Images by Christine Walsh: 2009-09-06

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Flight

This a a collection of pictures of birds in flight, landing and takeoff. They were taken at different places around the country.

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo

Corellas

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo

Red-tailed Black Cockatoo

Corvid

Wagtail attacking a magpie. Even though you might think that the bigger the bird the better able to defend itself think again. In the world of birds bigger is not always better. In the air the smaller birds often have it over the larger ones as they are much more manouverable. Magpies can hassle an eagle to get it out of their territory and a small bird like a willie-wagtail can make a magpie move out of their territory. This one actually jumped on the back of the magpie to get it to leave.

Black Kite

Brahminy Kite

Australian Hobby. These birds can fly very quickly only Peregrine Falcon flys faster. Shortly after this shot was taken this bird attacked a budgie (small parrot) in midair and flew away with it.

Kite

Barn Owl - takeoff.

Willie-wagtail

Generally speaking gulls dont dive but these gull in the Spencer Gulf, SA. were. Instead of just ducking under for food they were lifting themselves out of the water a foot or to then diving in. They repeated it over and over. We wondered if the water was particularly salty and making them more boyant as even when they dived they didnt penerate the water very much.