A second day in the Brassica

On 9 October (ie the day after the previous post) my friend rang to say he had counted 15 Banded Lapwings in his brassica paddock.  As soon could be arranged I was down there again.  We got the count up to 18!  I attempted to use the panorama function on my camera to capture the whole lot but it proved not possible as the birds were spread out over a wide area .

Here are a couple of shots of groups of 3 birds.  Note how the cow-dung impersonates them at times.

I managed to get a halfway reasonable snap of the Brown Songlark which was chucking display flights all over the sky.  During some phases of this the almost-black under the wings and on the belly was clearly visible.

 We also went to check out a large raptor or two we had seen.  One of them - which we thought might be a Swamp Harrier - stooped and landed to be set upon by about 8 Australian Magpies.  For a while it simply walked around in the tall grass, not apparently eating anything, and after the initial onslaught being ignored by the Magpies.

It then flew up again and we realised it was a Brown Falcon.  Here it is, being ignored again by the Magpies.