My Burra Family: kookaburra feeding

Winter is a quiet time for the Tapas Bar & my Blog. The birds are neither breeding nor raising bubs, so there is little agro. Also the days are short and cold – not conducive to spending long hours outdoors filming.
When it’s like this I still have my Kookaburra Family. My stalwarts. They are a constant in my life. They’re here every day and seem to truly enjoy my company.

Boof cuddling in under the watchful eye of Brave Baby

Boof & I in a deep and meaningful

This winter however, was different. We’ve just exited the warmest winter since records started so I’m not sure if I’ve got so many photos due to the warmer weather & the birds obliging, or the fact I spent more time out there taking them. So Please…………..

...…….Keep Reading

When I said there was less agro due to winter, there is always the exception to the rule & that’s Cedrick & Daphne the Lorikeets. They’re not testosterone driven. They’re not jealously guarding the Tapas Bar as a food source for their bubs. These guys just love to fight. They don’t care who. They don’t care when. Each other. Different species. Doesn’t matter.

WHO?? Little ol me.

Aggressive? Not little ol me.

Well, maybe just a tad!

It's not the size of the dog in the fight.

It's the size of the fight in the dog.

NEVER! NEVER say bite me to a Lorikeet

Haaaaalitosis. Halitosis.

Do I really have bad breath????

Answer carefully Cedrick!

Here's my answer Daphne!!!

SURPRISE! Cedrick

NOT NOW!!!! Daphne's here

Bacon Snakes are always a good source of funny photos. The Kookaburras just LOVE them, and they put themselves in all sorts of unusual positions trying to release them.

How I LOVE my Bacon Snakes.

Unless they've been tied down

This is going to look ugly

Bugger, can't go any further this way.

I'll have to try the other direction.

OH SHIT!! If he lets go now

that's going to fling me all the way to the other side of the bay

just like a sling-shot

He's a funny bugger is our Brad

For those that follow my blog will know I have a couple of Burmese cats that co-share the veranda with my Kookaburra Family. It’s a tenuous relationship, however, it works. 7 years and there’s been no fatalities on either side. Having said that I came home last month & Devil greeted me at the front door like he usually does, except this time he was on the outside. How had he got out. I checked my GoPro footage for the day and caught a glimpse of him limping around the backyard. Now for those that own a Burmese any of the following scenarios could have been true as they are notoriously clumsy. Lying in the sun on the edge of the veranda he rolled over – and fell off. Wrestled with Hyde, his bigger brother, and was thrown off the veranda, or 1 of my Kookaburra Family was on the railing & Devil dived up, missed the bird and sailed straight over the edge. I’ll never know.

So the other night I was watching TV with both the cats curled up asleep on my headrest, when Hyde heard something that caught his attention? He was down & scratching around under a trophy cabinet I have in the lounge room. His insistence soon had Devils attention so now both cats were trying to reach something tucked out of reach. This went for some minutes with me thinking it was probably a coachroach (they fly in from the waterfront attracted to the veranda lights). So both cats are at one end totally fixed when a little grey blur dashes out from the other end a slipped under my bedroom door. I was the only one to notice. I opened the door, moved all furniture away from the walls and moved the cats in. All they wanted to do was go back to the cabinet. So I locked them in my bedroom. After ½ an hour of meowing to come out I reluctantly opened my door. They had completely lost interest in the mouse/rat.
I sat them on my lap and read them the riot act. I told them how bitterly disappoint I was that 2 cats were best by a bloody mouse. THEY WERE A DISGRACE TO THE FELINE RACE.
With that I went to bed. When I woke in the morning all I can say is it was like a scene from the Godfather. On the foot of my bed was a dead mouse. Seems my cats had sent me a message I couldn’t refuse.
My faith in my 2 boys restored, the mouse was confiscated for a greater good. I’ve wanted a mouse for ages to present to my Kookaburra Family, and now I had one.
I couldn’t wait to set this guy up on the Tapas Bar for the clan. I set up both my GoPro camera up at different angles as I didn’t want to miss one second of what would transpire.
And what transpired was a HUGE BLOODY DISAPPOINTMENT. They ignored it for 7 minutes in preference of some chicken & chicken bones I had also served up.

Here's the video
https://youtu.be/FV87q2HtE5g
I have posted plenty of photos on my blog of “Koobbits” A Koobbit is a Kookaburra that can morph into a Rabbit. I think they do this to scare the others away as shown in these next photos. Why a Rabbit would scare a Kookaburra defies logic, but there you go, you've got to be a Kookaburra to get it. Well it seems Pernicious the Pee Wee also has this ability to turn into a Koobbit. This has never been filmed before and seems to have gone inter-species.

GO AWAY BROTHER. Don't make me morph

I warned you!

Pernicious trying her hand at morphing

Boof morphing into a Koobbit.

