We have a lovely warm Sunday happening here. It seems quite still. The windows are open and I can hear our local neighbourhood birds twittering quietly away. I know all the pairs of birds around our yard. We have Mr and Mrs Blackbird. They are good workers and always busy doing one thing or another. We had bachelor Wattle Bird but this summer he got married and they can be seen in the birdbath quite often though he also bathes in the eaves of the house over the porch. He sure likes his baths. I haven’t seen her much lately so she may be busy with eggs or chicks. Then we have a new pair of magpies. We’ve never had magpies here before as we are up towards the base of Mt. Wellington and it has been too cold. In 30 plus years I’ve not seen them but they have now moved in. They have spent the past two weeks rolling around on the neighbour’s yard mating. Everyday they are cavorting in the grass. Surely she’ll lay some eggs soon. They moved in on the plovers who had a family of five chicks of which four survived. They are now enjoying an empty nest for awhile.
Then we have Kevin. Kevin is a dorky cockatoo that we believe was an escapee from a backyard aviary at one time and though he does stay with the flock much of the time he’ll often be found on our front porch screaming for a few sunflower seeds if we don’t put them out. He doesn’t get them a lot because I don’t want him to become dependent on us for food as these birds can live well over 100 years. If Kevin sees us in the yard he’ll fly by and give us the “eye”. It is not uncommon for him to sit on our porch railing and look in the lounge room window looking for us.
You can see I have a lot of time on my hands now.
Today I spent some time choosing some books to work my way through. I chose one Audible, one E-book, one Fiction and one Non Fiction. A couple I’ve begun, the others not yet.
I played around with the design of my blog a bit and now I’m sharing the books I chose to dig into. Once again 2021 is the year of the TBR shelves. I didn’t do that well this year so must buckle down next year. Here we go.
Progress so far–
Ann Cleeves Vera Mystery = 33%. Harold and Maude (ebook)= 28%
Julia Child-My Life in France (audible) = 25%
The Bookseller’s Tale (non fiction essays) = 0%
I’ll write more about these books as I finish them off. For now it is time to wrap this up and do something non computer related.
I hope all of you are having a nice weekend.
A Penguin's Journey- Books, Travel, Photography 
some ravens and a lot of very tiny birds that i don’t know the names of; well, hermit thrush is one; they are quite friendly… we’ve been playing Scrabble while watching the rain come down and absorbing hot chocolate… pretty peaceful so long as Henry the chihuahua doesn’t find something objectionable to chew on…
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That sounds very pleasant. Battling heat today. Cool front coming through tonight.
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Simple Sundays are the best – though our birds locally are nowhere near as exciting as yours (though we do see a woodpecker occasionally and once or twice a Heron… Very interested that you’re reading Harold and Maude – I loved the film but I don’t think I knew there was a book!
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I do love my birds. 🐦🐦 I came across the book Harold and Maude by accident. I finished it last night so will write more very soon. The film was in my top ten all favourites.
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Your bird visitors make ours very ordinary in comparison. Doves, magpies , sparrows and yellow tits are about our lot. The small ones are a delight. They nest in the hedge, swoop down en masse for a wash in the pond and at a given signal, all fly back. It’s quite a ballet.
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I could watch the birds all day. Everywhere I travel to I try and take notice. So I am sure I’d love your birds as much as ours. A ballet is a good description.
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I enjoyed your bird related post. When I visited Oz I was amazed to see cockatoos flying around all over the place – never seen here at all. I realise they’re indigenous to your area, but even so! Prior to this I’d only seen them on screen or in National Geographic.
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I was like you when I first came here too. I just could not believe the variety of parrot type birds. Very entertaining though the farmers are not fans of cockatoos. They are very destructive birds especially in large flocks.
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We have a flockmof cockatoos that fly over our house on the way to the mountain each day. We are in their flight path. Around 35 to 40 of will stop looking for seeds but fly on when they don’t find them. We sneak seeds out to Kevin when he visits alone. Magpies are more on the eastern side of Derwent River as it’s warmer. We have ravens, currawongs, kookaburras and fairy wrens around our place too. Big birds jn front, small birds in back. I enjoy all of them. 🐧🐦🐦🐦
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It’s been a beautiful day here in Melbourne — and I’ve used it to wash the curtains!
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That sounds ambitious. Just enjoying a bit of warmth today.
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I’m having a very pleasant weekend, catching up on computer related stuff. It hadn’t occurred to me that magpies mightn’t like the cold. The birds I see most often are crows, more crows, eagles and emus. Even now with the harvest coming in and grain spilled all along the road, I still don’t see many cockatoos or galahs.
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