Dear All,
A gloomy and cold day today (13th), and I was working in my bedroom.
At 10.30am I heard a slow whistle of identical notes in a repeated
series, and took it to be, that the Ruppell’s Robin-Chat has learnt a
new call with which to torment me. This continued for maybe over a
minute, when I thought that it sounded amazingly like a Bat Hawk.
I grabbed my camera and went to the bedroom window and took the
attached image from it. The bird was flying round and round the garden
and paddock calling and diving. I rushed outside to get more images
but was in bare feet and the bird did a couple of more circuits then
flew off being joined by a second bird and went in the direction of
NNP.
The bird photographed is not the bird I had seen twice this week that
I took to be a large female, entirely black apart from a white throat.
This bird is smaller and mainy white below apart from dark breast and
is undoubtedly the male.
It appears that my original assumption when I first saw the female
breaking off a branch is that we are going to get local breeding is
correct. The birds are behaving completely diurnal, gathering nest
material, vocalising and displaying so it looks very good at present.
It’s a pretty good bedroom window tick!
Best to all
Brian