Amelia, that little bird is GLORIOUS!!! Thank you so much for the picture. And thanks, Daryl for putting the pictures directly on here. What other gorgeous birds are you people hiding??

Zita, I love your stories about the little birds. I think your aviary must be a happy place. If I owned my own house I'd like some sort of aviary, although a hen house would get priority. I LOVE chooks!

PET PEEVE: Why oh why must the robins wake at 3:30AM? The sun is not even up for goodness sake. Now we do sleep with the windows open all year round, so that has something to do with it. But boy are they loud!

I saw the my first hive of ants swarming yesterday. It was a warmish day but they are early for a swarm. I also had a hatch of slugs sliming the lid to the hot tub. YUCK, nasty little buggers. I went out and salted them. I know, not nice. Every year those slimers snarf my artic bluebells before they can bloom. Now I really need to get out and mow the lawn.

Amelia

Thanks for all the bird pics. It makes the postings much more interesting to actually see what the birds look like that are being described. Zita or Daryl could you please tell us all the correct way to get pics up in our posts? Or should we just send the pics to you and let you 'worry' about the tech details? Also would it be possible to put up VERY SMALL sound files of bird songs? Maybe a small .wav file? Right now the kookaburras are having a great morning laugh outside my window. A wonderful sound to hear when you first wake up!
We've had quite a lot of rain lately so the autumn flowers are blossoming profusely. That has brought lots of honey-eating birds round. The noisiest of the lot are the musk lorikeets, and since they move around in quite large flocks they make a great deal of noise. A bee-keeping friend of mine warned me not to depend on the amount of noise they make as an indication of the amount of honey available! They're just noisy!!

That sounds a lovely idea for this site. Daryl would be the one to arrange it.

I was up in the bush this morning enjoying the bellbirds.

Birds are so glorious with their different songs.

Somebody send me a small.wav file and I will see what I can do.

How to get a picture in a post?

Here is the picture provided in an earlier post:

Here is how it was done (with a space at the beginning so you can see it):

< img src="http://www.xmission.com/~cldavis/flickernky.jpg">

As long as you have a link to a site containing a picture, you can do it this way.

It was said:

"Our city never pays for anything in the neighbourhoods. We have these huge elm trees that are protected under law. As a homeowner, if you have an elm on your property you cant do anything to it without city permission and permits.

Talking about city providing trees in the green space; they redid the front of my mom's house years ago and came around to each house and gave them a choice of 3 or 4 trees to have them plant in front for us.

When the trees got planted it turned out they were all the same - soft maple trees and not the variety they had promised. I don't know who got the more interresting ones. None of the neighbors had chosen that maple.

Daryl,
Ever since you did your post about your budgie bird I have intended to do this: About 3 years ago my grandaughter got a budgie for her birthday.
It is pale blue and white, and looks so adorable that she named it Snuggles. That is an OK name for her if she is with the right person, but, that is only two people, my daughter and grandaughter. It cuddles down under my grandaughter's long hair on her shoulder, and she can just walk around with her there. When I was visiting in MI last year, they were playing with her, and, both would hold Snuggles on their fingers and ask her for a kiss, as they put their face near hers. She would put her tiny beak against their lips ever so delicately. I decided to try the same thing, she turned her head one way, then the other, and promptly bit me..hard!! I felt that she almost took my bottom lip off! I sure learned my lesson!

When she is out of the cage, no one worries too much, although there are two cats and two dogs in the house. The cats wouldn't dare get close to her, and, the only way either of the dogs would hurt her is when she tries to steal their food. they don't snap her, but will use their feet, so might hurt her. I would like to say that this is such a wonderful, peaceful scene, rather like the New Earth, but, that is not true. You see, all the animals have had the same treatment from her sharp beak that I had, so she walks them around as though she is Queen Snuggles. They like to keep their soft noses intact. But, when they first got her, they brought her to KY, and also brought Marta, their long haired miniature daschund. Marta didn't know us either, then, and that night, my daughter told me I could take Snuggles from her cage. Marta was keeping an eye on me, and when I started to open the cage, she ran and grabbed my foot. She is just that protective about all the animals and people in her family. Thankfully, I have been with Marta enough now that she accepts and even likes me, but not that time!!
They also have an avairy, which they keep outside in summer, and, have raised 6 babies. These are finches, but, I can't remember the name of them.