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Willie Wagtail
Scientific Name: Rhipidura leucophrys
Description: The Willie Wagtail is the largest, and most well-known, of the Australian fantails. The plumage is black above with a white belly. The Willie Wagtail can be distinguished from other similar-sized black and white birds by its black throat and white eyebrows and whisker marks. The name wagtail stems from the constant sideways wagging of the tail. Young birds resemble the adults, but have paler, slightly rusty edges to the feathers of the wings.
Distribution: The Willie Wagtail is found throughout mainland Australia but is absent from Tasmania. It is also found in New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the Bismarck Archipelago and the Moluccas.
Habitat: Willie Wagtails are found in most open habitats, especially open forests and woodlands, tending to be absent from wet sclerophyll forests and rainforests. They are often associated with water-courses and wetlands and are common around human habitation.
Seasonal movements: Although usually seen singly or in pairs, it may form winter flocks, often mixed with other species.
Feeding: Willie Wagtails are active feeders. Birds can be seen darting around lawns as they hunt for insects on the ground. As they do so, the tail is wagged from side to side. Insects are also captured in the air, in active chases.
Breeding: The Willie Wagtail's nest is a neatly woven cup of grasses, covered with spider's web on the outside and lined internally with soft grasses, hair or fur. The soft lining of the nest, if not readily available, is often taken directly from an animal. The nest of the Willie Wagtail may be re-used in successive years, or an old nest is often destroyed and the materials used in the construction of a new nest. Nests are normally placed on a horizontal branch of a tree, or other similar structure. The cream-coloured eggs, speckled with grey and brown are incubated by both sexes. The young birds stay with the parents until the eggs from the next clutch start to hatch. At this point they are driven away. If conditions are favourable, the couple may raise up to four successive clutches in a single season.
The Willie Wagtail is often found in the company of cattle and sheep. They either run behind the moving animal snatching insects as they are disturbed, or sit on the animal's back, darting off to capture a flying insect and then returning to its mobile perch.
Calls: The Willie Wagtail's call is well-known, often being uttered constantly throughout the night, and is interpreted as "sweet-pretty-creature", though other calls involve more scolding and chattering notes.
Minimum Size: 18cm
Maximum Size: 22cm
Average size: 20cm
Average weight: 20g
Breeding season: mainly August to February; can nest all year round.
Clutch Size: Three.
Incubation: 14 days
Nestling Period: 14 days
(Sources: www.birdsinbackyards.net; "The Slater Field Guide to Australian Birds - Second Edition")
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© Chris Burns 2019
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This image may not be copied, reproduced, distributed, republished, downloaded, displayed, posted or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying and recording without my written consent.
Male Bluebird with food for its young.
A series of shots of this bluebird nest with the parents actively feeding its three young.
Macro Mondays. August 24, 2015 ~ Divided.
Happy Macro Monday, my friends!
Taken at The Regency, Laguna Woods, California. © 2015 All Rights Reserved.
My images are not to be used, copied, edited, or blogged without my explicit permission.
Please!! NO Glittery Awards or Large Graphics...Buddy Icons are OK. Thank You!
Many thanks for every kind comment, fave, your words of encouragement, and the inspiration of your fine photography,
my Flickr friends! You make my day every day!
Common Murres. Also known as "turrs" in Newfoundland. On Bird Island, Witless Bay. There is a much more uncommon "razor bill" among the murres. See large.
A pair of cormorants nesting in a tree above the Silver River in Silver Springs State Park near Ocala Florida.
I'm not positive if this is mom or dad but from what I've read it's more common for the male mourning dove to tend to the nest during the day.
These parents set up their nest on a shelf in our back yard that is right along the walkway to the back gate which means when you walk by they are within arms reach. I stop and speak softly to them whenever I pass by and they don't seem to get alarmed by our presence. Hopefully their 2 eggs will hatch successfully and I will be able to get some baby photos.
Both male and female have been feeding all day today
I am wondering how many as the last count was 11 eggs.
We watched one of them having another quick bath.
Around the end of the 19th Century, hunters killed large numbers of these magnificent birds so that their plumes, known as "aigrettes", could be used to decorate ladies' hats. Because of conservation measures, they are now commonly found in our wetlands. Cypress Wetlands, Port Royal, South Carolina
Carmine Bee-eaters nesting on the banks of the Luangwa River, South Luangwa National Park, Zambia.
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Various groups of people here in Europe erect elevated platforms to facilitate nesting of storks. The birds certainly use them. I imagine the idea is to counter the loss of natural locations to both agriculture and urbanization. However, I prefer to see storks nesting in trees. It just seems more natural (and photogenic).
