Chris Hail's avatar

Chris Hail

@hailtheyounger.bsky.social

135 followers 370 following 120 posts

Hobbyist bird photographer in Brisbane Australia. Photos here all my own unless noted otherwise.

Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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Nankeen kestrel surveying its territory. This one is taking a break after its morning hunt. These small raptors hunt by hovering, fluttering their wings like humans treading water.
Oakey, QLD
#birds #ausbirds

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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Olive-backed oriole, Gold Creek Reservoir, Brisbane QLD

🪶 #ausbirds ##ozwildlife

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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When you think of seabirds, you probably picture the long-winged albatrosses and gulls, soaring high above the water. But most seabirds are these little storm-petrels, flapping their wings and dancing across the waves on their toes.
Coral Sea, QLD

🪶 #ausbirds

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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I love this shot! Those are my favourite Australian birds.

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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Thanks! Yeah, that eyebrow/teardrop gives them a really severe glaring look.

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Leo's avatar Leo @leo-in-merimbula.bsky.social
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The distinctive profile of a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo with a distant rainbow.
(tricky exposure choice but the rainbow won :) #birds #WildOz

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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Good photos from pelagic birding trips are hard to get, so i was thrilled to nail this one of a juvenile Australasian gannet.
Moreton Bay, QLD
🪶 #ausbirds

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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Pied butcherbird yodelling from the top of an araucaria tree. They perch up high and call loudly, with a clear and variable tune that sounds cheerful to me, even though it sings in a mostly minor key.
#birds #ausbirds ##ozwildlife

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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I think that's a wide open question that could be researched. Sometimes storms blow them off course, but there haven't been any big Pacific cyclones recently. Maybe this one just flew along with a flock of bar-tails when they came here from Alaska last season? Their range does overlap there

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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They've been known to show up in other parts of Australia, and sometimes they go to New Zealand, but this is the first time one has been seen in Queensland.

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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Big excitement for Australian birders this week. The bird on the left is a bar-tailed godwit. On the right is a hudsonian godwit. It normally migrates between Canada and southern South America, so this one is very lost.
Sandgate beach, Brisbane QLD
#birds #ausbirds

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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Scene from a natural birdbath. This big gum tree has a hollow that fills with rainwater, and all the lorikeets take their turn at it. Here, two scaly-breasted lorikeets are exiting and entering, and a rainbow lorikeet is just visible inside.
#birds #ausbirds
Ipswich, QLD

1 replies 3 reposts 15 likes

Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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A lace monitor, aka goanna, ambling through the grass. These are very large lizards that are most often seen in trees. Like snakes, they don't smell through their nostrils, but with their tongues.
Hardings Paddock, Ipswich QLD
##ausreptiles #wildoz

1 replies 2 reposts 4 likes

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Michelle's avatar Michelle @effinghardy.bsky.social
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I’m going to need another report pretty soon saying they’ve discovered the short nosed kangaroo had a proboscis, because that blunt face has disturbed me more than I can say.
#WildOz www.abc.net.au/news/science...

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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President is a job, not a peerage. There is no aristocracy in the USA, therefore no titles either. The proper form of address recognises that only the current president is President <name>. Former senators and reps can still be called by their former job title, however.

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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Bush thick-knees, aka stone-curlews, are known for their loud wailing calls that they make at night, and for their odd habit of standing stock still all day. I almost tripped over this one before i saw it, but it never moved.
#birds #ausbirds ##ozwildlife

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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Fan-tailed cuckoo, singing from the top of a pine tree. Like most cuckoos, these are nest parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of smaller birds like fairywrens, which dutifully bring up the baby cuckoos as if they were their own.
#birds #ausbirds #ozwildlife

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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Another not-bird from a recent birdwatching outing. Flying foxes sleep during the day, out in the open, hanging by their feet from treetops. On rainy days like this, they wrap their wings tightly around their bodies to keep their fur dry.

##ausmammals ##ozwildlife

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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A near-perfect shot of a juvenile red-footed booby from a pelagic trip out in the Coral Sea. Taking photos of birds flying past, while standing on a rocking boat, is extremely challenging. I'm happy with the 94% of this bird that i got in the frame.
#birds #ausbirds ##ozwildlife

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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Chestnut-breasted munia, aka mannikin, perched on a thin grass stalk. I love how its little claws are so carefully wrapped around the grass, holding with their points instead of gripping it.
#birds #ausbirds #ozwildlife

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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Possums! This one is brush-tailed, hiding from the rain.

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Reposted by Chris Hail

Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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From a pelagic trip out in the Coral Sea, two brown boobies 🪶 and a greater crested tern. I love how alien these seabirds look, like the enemies in Super Mario Bros 2.
#ausbirds #wildoz

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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Low pass from an immature white-bellied sea eagle 🪶 Adults are a bit larger, and all white on their front and head.
Port of Brisbane, QLD
#ausbirds

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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That shot was cropped a bit to show the detail, but this is a bit wider, showing the knot that the snake had made to hold itself and the dragon. It would have caught and killed the dragon on a nearby branch, then held onto it the whole time.

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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Found this incredible scene while on a bird walk this weekend. This tangle of scaliness is a large carpet python eating a full-grown Eastern water dragon.
Mookin-bah reserve, Brisbane QLD

#ausreptiles #wildoz

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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Love to hear that i was fated to be a meteorologist

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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Pair of chestnut teals 🪶 The male has a green head and the titular chestnut brown, and the female looks like almost any other female duck.
Port of Brisbane, QLD
#ausbirds

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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Two small songbirds 🪶 with big voices. Tawny grassbird and superb fairywren
Brisbane QLD
#ausbirds

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Chris Hail's avatar Chris Hail @hailtheyounger.bsky.social
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They are adorable from a distance, if a bit quarrelsome and smelly. In flight i think they're at their most elegant, with slow, relaxed wingbeats and graceful turns. They look like they're swimming through the air.

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