Photo Friday - Bird Watching!

Hello and welcome to my second; 

This is where I will share photos I have taken from my week.

Its heating up here, becoming very summery! Beautiful warm days, and lots of sunshine, with lots of plants and trees growing and flowering. With that a lot of butterflies and birds fluttering about, especially in our yard.

My craft/computer room has a large window that faces out to our backyard where there are lots of trees and plants and I often spot common birds like pigeons, doves, sparrows, magpies, etc... But when I looked out the other day I spotted a dark black bird with shimmery blueish wings sitting on the fence! I called Mum and Dad and we both watched it and wondered what kind of bird it was, with such pretty shimmery plumage and bright red eyes! It soon flew away. But later on I spotted another bird hopping around on the fence and up the neighbours roof... So I grabbed my camera and went outside to take a photo and soon realized there were two of them:

I had never seen a bird such as these before! Grey with a black mask and black underwings... I couldn't zoom the birds up very well, without it distorting and blurring the photo - Here's a pic of the original photo and the two birds which I came to discover are called "Black-faced Cuckoo Shrike"...

As I was taking this photo, I saw and heard the flutter and shadow of a bird land on the fence beside me... I realize it was the pretty blackbird from earlier! Less than 2 meters away, staring at me! I took these photos of him, and his beautiful shimmery wings: 

He seemed very inquisitive and not afraid at all, But he soon flew away, again. My googling tells me he is called Koel, often called an Australian Koel.

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I take my photos with a CANON G12 Powershot Camera. I am very happy with my camera, and the photos it takes. But its zooming capabilities could be better... But in googling I discovered there are many lens attachments available for it. So I intend to get some lenses for it, such as, a wide angle lens and telephoto lens and multiple filters, too.  Which should help me capture more details and clarity when zooming in. 

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Now I'd like to leave you with a little story and some other photos I got this week. This time about our cat, Pushka. The ginger and white tabby cat who is 8 years old, but still acts like a kitten! Loves to play, jump, run and get into mischief about the house! 

We went out for an hour just to grab some groceries, and because he is an indoor cat, he is free to roam the house... Normally we keep the bedroom doors shut, so he can't get behind things and cause problems (like pulling plugs! or bending blind louvers from stalking something out of the windows!) or get near the birds in the house, who reside in my craft/computer room...

Anyway, I came home and Pushka was on the sofa chair, which is his favourite spot to sit and sleep, but I noticed he wasn't sleeping, just sitting up there... Usuaully he is fast asleep when we get home... 

 Heading up the hallway I notice my bedroom door open, in my rush to leave I had apparently not shut the door properly... So I head in there, and I notice my computer tilted and crooked on my bedside table drawer, then I notice little indentations in my blanket, leading away /or toward/ it...

Check it out:

It appears Mr Pushka is not as stealth as he thinks, and left footprints on my blanket before or after he had jumped on top of my computer, causing it to move askew. I just thought it was so funny, these little foot indentations from him!

I had to get a photo... I went out to him and asked him what he had been doing (I talk to my pets y'know, and they totally understand! lol) He totally refused to look at me, you swear he knew he shouldn't have been in there (not that I mind of course)...

When he finally did look at me, he gave such an incredulous look:

It just made us all laugh for ages. There is never a dull moment with our little rascal pets!