Obviously, there are two storks and a nest toward the top of my springtime 2021 photo. However, if you look lower, you can just glimpse other storks who also have a nest in this tree. This lower nest looks less well constructed than the one above, and is maybe even falling apart. But what do I know? I am not a stork.
Location: Tier Park Lange Erlen, Basel City BS Switzerland.
In my album: Dan's Birds.
The male storks arrived a few months back and looks like the chirping of tiny beaks may be in prospect.
They love holes in old trees, and as an invasive species (from the east) they may displace other native species.
Motherly instincts. I have been seeing this coot at this exact spot, sitting calmly for more than a week now. It is a lot of dedication and love.
Since we lost our breeding pair of swans a couple of years ago, we've been without new cygnets each spring, which is something I have missed. The young swan who has taken the territory along this stretch of the Union Canal now has a mate, and a friend alerted me to the fact they had made a nest and it looks like there are eggs in it, so perhaps this spring we will have cygnets again!
Sadly being young and inexperienced, they have chosen a less than ideal location - in a busy area, right against the canal wall by some apartments, meaning locals cats, foxes and others can see down into the nest. Hopefully the large swans will be a deterrent to any would be predators and we get some hatchlings...
Delighted to see them building up the nest this evening as I walked home from work.
20240912_5378_R62-600 Nesting material
A Little Pied Shag arrives back with some just obtained nest building material.
#15991
This is from a friends farm where they have horses. You can see all the different color horse hairs throughout along with small sticks.
Some ladies like flowers - others prefer something different........
A mid flight capture yesterday of a Cattle Egret (in breeding flush) returning to it's perch with a freshly collected addition to the nest!!
Captured during a session at Hunter Wetlands Centre (Shortland, NSW; Australia).
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Have a wonderful day!!
I took these photos a couple of days ago outside out house. These trees don't belong to us, but to the community. But they're right beside our house, so they're practically ours right? ;D
I just love the golden color they turn in the fall. I HAD to take a doll photo with one of these trees. I was worried about what the neighbors might think of me being stooped over INSIDE of one of these trees LOL
Notice the little fledglings in the center of the nest. It will have 2 siblings soon..
Nesting information:
NEST PLACEMENT
Nest Tree -Great Blue Herons nest mainly in trees, but will also nest on the ground, on bushes, in mangroves, and on structures such as duck blinds, channel markers, or artificial nest platforms. Males arrive at the colony and settle on nest sites; from there, they court passing females. Colonies can consist of 500 or more individual nests, with multiple nests per tree built 100 or more feet off the ground.
NEST DESCRIPTION
Male Great Blue Herons collect much of the nest material, gathering sticks from the ground and nearby shrubs and trees, and from unguarded and abandoned nests, and presenting them to the female. She weaves a platform and a saucer-shaped nest cup, lining it with pine needles, moss, reeds, dry grass, mangrove leaves, or small twigs. Nest building can take from 3 days up to 2 weeks; the finished nest can range from a simple platform measuring 20 inches across to more elaborate structures used over multiple years, reaching 4 feet across and nearly 3.5 feet deep. Ground-nesting herons use vegetation such as salt grass to form the nest.
Source: Cornell Lab of Orinthology
This Roseate Spoonbill was bringing back some late season nesting material this May in Florida. This one's from the first week of the long trip. I still have a good deal of sorting and editing to do before I really get down to posting from the trip. Good thing life has slowed down a lot since getting back. (Okay, yeah sometimes sarcasm doesn't really come through in print…. It may be a while. It's a good busy…mostly.)
The female of this pair of nesting osprey is noticeably larger. Both parents are sitting near the nest to protect it. Couldn't see any young. I believe she is still incubating. Taken at Fort Pickens , Florida.
Our beautiful world, pass it on.
Another year - another busy Spring nesting season
Wood Stork - Florida Wetlands - Palm Beach County U.S.A.
The Wood Storks are really making a comeback after
being on the endangered species list a few years ago.
(three more photos 'from this location' in the comments)
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The wood stork is a large American wading bird in the stork family. It appears all white on the ground, with blackish-gray legs and pink feet. In flight, the trailing edge of the wings is black. The head is dark brown with a bald, black face, and the thick down-curved bill is dusky yellow. Juvenile birds are a duller version of the adult, generally browner on the neck, and with a paler bill. The bare head and the long bill, which can measure up to ten inches in length, render the wood stork distinctive from other large waders in its range.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_Stork
Photo of the Day ~ Spectacular Animals Group ~ 4/29/17
www.flickr.com/groups/spectacular_animals/discuss/7215767...