Okay, so I've taken the plunge and I've had a crack at painting some actual art.  So I've so far painted two birds.  Above, the Blue Faced Honeyeater (still waiting for it to dry so will most likely go over this one again) to the left, the Rainbow Bee Eater.

If you look at the photos on the website, you will see the photos I took and have now attempted to change.  So far, things I have discovered - water is hard!  Getting paint to do what you want - hard.  Getting the bird to look like a bird - well, I think I've done okay there.  Any feedback is welcome as I'd love to sell some art to help support my photography hobby.  Looking at other websites, I see pictures priced in the $100s and even in the $1000s and half the time, I honestly just don't get it!  It could be just me though.

So, went up to Townsville to visit family.  Of course the camera came along and boy, did I get some awesome photos!  (You'll see some of them soon and it makes me wonder, what could I get up to if I had a real wild life lens - any sponsors out there?)

Anyway, I got quite a few of the birds on my all-time want to see / photograph list including the Blue Winged Kookaburra, White Bellied Sea Eagle, Sun Birds and Rainbow Bee Eaters (boy are those suckers quick!).

With the photography kicking along nicely and a major urge to get art and crafty, I'm hoping to have some actual photos available for sale and there will be some attempts at art.  But we'll see how that goes.

An updated bird list will be posted soon but in the meantime, happy hunting!

Finally got some good photos of the whistling kite.  Hooray!

Among other things, we managed to catch photos (some better than others) of the following;

Chestnut Teal, Australasian Grebe, Hoary Headed Grebe, Little Pied Cormorant, Black Cormarant, Pelecans, White Faced heron, Australian White Ibis, Royal Spoonbill, Black Shouldered Kite, Whistling Kite, Spotted harrier, Swamp Harrier, Brown Falcon, Australian Spotted Crake (first time we'd actually seen this one), Purple Swamp Hen, Broad-billed Sandpiper, Pied Oyster Catcher, Red-necked Avocet, Red-capped Plover, Pacific Gull, Silver Gull, Crested Tern, Crested Pigeon, Supurb Fairy-wren, Siriated Fieldwren, Magpie-lark, Willie Wagtail, Australian Magpie, Little Raven, Zebra Finch, Welcome Swallow, Golden-headed Cisticola and Black Swans.

All up, that's not bad - 34 different breads on camera with a few unidentified.

Okay, well, have been pretty busy lately and this weekend was no exception.  No bird watching had been planned, instead, it was my fathers 50th birthday celebration.  Doing the family thing we spent the weekend up in Seymour.

Now, for his birthday, my dad received a brand new set of binos to play with so of course, we went bird watching (can you tell where I picked up this hobby from yet?).  So, out to Mangalore we went, past the pub, over the railway line, down the road, second left and past some farms until we get to some bushland.  The rules?  Can't go home til we've identified 20 species.

Now, we made it, just, so let's see if I can remember what we saw;

Galah, Magpie, Magpie Lark, Australian Shell Duck, Flame Robin, Scarlet Robin (you can tell the difference with the amount of red - Scarlet Robin pictured), Horsfields Cuckoo, Yellow Brested Robin, Pied Currawong, Whistling Kite, Sulpher Crested Cockatoo, Welcome Swallow, Crow, Silvereye, White Plumed Honeyeater, Willy Wag Tail, Wattlebird, Kookaburra... and try as I might, I can't remember the last one!  Oh well, not too bad from memory.

The sad thing about winter is that some weekends, the weather is so wet that you can't get out and about.  So, why not bring the birds to us instead?

Take note of my husband's ingenuity.  We now have our bird feeder ready to go (yes, it is a pot lid, but in our defence, when we moved houses, we couldn't find the pot it belonged to so we're recycling).  In there is simply some sunflower seeds and a mix of supermarket bought bird seed.

This week we have a Turtle Dove and some great photos of some Crimson Rosellas and a cheeky Eastern Rosella.

Today wasn't so much about bird watching, it was more just to get out on a lovely day to go for a walk and a drive in our extended backyard.

In the 4wd we got to drive around.  We drove through O'briens Crossing and basically went around most of the state park until we stopped at McKenzie Flats to go for a walk.  I just thought I'd share this photo - how many fire tails can you count?

We saw you're standard Blue Wrens, Willie Wag Tails, Crimson Rosellas, a few Welcome Swallows and I managed to score my first photo of a White Eared Honeyeater (so I've added it to the collection).  Now it's becoming more of a challenge to get photos for birds that I don't have.  So, if anyone out there knows where I can find the Australasian Bittern, Great Crested Grebe or a Dollar Bird - these are teh ones I'll be looking for in the near future.

Happy hunting.

So, usually I id my birds by looking at the photos once I've taken them with my sports lens.  I'm not a huge fan of binoculars as I've usually got the camera anyway and it's too awkward to handle both... but that brings me to a spotting scope.

With a spotting scope, one can set up in a bird hide or on the banks of lake Borrie (for example) and take their time to id the birds sitting out there on the water. 

As much as I'd love to be able to do this with a camera, the $2,000 odd dollars it would cost to upgrade my lens is a little out of my budget (any camera stores out there who would like to sponsor a bird blogger, give me a call!), so this brings me back to the scope.

Have had a look online, and the best ones at the most reasonable prices seem to come from the US - but they won't ship here.  What's the go with that?  Anyway, have found the Meade spotting scope on ebay (Australian Ebay).  I just thought I'd pose the question - what do you use to find and id your birds?  Any recommendations?