At first glance it looks like swirling smoke on the horizon, a common sight in the channel country this summer.

However it is isn’t fire behind the distant cloud but thousands of wild budgerigars.

Paula Fraser from Nooyeah Downs at Thargomindah snapped these pictures on her iPhone while she was completing a routine 106km water-run by motorbike recently.

After three wet summers and floods in a row the channel country is quite literally in full flight, with dense stands of dry grass providing a haven and rich source of food for native birds.

Mrs Fraser said that when she came onto a claypan she saw the birds swooping enmasse in the distance and stopped to capture the sight on her phone camera.

“I came onto the claypan and I thought wow,” she said.

“Budgies are common out here but not in those numbers.

“To see them in that proportion is phenomenal.

“They just played there in front of me for a while, it was so spectacular.”

Mrs Fraser said the body of feed in the paddock where she found the birds was amazing.

It is not just the native wildlife that have thrived in the conditions but their cattle as well.

Hereford steers that arrived on Nooyeah at 33 to a deck two years ago are now being turned off as bullocks at 20 to a deck.

She said that after three previous “beautiful, wet summers”, rainfall this year had been very ordinary and waters were now drying up in several areas, however a huge body of grass still remained.

The Frasers, who are members of the well-known OBE organic beef supply chain, posted these pictures to twitter under the @OBEorganic hashtag.

To see more great pictures and videos documenting life in the channel country and some of the producers and people behind OBE visit the website here