#australia

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Pacific Baza - Aviceda subcristata

The Pacific Baza is a raptor of tropical and subtropical woodlands where it breeds in tall trees, placing its shallow, cup-shaped nest of sticks and twigs among the foliage. When breeding, its principal food is stick insects, which are snatched from the outer foliage of the canopy, sometimes after perching in the canopy and inspecting the leaves, or scrambling about through the foliage, but most usually by plunging into the foliage after flying just above the treetops. (Text source: BirdLife Australia)

My passion is wildlife photography, and I hope I can bring the beauty of nature into your home and show how amazing nature is. Every single animal needs our protection, as they all play an important part in our survival. There is an abundance of scientific reports telling us that the rate of extinction is alarming. More and more fauna and flora are going …

A Pacific Baza (bird of prey) sitting on a tree branch. The Pacific Baza is a medium-sized, long-tailed hawk with a prominent crest. It is slim-bodied, with a narrow head and neck. The wings are paddle-shaped, well-rounded and deeply ‘fingered’. The head, neck and breast are grey and the underparts are white with bold dark banding. The legs are short with weak toes. The eyes are golden-yellow and domed, placed well on the side of the head, giving a slightly ‘pop-eyed’ look. The female is heavier and browner on the crown than the male.

🇦🇺 📖 **Have Men Really Stopped Reading? We Take A Deeper Dive Into The Data**

"_It looks like reading statistics vary greatly depending on how the question is asked. Multiple surveys show that a significant proportion of males are still reading books, though they’re doing so less frequently than they used to. And it’s clear that if there is a crisis of declining reading rates, it is affecting men and women, boys and girls._"

🔗 https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/aug/17/men-books-reading-rates-data-statistics-women-children-australia.

@bookstodon

"The kookaburra drank, he says, then shrieked at me with laughter.
I dragged him down in a hairy hand, and ate his thigh bones after.
My head is bruised with the falling foam, the water blinds my eye,
Yet I will climb that waterfall, and walk upon the sky.

"A beast am I, the bunyip says, my voice a drowning cow's.
Yet am I not a singing bird among these waving boughs?
I raise my black and dripping head, I cry a bubbling cry;
For I shall climb the trunks of trees to walk upon the sky."

- Douglas Stewart, "The Bunyip"
🎨 Henry Justice Ford

The Bunyip rises out of the water. Illustration by Henry Justice Ford.

"Less than half of ‘class marginalised workers’ were offered career development in the past year in Australia, compared to 76% of ‘privileged’ employees, a new study suggests."

Australians tend to deny and ignore the fact that we have classes in our society. I notice it in particular in the large cities. Even though I like living in Melbourne I didn't want to move back when we had children in high school because we couldn't afford private school education. Working in chartered accounting, I had seen how disadvantaged my husband was in that industry, having grown up poor and attending government schools.

My husband was the first in his family to make it to year 10, first to finish year 12 and first to enter university. He struggled at university because he had no-one in his family who understood what it is like and to give him the kind of guidance …