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A winter miscellany

10,000 Birds

One creature that doesn’t budge for the Nuthatch is the Brown Rat, and a pair of these rodents were demonstrating their agility by raiding the bird seed. Unwelcome visitor: a marauding Brown Rat I left Lynford with no unusual sightings, but the satisfaction of lots of close encounters with several of our commonest birds.

Barn Owls 204
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“The Wise Hours” — a review

10,000 Birds

She starts with the Barn Owl, and proceeds in her book, one owl per chapter, usually informed by an expert guide of some sort, such as Luke, an officer in Britain’s Barn Owl Trust. Thus her story becomes “braided with two ecologies – the ornithological and the personal.”

Barn Owls 113
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Where the Kingfishers Are

10,000 Birds

Graceful Honeyeater ( Meliphaga gracilis ) Metallic Starling colony ( Aplonis metallica ) I got my Platypus just before dark; it was much smaller than I expected but utterly enthralling as it hunted along the river bank. There were also massive native White-tailed Rats and the Northern Brown Bandicoot.

Possums 170