House Painting & Backyard Bird Party

Yesterday was Anzac Day which means it was a Long Weekend in Australia. Reid took Friday off in order to prepare for all the work that needed to get done: this weekend's task was to do a little exterior painting. Saturday morning was spent in Armidale doing errands and chores, but the rest of the weekend was pretty much spent working on the house. Two and a half days outside meant my first real opportunity to photograph some of the birds that frequent our neighborhood. We've noticed the excess of galahs before, but yesterday was also the first visit of white cockatoos to our yard that we've seen.

We've seen and heard all the regular parrots of the area: white cockatoos, black cockatoos, crimson and eastern rosellas, galahs and rainbow lorikeets. The only thing that seems to be missing is the enormous flocks of little corellas of Armidale--but I don't particularly miss them, since I see them every day outside my window at work anyway.

Of course we have magpies; this singing group in our neighbor's tree.

I was surprised to see a lone pelican high in the sky-- perhaps only the
second I've seen in the New England region

We seem to have one resident magpie always in our yard. She was not too
keen on all the cockies imposing on her turf.

Finding something tasty to nibble upon

The galahs always run when I come out to the porch for a photo.

Our exterior painting consisted of painting away the brown trim on the house: gutters and veranda edges and support beams. We chose a cheerful blue (and some white where we thought the brown was a bit excessive.) We think it's a great improvement!

Starting on the gutters

The back veranda in its original form

Leland helping out--we couldn't have done it without him!

The back veranda, complete

The driveway side with painted gutters. Next up: replacing the wooden
trim along the bottom!