock pools! The Solitaries are interesting with their mix of current.
Great pictures as always, especially the beeeaters and nice to hear you are settled. We’ve just had 4 days of day sailing on our Cygnet, Folie a Deux ( a bit exhausting as quite windy) on the Hastings and will be heading off for 6 weeks on Antidote in about 3 weeks. ( probably around when you are going to retrieve Anui).
Hi Meredith, it sounds like we will miss you when you come up. We fly to Melbourne on the 10th October. Funny, friends of ours on Bossa Nova met up with Antidote just recently and we wondered whether you were on it or it was the others in the syndicate. Enjoy the six weeks away!
Beautiful pics Chris! Gives us a real sense of nostalgia. Do you have any of the fairy wrens nearby? The red backed wrens were a rare treat for us while the blue Superb wrens were always fun to watch. Another favourite was the satin bower birds with their amazing nests and courtship behaviour.
Wade, got any decent size waves yet?
Howdy Elgar! Funny you mention the wrens. We spotted a red backed one for the first time ever two days ago… tiny and striking! We are yet to see the Superb Wren here. No camera in hand at the time, but we will remember that red and black flash forever!
The waves are still ‘soft’… Wade is thinking of getting a different surf board, but he enjoys the warmer water and sunshine!
We both love it here.
We can hear the joy in your voice! I reckon the climate is as good as it gets anywhere in the world and the wildlife will surely keep you enthralled.. So glad you saw the red back FW! they were a rare sighting at Sawtell Beach for us, they seem to be a bit shy, but they are beautiful….. We’ll be in Coffs next week, pity you guys will be in Ballina.
We leave on Thursday till Sunday night. Would love to see you if you are able.
We arrive on Sat, but Mon to Wed 28 to 30th, we’re around to see people.
Email us your address and we could FB message a possible get together?
If you have coffee, we could bring pastries??
By the way, our friend’s daughter Beth, runs a surf shop in Toormina. It’s in a small industrial area and it’s seriously like a museum of new and old boards as well as bric-a-brac. Wade would be a kid in a lolly shop!
Here’s her FB page and Instagram.
Hopefully we’ll be able to catch up the week after next?
https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=water%20closet%20surf
https://www.instagram.com/waterclosetsurf?fbclid=IwY2xjawUZ4T1wZG9mBWV4dG4DYWVtAjEwAGJyaWQRMUx1cnJ2NVhGMWlhbWNnenBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeA8vCplCvbPDZNsaDoz094TVCeWHi8_Ofe8MfBkqdYrTHft9wiECv9bn0Gww_aem_wqBLIQmU6kidnm820YJhsA
Definitely can do coffee! Will email you the details.
The rainbow bee eaters are lovely, but not the others
I understand about the Brush Turkeys but I would have thought you like the YTB cockatoos!