Take a butcher's at this colourful lot

But it's brown, why's it called a Black Butcherbird? I'm glad you asked. In North Queensland - but not too far north - Cracticus quoyi race rufescens comes with either black or rufous young, in the same nest sometimes. The rufous birds change to black in their second year (note black emerging on bird's left wing. They'll also stick around and help their parents feed the next generation.

But it's brown, why's it called a Grey Teal? I'm sorry you asked, because I've no idea. Possibly because calling it brown would confuse it with Chestnut Teal. The species confuse themselves and others by hybridizing sometimes.

But it's black, why isn't it called the Yellow-streaked-necked-male Bittern? Ha! They get it right sometimes, though the female isn't really very black.

Don't ask me how the Darter managed to escape the colour determinists, though it did get saddled with the tag Snake-bird, which, I'm pleased to say, nobody has ever used in my experience. I'd much rather go for Very Twisty Neck Bird, but that's a bit colourless.

And there's obviously too much white everywhere and it's such a boring colour anyway the colour must come from a really really exciting name, such as Intermediate Egret. Not Great or Little or Reef. All too dull, dull, dull. Intermediate, now that's a name with zing. Like a Bill Shorten zinger! Talk about colourful. But actually something in this picture does bring him to mind ...

Darters snaking and snakey

A Darter offers a sleek profile as it quits a lagoon today at Tyto. Also known as Snake-birds, Darters feature a writhing long neck, often all that shows above water as they pause for breath before again chasing fish underwater.
But they're not so sleek coming in for web-footed landings. There's something comic (think Daffy Duck) in their tiffs.
But there's also a certain grandeur, don't you think?

Catching prey and flights of fancy

GREAT Egret carves out a morning shadow as it stands poised with a small catch snapped up from among the water weed on a water treatment pond near Ingham.

Another Great Egret takes off across a treatment lagoon. Hard to take crisp shots with Panasonic FZ30 because of slow auto focus and narrow ISO range. Also a trial holding all the white tones without blowing everything away.

A digression into the world of entertainment. The lagoon treats water from the largest sugar cane mill in the Southern Hemisphere. Baz Luhrman's latest offering, Australia, features a small railway engine. That engine was puffing away at CSR's mill today, as part of an annual Italian festival in town. Small worlds?

DARTER puts best feet forward as it prepares for one of its typically clumsy crash landings into the top of a melaleuca (paperbark). Seems odd that a bird that spends all its feeding time in and under the water - using huge webbed feet - shows a liking for perching in trees whose tops are all twigs and small leaves rather than substantial bare branches. Also known as Snake Birds, Darters compete with four species of Cormorant for fish and eels.

CHANGE of pace and place with one of those shots that surprises the photographer. Intent was to capture a splash of colour and movement in Ingham's small botanical gardens. I was scarcely aware of a small family group tossing bread into the lotus pools for the resident snake-necked turtles. Only after cropping and adjusting the shot did I spot the children. Small irony: I found them, but their bread found no favour with the turtles.