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Hi All, I too must admit to being a bird watcher since late school days and after purchasing a SLR camera and trying to record these beauties (but still have no good photos!). At suburban Heathcote, on the southern outskirts of Sydney, I am fortunate to be surrounded by National Parks and water catchment area so there is still much native bushland nearby. Our home gardens are also mainly Australian native plants which provide a food source for the native birds. Many varieties of lizards and other "bugs" are found in the gardens while kangaroos, wallabies and echidnas are present in the nearby bushland as are many lizards. Bats are sometimes seen during early evening and possums can bound across our roof at night. As I sit in the study and type this message, looking out the window there are currently 4 species of honeyeaters: Eastern Spinebill, New Holland Honeyeater, Yellow Wattlebird and Little Wattlebird while a flock of Sulphur Crested Cockatoos flew over earlier, screaching as usual and trying to wake those attempting to sleep late on this Sunday morning. A bird bath at the end of our driveway is topped up each morning to provide water throughout the year and seems appreciated by many native and introduced species during the current drought conditions. Heathcote may not be perfect for either astronomy or birds but I still feel I am very lucky. Regards Peter Williams Heathcote NSW ---------- From: Thom Gandet <tgandet@mindspring.com> To: Taichi Kato <tkato@kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp> Cc: aavso-discussion@informer2.cis.McMaster.CA; vsnet-chat@ooruri.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp Subject: [vsnet-chat 6213] Re: [AAVSO-DIS] Re: birds and stars Date: Thursday, 10 April 2003 6:15 I'm another birder and variable star observer, although my birding is now confined to the general urban area in Tucson. Not much new to see there. I think southern Ariazona has the only Magnificent Trogons north of the Mexican Border; they were worth the rough (but beautiful) terrain we had to trek through to see them. In the area were also many varieties of hummingbirds, all of which were amazingly beautiful. The only night-time critter viewing here has been of the bat and javalina variety. The bats fly overhead just as I'm opening the observatory, and greet me with their sonar pings. The javalinas come out after dark, root around in the prickly pears, rubbing themselves up against the observatory shed from to time, and generally stinking up the area a bit. Kind of endearing, really. (The scorpion that got me in the night last year while trying to take some frames of V838 Mon was, however, not very endearing!) Best, Thom Taichi Kato wrote: > > Re: birds and stars > > Mike Poxon wrote: > > > If any of you birders out there are ever in Britain, come and visit me! > > I live in the Norfolk Broads, a National Park, with a famous RSPB site, > > Strumpshaw Fen, only about 5km away. Might catch some variables too! > > Gary Poyner wrote: > > > I'm a keen birder, and butterflies. I understand you have the only > > British Swallowtails over your way! > > How many combinations of birders and variable star observers out there > (*_*)? Yes, both birding and variable star observing can share the same > equipment, a spotting scope is also useful to wide-field variable star > observing and I also enjoyed it. There are a number of avian constellations, > although I can see only a part of them from this latitude. [I wonder why > the constellation Apus and the ornithological Apus refer to different > genera?] The only drawbacks I experienced from birding on variable star > observation was the detriment to dark adaptation and frequent necessity > of readjustment of binoculars, and a markedly reduced number of VS > observations during some migration months... > > There also had been a discussion on some ornithology-related matters > on VSNET in the past. See how a missing closure in a circle was found: > > http://vsnet.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp/vsnet/docs/ornithology.html > > [This illustrates how VSNET is not solely concentrated in CV campaigns ;-)] > > Regards, > Taichi Kato
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