Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
Wednesday July 13 2022 was (yet another) glorious, bright winter’s day in the non-Scottish Perth.
A walk around the local lake was irresistible, even though mid-winter there usually proves unrewarding, bird-wise.
I almost decided to leave the camera at home…
One CommentToo many Perth residents have never visited Herdsman Lake, nor given any thought to it.
Sir David Attenborough, who described Herdsman as “the Great Fen of Perth”, is keenly aware that Perth is one of very few cities to have such a substantial, internationally significant, RAMSAR-listed wetland within 10 kilometres of its GPO.
Far from pristine, and more “wetland” than “lake”, Herdsman is, nonetheless, a very special place.
As you can see, this year’s shortest day was not at all “wintry”.
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One of the pleasures of Australian life is to look up and see pelicans “surfing the thermals”, soaring, spiralling ever-higher, with so very little apparent effort.
They are also wonderful to watch as they take off from water (or land on it); then, however, a great amount of effort is spectacularly evident.
Pelicans are one of “our” world’s largest, living, flying “machines”.
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The wing’s shape is such that it can push effectively against the air, and also generate lift as it moves forwards, but that is no use without a very powerful downstroke to capture the air in the first place, and this is where muscular strength comes in.
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The wrist and ‘hand’ of a bird contain far fewer bones than those of mammals and reptiles.
Through the evolutionary process that transformed a foreleg into a wing, some of the original bones have been lost, and others fused together.
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The lives of most flying birds are fast-paced and make tremendous physical demands upon them.
A robust framework is essential, but the bird skeleton also needs flexibility and to be light enough for flight.
Comments closedBirds are all that remain today of the dinosaurs.
The history of their emergence from the mighty theropod dinosaur lineage is told through millennia of fossils, and evidence of this ancestry is apparent in their living bodies today.
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Waterbirds approaching (or departing from) their liquid runways offer much more rewarding viewing than does any airport.
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The almost-set sun obligingly accentuated our hero’s breast feathers, as s/he and I looked directly at each other.
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Q: Are bills and beaks different, and if so, how are they different?
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