Whistling ducks?

Eric took this photo early one morning (6-6:30 am) with his Kodak Z740 digital camera on full 10x zoom. These are just a few of the birds in the flock wading in the drainage ditch near our house.

After consulting the bird identification book, we've concluded the closest match is the Crested Whistling Duck, although these don't show the very small crest and are a bit darker than the one shown in the book (which could be at least partly due to the low light conditions).

Houseguest and birds

Mike, a friend from Canada, was here for 10 days. He's the perfect houseguest: good company but doesn't need entertaining, tidies up after himself, and doesn't get in my way. Many days he was off on snorkeling trips to the islands or the outer reef, so we only saw him in the early morning and the evening anyway. Three species of birds came by our balcony to be introduced to Mike (and fed by him): cockatoos, lorikeets, and a young kookaburra (with its nervous mother hovering around nearby). Here are some photos. Cockatoo has close encounter with Mike—several others are on the rail, just out of the picture. Rainbow lorikeet—one of a pair that visited. Kookaburra—his blue underwing feathers are visible but not obvious in this photo.

Kookaburras visit

Two kookaburras visited us this evening. We fed one some strips of chicken. It was interesting to watch the bird whack the chicken against the railing before eating it, as if it were a lizard or something that needed to be stunned or killed. One of those "wish I had the video camera out" moments!

A bird comes to visit

A lot of birds visit our balcony. Mostly they are the common local birds like cockatoos and lorikeets, but occasionally something unusual stops by. I must get out the bird book and try to identify this one. Two of them turned up early one evening and stayed long enough for us to take photos, most of which turned out badly.