Birds of Canberra

In the morning, as the sky lightens with dawn, we awaken to the cheerful chirping...nix that! It is a cacophony of sound that blasts us awake. And, right at bedtime, when the sky darkens into dusk, it is another riot of sounds that crashes over us. The birds are noisy here!

Now, we aren't bird-watchers so these are our best guesses from trying to remember the colours and shapes of the birds, dashing home and flipping through pages of "Canberra's Birdwatcher Book" to find a match. Here's some we've seen:

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo -
Hannah and I saw three of them tearing a tree apart
on our way home from grocery shopping.

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo - these birds have an squawky loud call that outdoes a raven. They are large and everywhere! When they are in a tree, there are sure to be branches, leaves and tons of debris on the sidewalk when they leave. Their crest isn't up all the time. It's kind of neat watching the feathers rise up on their head when we stare at them long enough. This guy didn't raise his feathers for me. I guess I wasn't scary enough.

Crested pigeon

Crested pigeon - they look like a pigeon with a feathered hat. Neat! Allison identified this one!

Galah - we see lots of them on the field
rather than in trees.

Galah (type of cockatoo) - grey and pink and likes the school yard. We can always find these guys at the school when we walk past.

King Parrot-
These guys love our trees and his buddy almost
pooped on my head!

Australian King-Parrot - these guys are eating our fruit trees! I took this picture when a few of them were eating the pears in the pear tree at our front driveway. I quietly got close under the tree to take a picture (Hannah was sleeping in the pram nearby) when a glop of white went sailing by my head. Looking up, I realized that another parrot was right over my head and pooping! Yikes! Good thing I was wearing a hat!

Crimson Rosella - eats our plums!

Crimson Rosella - nicely coloured birds that seem to compete with the king-parrots. At least, they are in the same trees and bushes (but at different times). I like the blue and red together! So pretty!

Rock Dove - I know this one!
We have these too!

Rock doves (common pigeon in cities) - they're around. You've seen them too!

Weebill -
I didn't take this photo!

Weebill - I think? I'm not quite sure since we see little brown birds with a bit of yellow on them. Could be something else. But I like the name. They are too quick for my photography skills so here's a picture from the internet.

Australian Magpie

Australian magpie - everywhere! And bold! We walked right by one sitting on the fence at head height and it just eyed us as we strolled (or is that pram-ed?) by. These guys actually have a pretty nice call (though loud). But much nicer than the cockatoos!

House sparrow -
I didn't take this photo!

House sparrow - again, I think? Looks brown and sparrow-like to me. I can't get a picture of them (they are too quick). So here's one from the internet.











We'll continue looking and checking our handbooks as we go. It's actually quite fun, especially as we try to match the calls to the birds. Hannah has taken to yelling "bird!" every time we hear a loud bird (which means it's almost always those cockatoos - maybe I should teach her to yell "Cockatoo!" instead of bird). After dropping off Allison and Lucy at school in the morning, Hannah and I sit on the front deck to listen and look for birds. It makes me want to learn more about the birds back in Canada!

Sulphur-crested Cockatoos on the school grounds