MAGPIES

CATS AND NATIVE BIRDS – WHAT A DELIGHTFUL MIX.

~ creakingbones

This morning, under the kitchen window,  our resident magpies were bunging on an act  because they hadn’t been given their regular early morning snack of mince meat.

Fortunately for the maggies,  earlier this morning SWMBO had discovered a raw chicken breast that had found its way to the back of the fridge and outlived its use by date by over a week.

Tom and Ginger, our two house cats recoiled immediately they smelt the chicken and it was decided that the magpies, being wild birds and noted for their ability to eat anything meaty would soon demolish it.

Opening the back door, I threw the offending morsel onto the grass. and immediately the magpies descended onto it and began to tear it into small beak sized pieces.

As Tom, Ginger and the magpies peacefully co-exist in our backyard  I wasn’t surprised when Ginger came out and sat at my feet, watching the magpies demolishing the chicken that could have been his.

I ducked back inside, grabbed the camera, whacked on a lens and returned to the backyard. The scene was just as I’d left it, magpies munching and Ginger taking observations.

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GINGER WATCHING PROCEEDINGS

No sooner had I made this image than Ginger decided it was time to get back inside into the warmth of the central heating. I grabbed another image as he began to turn away from the magpies and their chicken snack,

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BORING, I’M GOING BACK INSIDE.

Magpies, crows, pigeons, galahs, sparrows, willy wagtails, sulphur crested cockatoos  and various other native birds frequent our backyard and spend a lot of time on the ground.

In all the years we have had cats, which by the way, are only allowed out of the house during daylight hours, we have never had a instance where the cats have attacked the birds or vice versa.

That’s nature for you.

Hoo roo for now.

 

 

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FEATHERED RESIDENTS AT CASA CREAKING BONES.

~ creakingbones ~ 1 Comment

The Australian Magpie has a bit of a varied reputation, depending on the time of the year and to whom you speak.

In the nesting/breeding season, Magpies become quite territorial and can become aggressive if they feel threatened.

Pedestrians and cyclists in particular seem to ruffle Magpie feathers and the media is often full of stories of Magpies swooping down and allegedly inflicting peck(not of the kissing type) injuries on their unsuspecting victims.

SWMBO and I have both spent years as cyclists and have travelled many thousands of road kilometres and never, never have we had a run in with Magpies.

Here at Casa Creaking Bones over the years we have actively encouraged Magpies to visit our backyard and now, our place is a Magpies playground. They roost in our native trees, shelter on our back verandah in heavy rain and bring their young in to meet us as soon as they leave the nest.

We can move around under their roosting spots at all times, year round and they never move, just delight us with their magical calls and as feathered alarm clocks, they have no Aussie sun rise  equals.

I’ve lost count of the number of Magpie photographs I’ve taken over time, one black and white Magpie look just like another and their antics are almost identical.

Recently I’ve rediscovered the fun you can have with a GoPro camera and today I had a try to capture a regular afternoon Magpie performance at our kitchen window.

By the way, it’s almost impossible to keep the window panes clean as the Magpies and the Sulphur Crested Cockatoos keep rapping on the glass with their beaks to attract our attention when they think a handout might be in the offing.

This arvo the Maggies were right, stale bread hand out time had come around.

I set the little GoPro on Video, mounted it on a Gorilla Pod, pressed the go button and opened the kitchen window to the waiting Magpies.

Have a laugh at what the GoPro recorded.

I normally call ‘Come on’, feed one Maggie and then call,’Next’ but this time around the queue had already formed and my requests were unnecessary.

I’ve not yet mastered the way to polish up the GoPro results, I’ll look into the appropriate software in due course.

You are safe however, there is no way I could ever become a Cecil B or anyone like that and produce a 90 minute documentary on Magpies.

Hoo roo for now

DEVELOPING YOUR EYE- DAY5-CONNECT.

