Sunday, November 30, 2014

253) Festival of Fairywrens

Splendid Fairywren
We finally made time to head to Round Hill - an ecological island 500 km inland. It is an island in that there are some endangered species there which are geographically separated from the rest of their range (as if they were on an actual island). We were pleases to find a good number of Splendid Fairywrens  in their breeding-plumage glory.

Splendid Fairywren (Female)



The females were delightful, flitting about with their tails swishing to and fro.
Splendid Fairywren


Variegated Faireywren

We also had good views of beautifully plumaged Variegated Fairywrens






Variegated Fairywren
A wonderful find in some roadside saltbrush was a family of White-winged Fairywrens. With some patience I finally got a reasonably close view of one of the males - they are quite shy and keep their distance.

Inland Thornbill
We also spend some time determining the differences between the Inland Thornbill (here)...
...and the Chestnut Rumped Thornbill. Fast, twitchy flyers and really really similar!






















Brown Songlark

Brown Songlark in full breeding plumage. What was striking was the size difference between the males and females (below)





Southern Scrub-robin




We were happy to find a few scrub-robins who were happy to lead me on a merry chase out into the malee (always an issue when you can't see the car and can't see anything but endless dry trees. No landmarks at all!)
















Red-capped Robin (female)

The female Red-capped Robins were happy to pose - the males were about but far skitchiyer..



On returning to camp we were pleased to find a small flock of Southern Whitefaces around our tent. We have seen them (rarely) singly before but never in a flock.





















Nancy also found this amazing Shingback - prehistoric! This is his threat-posture as Nancy crouched to take a picture (as I sensibly stood 10 feet away ready to rescue her!)



Unfortunately our choice of weekends could have been better. We didn't find any of the unusual species we had hoped for - it has been really dry in the region and we picked the hottest weekend on record (for November - 43.7 C (110 F)!

So we will return come cooler temps to search, once again, for the our desired list....


Tuesday, November 11, 2014

252) A Quick Jaunt Down South

Flame Robin
I had a workshop in Canberra (Australia's capital - 3 .5 hrs south) and Nancy took the bus down to join me to explore some new terrain afterwards. We enjoyed the Rose Robins in Brisbane as we left, the Scarlet Robins in SE QLD and finally had some good sighting of the Flame Robin in one the great 'urban' birding areas just outside Canberra (a woodland right next to a large office park).


For comparison, here is  Scarlet Robin we saw in Buderoo National Park near Sydney  two days later. More black than grey and less red on the chest.














Superb Parr




Another major draw were the Superb Parrots that are doing very well in the green areas of the city. We had met  Canberra locals Tony and Cathy on a wildflower hike in N. Sydney and they graciously took us to the Olympic Training facility (parrots in the trees in the parking lot) and then to  a green belt in the 'burds where blooming trees were a draw for a heap of Superbs. Australia parrots are just amazing.....

White-winged Choughs


They also took us out to Mulligans flat - a predator-proofed (fenced) nature reserve N of town. It was pretty dry but we did did find this group of 8-10 White-winged Choughs fighting over who got to sit on the nest! They are communal nesting birds who share duties but it was quite a raucous ritual!

















Southern Emu-wren

Back in Royal National Park I made another pilgrimage to Watamolla (a beach with good heath on the cliffs above) and got a slightly better photo of a Southern Emu-wren. This is one of Australia's smallest birds if you consider the tail is 2/3 its total length! They are quite shy and I am still on a mission to obtain a better photo.



Monday, October 6, 2014

251 Everyone is twitter-pated in the Spring!


Eastern Yellow Robin
Springtime is in the air!  And the birds are a-nesting.  We've seen more nesting birds this year than ever, probably just because we're looking for them in habitat where we can spot the nests. We've been observing the birds for a few minutes to see what it is they're doing as they go about their lives, and so get some glimpses into all their hard work.  This pair carefully camouflaged their nest with lichens and pieces of bark.  We wonder how in the world they cleverly got the bark strips to stick onto the outside of the nest like that!

