Just after I had retired a young friend of mine obtained for me a fine set of Pentax binoculars , of just the right magnification for birdwatching . We are hardly to be called twitchers , but the wife and I still use them frequently as we spend time down in Millenium Park , near out present dwelling. There are a lot of waterfowl there .

I first began to use them on the block , and soon discovered that one of the major purchases I would have to make was a bird recognition book , because there were so many birds unknown to me in the scrub around the area . To list all the birds I saw up there is a big task , but not , I hope about to turn into a boring catalogue.

The lowest point of the block, near the dam , was home to several families of ducks , nothing very exotic , mostly the common Australian wood duck , though no doubt we had a few visits from other species . Now and then an egret would drop in as well , but it was common enough to see a flight of ducks pass over on their way down to the dam , where , if you moved quietly enough through the scrub till you got to the banks , you could watch them paddle happily round till they caught sight of you and either made a dash for the bulrushes or flew to another dam elsewhere, depending on whether they were nesting with us or not . It was engaging to watch the ducklings scramble after their mother . The odd grey heron sometimes spent time foraging near the dam.

I still remember with some amazement watching one adventurous duck fly over our house to alight in the huge redgum to the left of our gate. I still do not know what its purpose was in doing so , nor yet can I work out how , with paddles for feet , it was able to balance on the tree's limb.

That same tree had a wild bees' nest in a hollow limb far above the ground , and it could have been that or some small bird's nest which was the attraction for the big goanna that tried to climb it. He paid for his daring under the attack of some small but very determined sacred kingfishers that swooped and struck at him repeatedly.

Another pair of the sacred kingfishers seemed to be obsessed with digging a hole in the big termite nest that protruded from an old ironbark gum just down to the left of the house . I saw them at it year after year , but I am still not sure whether they had hollowed a nest there for themselves, as it would have meant a big climb to find out , impossible for me . They were beautiful to watch , anyway.

I have in another posting mentioned the kingfisher's relations , a flock of kookaburras , the bushman's alarm clock , that moved from tree to tree along the ridge road and woke me punctually at five a.m. each summer day. I like the bird , and built a feeding stand in a gum near the house so that I could leave fatty scraps for them . One kooka amused me mightily when it flew off with a long strip of fatty meat , to beat it against a branch in an apparently tenderising process . The strip wound itself around the branch and left a puzzled bird wondering how to unknot it . Also I have mentioned before the owl or something that sounded More Pork ! nightly and repeatedly , a mournful yet strangely comforting sound .

Often in the evening I could hear the booming sound of a pheasant coucal , which regularly lodged in a large dead gum in Leo's property . It would echo up the gully , again a monotonous but pleasant call. Once I was lucky enough to see one striding through the brush not far from the house , a very handsome bird . For a moment as it rustled close to me I had mistaken it for a fox.

An even more colourful , but extremely noisy set of dollar birds would yak-yak-yak along the roadside trees , before taking off with their ungainly floppy flight pattern over the bush. One bird I have never been able to identify was one that I often saw on the road outside our gate . The best guess I have been able to make is that it was a grey whistler. There were a few hawks and falcons about , but they worked the ground well away from the house , and so did not disturb the pigeons and doves that frequently grazed the (almost ) lawn near our front door.

Long tailed brown pigeons and the perky crested variety were frequent visitors , and we were also graced by the beautiful bronzewing , wompoo and wonga pigeons with now and then a white-headed pigeon .Ringnecked doves were common.

One day , walking down near the dam , I looked up into a large gum , to see a powerful owl in its customary stance on one leg , clutching in its other claw some part of its prey -- whatever it was . They are a fierce looking bird , as is the tawny frogmouth that used to perch at night in the casuarinas near the shed . Unless one looked closely with the light of a torch , the frogmouth , sitting absolutely still , could hardly be distinguished from a ragged branch jutting out from the trunk.

The loud cracking call of the whip bird always annoyed and frustrated me - not because I disliked the sound which was marvelous to hear , but because I could never seem to locate exactly where it was coming from . I think that there was often a pair that followed each other's call almost instantaneously , causing me to jerk my head wildly trying to catch sight of them ; very difficult as they were fully camouflaged in the grey foliage .

Near the house there were wagtails and what I think may have been some kind of tree creepers and /or yellowhammer . The jacky winter or stump bird was fun to watch as it chased insects . The oddest visitor I had was when I went to the front door one morning and there , swaying back and forth from leg to leg in front of the glass was a quail , the only one I ever saw .

Crows , currawongs were omnipresent ; the magpies competed with the kookaburras at the feeding station , and their lovely magpie songs were wonderfully complemented by the melodic butcherbirds . Great choristers both.

The casuarina nuts made excellent feasting grounds for many kinds of parrot., the beautiful eastern rosella , some flocks of migrating rainbow lorikeets, the noisy galahs and sulphur crested cockatoos , and sometimes the superb king parrot would graze the mown areas for the seeded grass .

My pride among the parrot clan was a flock of black cockatoos , about eleven of them . Now and then I would walk down among the casuarinas to the right of the house , stand for a moment , and listen . In the major fruiting season one could hear a continuous rustling , as if a light rain were falling from the trees . Around each tree would be a layer of freshly crushed nut shell , with more and more raining down. Though they are a large bird , the cockatoos are often hard to pick out among the branches -- but when one catches sight of them it is worth it. Glossy black , with a red or yellow rump , they gaze quizzically down at the viewer , then carry on with their skilful crushing and shelling .

The belief is that three ( some say five are needed ) flying above the area means that it will rain . My eleven fortunately never caused a flood !

Together with the parrots , my favourite birds , among whom I would not like to choose a first , were the wrens , finches , pardelotes and the wattle birds . I have known the chatty little superb blue wren all my life , but for the first time , much to my astonishment , I was sent to the bird book to identify a red backed wren , similar in size and general configuration , but with a red back over a black body , a joyful first for me.

There were far too many different finches and pardelotes for me to list here , all attracted to the native trees we had planted near the house . The only time I was irritated by them is when one would fly into the garage through the swing-up door and it would take a long time to drive it back out , as they stubbornly refuse to fly low enough , even though the double doorway was very large.

The nectar producing shrubs were a heaven haven for the wattle birds, called that not because they inhabit wattle trees , but because they have a wattle on each side of their heads . They were amusing creatures , even though they have a terrible squawk . I remember watching for about half an hour as a pair clumsily argued over the grevillea on the left of the house. One gradually prevailed , driving the other further and further along a whippy branch , till the loser finally hung upside down bouncing at the very end , while the winner squawked triumphantly over him .

Luckily there are a lot of them around our present home , so I can console myself watching their antics.

I don't think I ever saw a sparrow or a starling on the block , though the former were abundant enough in town . No budgerigars either .

But the birds were a great part of my enjoyment at Dondingalong.