I stopped at Mc Donalds for a soft serve yesterday and sat in the car to eat it. This guy and his mates were hanging about and for just a fleeting moment I saw something I wanted to capture.
I can not stand their bin raiding and enormous droppings everywhere but I grudgingly respect their survival in the face of habitat loss. It's not their fault they are forced to live in cities.
I expected to crop the photo but it lost something when I did.......
Not their fault at all. And they adapt rather better than humans would.
ReplyDeleteThose featherless heads creep me out a bit!
DeleteI also respect the survival of birds bearing in mind all the plastic waste everywhere which they often mistake for food. Some birds have been been found to have 200 pieces of plastic in their stomachs, which are so full there's no room any more for actual food.
ReplyDeletePreachin to the choir, Nick!
DeleteGlad we're on the same page!
DeleteThe ones I would begrudge are the birds so bold as to snatch it from the hand of a human. The dumpsters around here with even a tiny crack are filled with much smaller birds, scrounging for dinner. They make a mess. When I dumpster dived, I threw all there refuse back into the dumpster so the birds and I would not get into trouble. No, I did not get in the dumpster, just reached in.
ReplyDeleteThey have never taken food from my hand but I expect they might!
DeleteNow I'm going to have to go to google and find out who this guy is!!!
ReplyDeleteI think the official name is White Ibis. You probably already knew that!
DeleteMy shadow (of a short dumpy lady) never looks long and elegant like that.
ReplyDeleteMind you there's not much sun down here in Melbourne at the moment to cast a shadow lol
Interstate friends are not impressed by the fact the White Ibis (who they refer to as 'tip turkeys or bin chooks' is a protected species. Should send them all back to where they came from - they say. Catch them if you can - say the protectionists
Welcome Cathy!
DeleteThe elegance of the shadow was more obvious in the cropped photo.
I wish there were less of them but it's probably good to protect them
I live just two hundred meters away from a bird sanctuary on the local river bank and one of life's great joys is to be able to watch the variety of birds in different seasons that visit our garden thanks to the sanctuary besides the regular round the year ones like sparrows, humming birds, pigeons, crows and eagles. You are so right that it is not their fault that they have to cohabit with us,
ReplyDeleteMan of many user names! I can imagine you watching the birds and sipping tea!
DeleteI'm not familiar with this member of the bird family and am glad to get a look at it! Are they dangerous with those long beaks? I completely agree over loss of habitat. And it applies to more than just animals ...
ReplyDeleteIf they are dangerous, Jenny, it never makes the news. In cities they use their beaks for digging in trash which is annoying but not a safety hazard unless I suppose you don't look where you are going and trip over.......
DeleteIs it a threskiornis - an Australasian member of the ibis family?
ReplyDeleteIt is!
DeleteWhat an amazing beak! Love the shadow too.
ReplyDeleteSo what's a soft serve?
Oh um, I'm trawling my brain to think what you call a soft serve in other places....
DeleteAnyways, it's that soft ice cream they have at McDonalds and other fast food places
Oh, Whippy ice cream!
DeleteAww... yep, cropping the pic would have lost the context.
ReplyDeleteSx
to my untrained eye, that bit of blue sky lifts the whole shot
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