New visitors

The sun came out today after several days of horrible rainy weather and with the sun came different birds to our bird feeder on the veranda. Perhaps it is because seeds on the trees are soft after the rain - whatever the reason for it, our seed dish was first visited by two rosellas the red headed bird is an Eastern Rosella and the other a Pale Headed Rosella.

f/4.5  1/320   ISO 300

Unfortunately it was quite dull when the photo was taken and it was rather dark so it has been tweaked to brighten it.
I increased the ISO "just in case" and it was just as well I did since we were visited by yet another common Australian bird - but not common on my veranda. Our visitor was the delightfully coloured Galah (pronounced "galaar" with a long second syllable).
Since it stayed still for a few minutes I was able to creep forward and take three shots of it before it flew away.

f/4.5  1/320   ISO 640  

f/5.6   1/320 ISO 640

f/5.6  1/320   ISO 640

These are beautiful coloured parrots and yet when I lived on the farm we would not appreciate it when thousands of galahs would decend on our wheat crop just as it was sprouting and pull up the little plants to eat the seed at the bottom. But they looked totally amazing in the sunset when they flew overhead. The red evening light would bounce off their pink head and chest feathers and make them even more beautiful. It is an image that I will always be able to recall!

These days I get a thrill when this bird makes a personal visit to our place! It happens so rarely.

AJ