Spotted Quail-thrush
We heard this quail-thrush calling to his mate before we saw him, then carefully followed them around the forest as they nosed about foraging for their afternoon snack


Tawny-crowned Honeyeater
Home for this  pretty honeyeater is on windswept heath atop a coastal cliff.  They have an astonishingly beautiful flute-like contact call to keep track of each other.  


Variegated Fairy-wren
Variegated fairy-wrens are sociable birds, living in a group with a dominant female and male, such as these two.  The hard-working matriarch constructs the nest and incubates the eggs, while the male and the younger females and males help feed the hungry chicks.



Sunday, September 14, 2014

250) Where Song Began

Southern Emu-wren

The Emu-wrens are Dirk's new nemesis bird for photographing.  They live in rare, specialised habitat (heathlands), they are tiny and hard to find, and they are speedy about ducking for cover and disappearing before you can even raise your camera.  Notice his tail that he is holding perpendicular up from his back (they do this when excited); it is filamentous like an emu, and twice his body length (it extends out of this picture).  Out of 15 cm-worth of So Emu-wren, 5 cm is bird and 10 cm is of tail!


Superb Lyrebird

Lyrebirds have the most divergent DNA of any bird in the World, indicating their evolutionary distance from all other birds.  We have just learned from Tim Low's new book 'Where Song Began,' that along with Australian scrub-birds, they are the 'sisters' of all the other songbirds in the World!  The conclusion is that birdsong began in Australia, and radiated outward.  This is something northern hemisphere ornithologists have had difficulty coming to grips with (after all, birds could not have originated in a place as backward as OZ!), though it was first revealed by American geneticist Charles Sibley.

White-bellied Sea Eagle



This juvenile Sea-Eagle was cruising over the crashing waves along the shore of Royal National Park.  Affectionately known locally as 'Nasho' or 'The Royal,' Royal is the World's second national park.  We're attempting to locate a house to live in close to here; it is about 12 km from where we're currently staying.




























Wombat

Mammal-spotting at 80 km/hour, this wombat was nosing about in a paddock, visible below the highway we were travelling on late in the arvo (afternoon).  His characteristic blocky form elicited an excited 'STOP!! WOMBAT!!'.  We are thrilled to see him, because he is our first sighting of a live wombat in the 'wild.'  We have seen a number of roadkill wombats, mostly in Tasmania.  A Tassie local suggested that, like the Tassie devils (who are quickly approaching extinction due to facial tumour disease), the number of roadkill sightings indicates animals that are 'doing ok' (a sentiment we don't agree with).










Fitzroy Falls

Another pretty local attraction, this waterfall is 81 m high. This park is where we saw our lovely lyrebird scratching about in the duff in the late afternoon light of the forest.

    







Monday, September 1, 2014

249) Our Locals

Chestnut-rumped Heathwren

Just south of our current abode in Sydney is Royal National Park - an expanse of forest and heath, some good trails an the site of many trail-running events! It also boasts some hard to find species such as the tiny (and fast) heathwren.

New Holland Honeyeater



Not everything is rare - I counted 9,987 of these guys (exactly!). It had been raining for a week so on this sunny day the bugs were out and the honeyeaters were happily feeding















Tawny-crowned Honeyeater

Royal is one of the best locales to find Tawny-crowned Honeyeaters. They have a beautiful morning song and their call is quite distinctive - it was the best key to locating them among the far more common New Hollands.







There is a pair of Kestrals at a lookout - one local told me to look out for them to be nesting on the cliffs soon.
Rock Warbler

Another park regular is the Rock Warbler - a ground dweller, they happily cling to cliff faces snapping up bugs.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

248) The new neighborhood - Sydney NSW


Nancy has arrived in Sydney!

After much to-ing-and-fro-ing between Sydney and Brisbane we have finally moved to Sydney (mostly). We have rented a 'sabbatical  house' while we figure out where in Sydney we actually want to live - in the hustle-bustle of the city or out on the fringes and commute (via train - driving is a nightmare!) Here we are on the ferry with the CBD, Opera House and the Harbour Bridge as a selfie backdrop.