~ creakingbones ~ 2 Comments

The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines ‘connect’ this way;

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As we are ‘developing our eyes,’ instead of scanning the Oxford’s page, I photographed it using the micro setting on my little Leica Dlux 6, set the aperture at 1.4, and made the image at 1/20th second, ISO 100. In RAW of course.

Combined with todays WordPress blurb, and the Oxford definition, ‘connect’ provides us with a multitude of options and my choices begin with bridges:

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This is the highway and pedestrian bridge crossing Lake Burley Griffin from  the centre of Canberra City to the nations’s Parliament House, the roof of which can be seen in the background between the two spans.

Next we have the bridges over the Wollondilly River, just down the road from our place.

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This is a great example of ‘connect’ as we have road traffic and a pedestrian walkway on the bridge and overhead, power lines, connecting electricity  to both sides of the river.

Now not all bridges are created equal and this primitive version serves it’s purpose. It’s hidden away in one of our nearby National Parks.

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Then for a variation on the bridge theme, here is a cross water  bridge in the form of a ferry on Sydney Harbour connecting  the City of Sydney and Manly.

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Of course, electrical connections can’t be neglected as they are vital to our life style and what can be more important that an extension cord:

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Then there is a further connection between our feathered friends and ourselves:

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As I was standing outside making the shot of the orange extension cord contrasted against the green grass, one of our resident Magpies popped over, just to connect with the activity.  If you look at the lower edge of the image you can see my toes. No other snacks were on offer.

Now perhaps, apart from face to face connection and ignoring emails, Facebook and the other electronic means of impersonal connection, the poor old telephone remains as our  premier person to person connection.

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This one of ours gets a workout and it is conveniently placed next to a vast whiteboard where we note down connections we must make as a result of the calls.

Most of our calls relate to actual human connection and my share usually relate to activities involving my motorcycling mates:

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Here are a few of the boys, waiting for sunrise on a chilly, windswept hill a few miles from the inland mining city of Broken Hill. Those of you who follow my blog will make the connection.

On the ride to the Hill that year there was a slight disagreement over dinner at our motel. It’s cause, who knows, but the following morning all was forgotten and the boys connected in a most unlikely ‘biker’ way.

 

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The boys  weren’t aware I had camera in hand until it was too late. The spontaneous reconnection was recorded for their later amusement.

Hoo roo for now

A FOX MAKES A QUICK VISIT TO CASA CREAKINGBONES

~ creakingbones

Every morning just after daylight, a horde of magpies descend into our backyard and their delightful calls prompt us to boil the billy and have a cuppa.

About 6.15am yesterday(Sunday), the magpies went into a frenzy, zooming down across the front yard at high speed, a yard or so above the grass.

Their quarry, a large fox.

The maggies had the fox totally rattled as it tried to dodge their bombing.

My iPad was handy and I took the following images through the window pane and the fly screen. The fox was in full flight and hows I managed to get the shot was more good luck than good management.

No sooner had the fox sped out of view the magpies returned to the back yard to await their breakfast of stale bread.

It’s incredible how well the iPad made the first two images, considering the fox was in full flight, I was panning the shots, the window was a closed and the fly screen mesh further obscured the view.

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One of the Casa Creakingbones guardians. Taken with my Nikon D810.

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Hoo roo for now.

PHOTO 101 Day 16: GLASS – A FOLLOW UP IMAGE.

~ creakingbones ~ 2 Comments

This evening, at their usual time,  just as our evening meal was being readied, a  pair of magpies landed on the kitchen window sill, asking for their evening snack.

By chanced the camera was nearby and through the almost clean window( I obviously missed some grime when I cleaned up last night) I grabbed the following shot:

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MAGPIES VISITING THE SCENE OF A DIRTY WINDOW

They peck at the window pane and make their signature warble to attract our attention. Just out of focus in the upper right corner one of their many mates can be seen, just waiting its turn.

I thought that this image would add interest to my post of yesterday.