Wednesday 14 March 2012

A trip to the zoo

Ian had a meeting at Paignton Zoo on his birthday and I took the opportunity to go with him and take one or two photographs ;-) Many of the animals were hiding from the cold and wet weather, but I was very pleased with my time spent in the reptile house. Not that I took many photos of reptiles - I'm no good at getting photographs through dirty glass. Rather I focused on capturing the tropical birds that were flying about freely.

Feeding station. From the left: speckled mousebird, green turaco and Java sparrow?:

Speckled mousebird:

Orange-headed ground thrush:

Java sparrow:

Young Java sparrow?:

White-rumped shama?:

Scarlet-faced Liocichla:

Unknown:

7 comments:

  1. What is it makes some birds appealing and others not? The Mynah bird is a most unappealing bird to me (and obviously to many other judging by the comments when I posted about one) as is the Starling (though many regard their squabbling habits and intelligence as appealing) which is a relation of the Mynah bird. Something in the eye and demeanour of the last bird made me think of the Mynah and, quite irrationally, I decided that I didn't like it very much. How odd is that?

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  2. I know what you mean GB - I think the face shape of the last bird is quite harsh - the way the line of the beak continues into the head without the head being rounded (if that makes any sense!)

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  3. I think it might be an Oriole Blackbird (Gymnomystax mexicanus . At first I thought it was Hooded Oriole but it haw no white on the wings.

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  4. That definitely looks like it - much appreciated.

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  5. One of my favourite birds without a doubt is Java Sparrow because we are coming from the same country and we flown a loooooong way to the UK. :)

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  6. Dewi the Java sparrows were really friendly :-)

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