Cottonwood and Magpies

I had an interesting experience with some magpies the other day.  A lot of cotton/fluff had fallen from the poplars near the Cultural Centre, blanketing the ground beneath the trees, so I went out to snap a few photos.  As to be expected, there were magpies stalking the grass.  We all minded our own business until I approached the area covered in fluff.

A curious juvenile magpie

The interesting thing was that as I went into the fluff-covered area, two of the young magpies followed me.  And as I crouched to take photos of the fallen leaves, they approached me very closely.  Before, all of the magpies had been sticking to the open grass.  As the young magpies followed, an adult followed them in turn.  Which made me nervous... I wasn't the one getting close to the juveniles, but I didn't want to get swooped if the adults felt threatened!

Juvenile magpie on the left, adult on the right. 

One of the young magpies lost interest but the other continued to follow me into the deep fluff.  It was quite peculiar.  I had the feeling I was less of a curiosity than the fact that I was wading into the fluff for no apparent reason, or that the fluff was just as peculiar to the magpie as the magpies following were to me.  But, of course.. it is easy to anthropomorphize and extrapolate upon these things.

Knee-deep in fluff

The leaves nearly glowed in the bright afternoon sunlight.

Caught in the tall grass.

Bottlebrush Season

The bottlebrush are blooming in Armidale!  It seems like most of the plants are red but there are heaps of smaller pink-flowered bottlebrush down by the Black Gully reserve wetlands, as well as some similar yellow flowers on a shrub which may or may not be related, I am not certain.  The red blooming shrubs get quite large, and covered in bright red bottlebrushes they are quite the sight to behold.

Meandering magpies

What month is it anyway?  Do mine eyes deceive me?

Yes.  Yes they do.  No snow for our November, just cottonwood fluff.

November in the New England high country means summer is almost here!  The trees are all leafed out and the spring flowers have all but completely disappeared.  With a bit of rain last week the grass is greener than ever.  I can't even remember when the last time we saw green playing fields!  While we've had some cool days (and cold nights), the temperatures are steadily rising.  Very soon it will officially be summer.

It's not a good time for allergies, though.  As seen above the poplars are shedding their seeds, along with all the rest of the plants.  Pollen is everywhere (and word on the street says it's twice as bad as last year.)  I have never really suffered from allergies before and I have been sniffling for the past two weeks.

We haven't seen too many parrots around town lately, but magpies are everywhere.  Now that the juveniles are getting pretty large, they follow their parents in the grass, crying for food.  I still love the warbling, yodeling call of the magpies, but the juveniles can be a little annoying.

Wait for it...

Gotcha!

As I was taking these photos, this magpie sensed some tasty morsel and ran very close toward me, letting me take some very close-up portraits.  I really like Australian magpies!  I think they're very handsome birds, and I love watching them run.

Rainy Days in Armidale

We had quite a bit of rain last week.  Seems like it hasn't rained for a long time.  Everything is very green now!

A bedraggled magpie