Ravenswood Wildlife Refuge

Thank you all for your kind concern and messages about Kuki. Apologies for my long absence and not responding to you all individually. Sometimes life and pears have too much in common.
Turning off Fb helped so I understand that many of you may have done the same. My mantra is to try to stay upbeat but I realise that when I can't, I'd rather not share sad news, so tend to shut down instead.
My beautiful wild scaly friend Kuki didn't make it.
I was devastated.
Still am.
But I am getting there slowly.
Connecting to our wild community brings great joy, but shock and sadness too when they don't survive/disappear from their local haunts. Sadly threats are many.
Thanks to all of you for caring about our precious wildlife, and to those who may still be checking in, I hope you are all managing ok and remembering that each day is precious. Kind regards, from all of us at Ravenswood.

Red Backed Fairywren (male in full breeding plumage) This dear little beauty was posing so wonderfully for me on the new electric horse fence on our northern boundary. (I removed the lower section he was sitting on in an attempt to improve the pic. The dark band in the top of the pic is the broad black strap of the same fence in the far distance. I so miss the old wooden fence for photography! Not perfect, but learning! Edited with Pxlr x.

Golden Headed Cistacola - my wonderful find in the gully this morning - 4/11/23 - Oops, I just realised I added the wrong month on the pic. October 2023 is already behind us! These are the sweetest little birds. They can be so curious emerging shyly to check out the photographer. The calls are so strange - I had no idea what could be calling so oddly the first time I heard them issueing from the dense tall grasses, then one of these little cuties popped up. You can find more info and listen to their calls via this link, thanks to eBird and their contributors https://ebird.org/species/gohcis1?siteLanguage=en_AU

Pacific Black Duck (Anas superciliosa) . I was delighted to find a family of 4 foraging the azolla on our upper dam a few days back. They've done a wonderful job of almost entirely clearing the dense floating w**d off the surface! Thank you ducks! 💚😍🦆🦆
Find more info and listen to their calls via this link, thanks to eBird https://ebird.org/species/pabduc1?siteLanguage=en_AU and also on how to distinguish hybrids with Mallards and detailed info via this link, thanks to eBird Australia https://ebird.org/australia/news/identifying-mallard-x-pacific-black-duck-hybrids

Redbacked Fairywren (male in eclipse plumage) with a feather in his beak, in the midst of preening. He was proudly sitting on the top of an isolated lantana bush in our alluvial paddock. So relieved to see the family still here despite the drought this spring and early summer.