This Pool Was A Favourite Resort For Hundreds Of
Birds - Crows,
Hawks, Galahs, Parakeets, Pigeons And Sparrows - And Numerous Dingoes.
Of The Bronzewings, Which At Sundown And Before Sunrise Lined The Rocks
Literally In Hundreds, We Shot As Many As We Wanted.
How thick they were
can be judged from the result of one barrel, which killed fourteen.
It was a pretty sight to watch the birds drinking, as we sat in Breaden's
sick-room, the cave. By keeping quite still we could watch them all. All
day long the sparrows, diamond and black, are fluttering about the water,
chirping and twittering, until the shadow of a hawk circling above
scatters them in all directions. Then morning and evening flocks of
little budgerigars, or lovebirds, fly round and round, and at last take a
dive through the air and hang in a cloud close over the water; then,
spreading out their wings, they drink, floating on the surface. The
galahs make the most fuss of any, chattering away on the trees, and
sneaking down one by one, as if they hoped by their noise to cover the
advance of their mate. The prettiest of all the birds is a little plump,
quail-like rock-pigeon or spinifex-pigeon, a dear little shiny, brown
fellow with a tuft on his head. They arrive at the water suddenly and
unexpectedly from behind rocks and trees, and stand about considering;
then one, more venturesome than the rest, runs quickly down to drink, and
is followed by a string of others; then they run up again ever so fast,
and strut about cooing and spreading their crests - one seldom sees them
fly; when they do they rise straight up, and then dart away close to the
ground and drop suddenly within a few yards.
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