Bird(s) is the word(s)

On 16 May the mighty Bungendore Mudchooks Rugby Club were playing at home against the Jindabyne Bushpigs, so I took myself to the Mick Sherd Oval to watch proceedings. The 'chooks were undefeated so far this season, which had probably helped generate a good crowd of spectators.

Several had brought their dogs along, although this one didn't seem to be paying much attention to the game.

The teams seemed to have much less trouble than the more August squads in forming and maintaining an orderly scrum  (The chooks are wearing the bluer strip.)

Note that the far (Eastern) side of the ground - the haunt of visiting team - is largely devoid of spectators.  Which is fair enough: I'm not sure I'd drive 200km each way to watch a match other than (possibly) a Grand Final.

I finally managed to get a reasonable shot of a line-out.

I didn't manage to get a photo of the Bushpigs scoring a try on an intercept but here are the players applauding.  Despite evidence of this being unlikely, #1 had a fair turn of speed once he got going.

I presume he is proof of the law of Coarse Rugby the players participate to get fit (in the more rarified levels of the sport people get fit to play).

I left a couple of minutes before the final whistle as the result seemed clear: a win for the Bushpigs, as a result of the intercept try.

Other birds were also around.  In the morning of the 16th we were in the vicinity of the ANU and were pleased to see a flock of Australian King Parrots feeding on fallen acorns.  As hese all have brown irises they are as expected, young birds.  There were at least 17 birds in the flock an none of them and none of them were red-headed adult males.

A couple of Eastern Rosellas were also present.

The parrot theme continued on the 17th, with a visit to the suburb of Ainslie where Swift Parrots have been reported for the past month.  They turned out to be a bit difficult to locate: one of the local birders had commented they seemed a bit flighty.  The main difficulty was finding the main landmark  - a eucalypt in heavy blossom.

Eventually some odd calls were heard coming from a small tree beside a watery ditch.

Despite its lack of blossom 6 Swift Parrots flew out of it, heading up into the bush of the Mount Ainslie Reserve.   I then met another birder who had found both the birds and the flowering tree  earlier in the day.  Once found the tree is very obvious - but when looked at from other directions it was pretty much hidden behind other trees.