Not dissimilar to the Regan head spinning scene in the Exorcist,

but much, much faster

Something of interest is happening right now, and that’s the transition of one of my Satin Bowerbird boys from juvenile to adult. At age 7 they change from a “Green Bird” to a “Black bird”. The following family photos show Brad (the adult male), then Angelina (the mother) followed by Knox (the transitional boy) and finally Shiloh (the youngest boy). Note the difference in the beaks between Knox & Shiloh. Knox’s beak has already turned cream. Soon his green feathers will change to black like his dad. I’m looking forward to bringing you those photos as I haven’t seen that yet myself.

Brad

Angelina

Knox (In transition)

Shiloh

I try to link all my photos to a story as I have above. These next few are just photos for photos sake.

Why do I have to move?

Why is that your seat?

In the winter it's close enough to the radiator so I'm warm but not so close I sweat, and in the summer, it gets a nice cross-breeze by opening up windows here & here. It also points to the TV not at a direct angle so that I can converse with others in the room but not so indirect where the picture looks fuzzy.

I Like the look of this guy.

He's one good looking Rooster!

An Apple tossing Kookaburra

Who'd of thunk it?

Red the male Wattlebird looking at food,

while his mate Autumn flies in wishing he was looking at her.

Devil Bird that has Tongue of Fire

I see you...………………

PLEASE, PLEASE, don't bar me from this blog.

I promise to be good :)

This brings me to the end of this blog.

I’m looking forward to bringing you more stories and photos soon,

so stay tuned.

The days are getting shorter. There is a definite nip in the air and a certain harmony descends upon the Tapas Bar.
Summer has finished along with the breeding season. Autumn brings out the flowers and the best in my birds. The lack of testosterone & babies and life slips back into normality.
I laugh when neighbours comment I go a long way to spoil my birds. The flowers aren’t really for the birds as much as they are for the camera. Sure a few may enjoy the nectar

I'm Mal the Noisy Miner

Hassling all the other birds is stressful

Sometimes I need to just stop & smell the flowers & chill.

but mostly they are there to add colour & texture to my photos. And if I’m really, really lucky, and by that I do mean really lucky, I might get a photo of a bird holding a flower in its beak. This is an unusual action for a bird and makes for a bloody good photo.
In the six years the Tapas Bar has been going I’ve only taken 1 photo of one of my Kookas holding a flower and looking at the camera.

A photo from years ago.

A smile that just melts hearts.

That’s why I live in hope of getting another.

And that hope was rewarded a few weeks ago. A matter of times actually. I couldn't believe my eyes, and all within a few days.

Ketut the Spotted Dove is always trying to win Rhonda's heart

A bouquet of flowers might just do it.

The last thing you would expect to see in a Kookaburra's mouth is a flower

That is unless that Kookaburra is Button.

She's a new age Kookaburra

That's not right. It's missing something.
A Kookaburra

I'm betting you're smiling as you look at this.
She brings joy to the world, my little Button does.

Every now and then I treat my Kookaburras to bacon snakes. I have to tie them off to the Tapas Bar otherwise they would be gone in a flash. I laughed out loud last week when I set a few up. I was standing next to the Tapas Bar after just “fixing” them, when Boss flew in. He wasn’t missing the opportunity to grab one before the others, and rushed in. He flew in, scooped one up in his beak and in one smooth action took off. The bacon snake pulled tight and sent Boss flying arse over tit into the yonder. Check out my video at the end of this blog.

OH NO!

BLOODY BACON SNAKES!

I JUST KNOW THIS ISN'T GOING TO END WELL!

BUGGER!

This isn't going to look good.

The glamour birds of the Tapas Bar are Brad, Angelina & son Shiloh, a family of Satin Bowerbirds. I haven’t seen Angelina for a couple of years but Brad & Shiloh are daily visitors. Shiloh is the spitting image of his mum, identical really. The only way to tell the young boys from the girls is a close look at those amazing blue eyes. If you look closely at Shiloh’s eye, there is a slight ring of mauve around the pupil, whereas the girls are blue all the way.

At about age 5 or 6 he’ll start to change into his adult plumage and by seven, should look identical to his dad Brad. Shiloh is nearly four and looking at the photo below, is starting to show interest in blue things.

Young boys like to copy what dad does

So why shouldn't birds be any different?

Son, we're Bowerbirds.

We decorate.

That's what we do.

And no bower is a respectable bower

without a generous selection of blue.

If the Bowerbirds are the glamour group, Cedrick & Daphne the Lorikeets are the ones that add colour & excitement to the Tapas Bar. They’re great. These guys are the real characters of the bird world. It would be nice to say that they were lovers not fighters but…… Bwahahahahahaha, that’s not them. They’re not known for their patience or understanding, but I love them all the same.