Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
This post’s photos were both taken from atop Red Bluff, circa midway along Flinders Island’s east coast.
No bird is visible in either image.
Both the wide angle and “normal perspective” images – respectively, 34mm & 58 mm – look to Babel Island, which covers just 440 hectares.
During one large seabird’s breeding season, this small island is home to a deal more than six million individuals!
You are looking at the site of the world’s largest shearwater “colony”.
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None of Australia’s 10 fairywrens are “true” wrens.
However, all are truly beautiful.
3 equally beautiful species: superb fairywren, splendid fairywren and lovely fairywren.
The last-named lives only in near-coastal parts of Queensland’s Cape York Peninsula; the other two have much wider ranges.
When southeastern Australians wax lyrical about “blue wrens” they usually have in mind the “superb” species, whilst a southwestern Australian is probably thinking of the “splendid” kind.
On Flinders Island all “blue wrens” are “superb”, albeit members of the island’s own subspecies of Malurus cyaneus.
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Three of Australia’s nineteen to twenty-one recognised “finch” species are “firetails”.
(Australia has the world’s most “collectible”/“beautiful” finch species, but some members of the human species do not regard Australia’s finches as “true” finches)
Arguably, the finest-feathered firetail is the one that naturally occurs only in a small portion of a single Australian State.
Within its range, this species is neither rare nor threatened.
However, remarkably few humans have seen this bird.
An even smaller number have ever managed to see one, properly.
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Both photos were taken within a few seconds of each other.
The pictured individual appeared to relish dip #2 even more than it had evidently enjoyed its first immersion, five minutes earlier.
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Chapters #39 through #41 feature the same individual; #39’s photo was taken immediately after that morning’s first sighting of him/her.
S/he was so sodden as to be unrecognisable, in terms of species or age.
The featured image, above, was taken three minutes later.
I then assumed that our hero/ine was relishing the morning sunshine’s drying power… and would soon be airborne.
I was wrong.
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#40 will answer the headline’s question!
The very tiny star of this and the next two chapters was photographed within a single five minute “window” on the morning of 09 February 2025.
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This chapter’s three previously-unpublished photos show the same individual.
They were taken within a single minute, on the morning of 07 February 2025.
Above and below, this grey fantail had just emerged from what soon proved to be the first of two immersions.
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You are looking at a very widely-distributed , small, insectivorous bird.
His or her feathers are not wet, so the bird appears to be a deal bigger/meatier than it really is.
Rhipidura albiscapa – the grey fantail – is very easy to see, across most of non-arid Australia.
I photographed the pictured individual at 5.47 pm on 11 February 2025, near Youngs Siding.
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The first two hours of daylight at “our” birdbath were sometimes even more frenetic than was the “afternoon rush” depicted in this series’ previous chapter.
After 8.30 am, however, the “morning peak” had passed, and a reclusive, petite bird could bathe, alone, and enjoy at least a semblance of privacy and calm.
Within a not very large radius of where we were staying is all of the pictured species’ habitat
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As is true of humans’ bathrooms, bathhouses and drinking venues, other species’ “watering holes” can be a “serene place of refuge” at one time of day, and “mayhem” at another.
On 08 February 2025, 3pm to 4 pm was “peak hour” at the birdbath in front of “our” cottage near Youngs Siding.
It looked sorely in need of an Air Traffic Control Tower!
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