Molly on the drive from Brisbane to Sydney - long way to go with a crammed car. 



 
The Harbour Bridge (and Opera House) from the air.




For a little while my commute was 30 by ferry from Manly to the city proper. Quite lovely way to start the day. Read a bit - check email, watch the ocean go by. Although Manly is great, it's hard to leave (as in drive anywhere else) because you have to traverse the city - this adds a LOT of time and angst. Given our desire to explore we will not be locating in Manly. Though now that I am a train-rider I miss the ferry.


It is still winter so its always dark on my way home - pretty though!

















Every night a group of gulls rode the "bow-wave" of the wind off the ferry. They would simply glide until they spotted something in the water - then peel away and pick it up. Pretty interesting learned behavior!




The harbour is a bustling place - cruise ships, ferries, horde of people at the Opera House (the botonic garden is right behind it.)



 The Sydney Opera House - I use this as an example in one class - it is a large $$-drain with interesting questions regarding how long the NSW gov't will continue to fund it!


The barista at the local shop (on the walk from the station) is an artiste' !!!!!



My new hangout..- Its a REAL university!!



He-man at the Beach!!!!





Tuesday, August 26, 2014

247) Rarities

Swift Parrot
We made another trip out to Mulgoa Reserve as a group of Swift Parrots had been sighted numerous times. The Swifts are  another endangered species with  the latest survey reporting 1200 birds. Their population has declined by ~30% in the past 8 years so making the effort to see them is a special event.

We encountered a research group from ANU who were banding them for study. The Swifties breed in Tasmania (like the Orange Bellied Parrot) and distribute up the east coast of OZ (a group has been seen recently near Brisbane). They indicated that this photo is a young(ish) bird.

This species has posed a bit of an enigma. The eucalyptus they prefer is reasonably abundant but their population is falling precipitously. The ANU group recorded footage from a breeding site in TAS showing a 100% mortality rate - from Suger Gliders! (see http://theconversation.com/sugar-gliders-are-eating-swift-parrots-but-whats-to-blame-19555). Parrot predation by gliders increases in disturbed forests (read - the old growth forestry still going on in TAS). So the logging removes breeding habitat for parrots and also makes predation by gliders more likely (Gliders were likely introduced to TAS from the mainland in the early 1900's -they are OZ natives but not on TAS) .

This has no easy fix.......

Friday, August 15, 2014

246) Further New Birds


Beautiful Firetail
I headed south of Wollongong to a campground near the famed Mystics surf area. Cold and blustery weather in the morning as I drove up to Barren Grounds - a complete misnomer for a remnant patch of heathland. Barren it is not. I was thrilled to find a pair of firetails chowing down in some casarina trees - they are indeed Beautiful Firetails!



A small patch of rainforest creeps up the hill into the reserve. Among the standard birds I got a great look at two Red-browed Treecreepers. We have seen them - rarely- before so it was great to have them hang out for a while.

















Another of the iconic species of this remnant patch is the Eastern Bristlebird. We have seen 2 birds of the northern range and here I saw three in a few hours. They would blithely pop out of the grass and stroll down the track. This is rather an amazing sight given their critically endangered status - an estimated < 2000 left in the world. A look at the heathland they inhabit and I realized their tenuous existence. One bad fire here and a large part of the population is gone.


 I headed back up to the Irrawong Reserve to see if I could show Nancy the Powerful Owl.. Others have found him with a recent possum lunch - I was pleased to get him facing the camera. I took a few pics and let him get back to sleep - he must get tired of the parade of visitors to his roost.
 We made a foray out to Mulgoa Preserve out west of Sydney. One highlight was a good capture of a Weebill - another of the tiny fast birds.



















A profusion of blooming banksias meant for many Eastern Spinebills. Also numerous honeyeaters - Fuscous, New Holland, White-eared, Yellow-tufted and White -naped. A good show.