The Daily Bird #785

Another one of the swallow pics, this time being nicely framed by the reeds.

The Daily Bird #784

Another one of the swallows, a young fledgling that sat in the bougainvillea on its first day out.

A young bird with its wings streched out sitting between pink flowers.

The Daily Bird #783

A Eurasian Serlin

They live at the camp site, too, and they are damn loud.

The Daily Bird #782

Back to the swallows. An estimated 500 pictures yielded some actually nice ones.

A swallow in front of a blue sky, a building to the left.

©Giliell, all rights reserved.
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The Daily Bird #780

We’ve been neglecting the Daily Bird, which is a thing that cannot be.

So here’s a gorgeous Sardinian Warbler for you.

The funny thing about shooting with the 600mm lense is that I sometimes don’t even know what I’m shooting and only find out at home when I look at the pics on the computer screen.

Sardinian Warbler
©Giliell, all rights reserved

Barcelona: The City 5: Streets

While there are few green areas in the centre, there are wonderful planted balconies and lovely squares. One thing is that apart from the pretty fountains there are water fountains everywhere that keep the population on two legs as well as four legs hydrated.

Fountain in the middle of a sunlit place.

Another pigeon bath
©Giliell, all rights reserved

The Daily Bird #779

A quick birdie before I crawl back to bed.

Daily Bird #778

Camp sites are probably an El Dorado for sparrows, who know no shyness but really like breadcrumbs

The Daily Bird #776

Tree chickens!

The “private area” of the mini farm was directly opposite our caravan, and while it was protected with a reed fence, there was a tree that was higher than the fence and the tree had a ramp for the chickens. In the evening some of them enjoyed to walk up the ramp and then hop from branch to branch. I so love that chess board pattern one.

A black and white chicken among the leaves of a tree.

Reconstructing the fearsome Haast’s eagle.

A comparison of the huge claws of Haast’s eagle with those of its close relative the Hieraaetus morphnoides, the “little” eagle. Image / Bunce M, Szulkin M, Lerner HRL, Barnes I, Shapiro B, et al.

With a wingspan reaching as wide as 3m and huge claws that could crush bone, the Haast’s eagle was one of the most fearsome creatures ever to stalk New Zealand’s prehistoric wilderness.

The largest eagle known to have existed anywhere, its demise quickly followed that of its much-larger prey, the moa, which was hunted to extinction by early Maori settlers around 1400 CE.

Now a top international scientist and Kiwi collaborators hope to shed more light on the lost giant, in an innovative study that could help conserve those endangered predatory birds that remain today.