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A glimpse of the action on our terrace.

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Biodiversity on our Terraces

I am excited about the diversity of the recent avian visitors to our high-rise terrace in Southbank. We live on level 5, not quite in the clouds, but overlooking a very busy and noisy intersection.  We have a north-facing terrace of about 28 square metres and an east-facing one of 18 square metres, and our birds obviously love both of them.

Our northern open-air aviary has blossomed since we made a few adjustments to our garden.  We are now almost enclosed, shielded from the outside with passionfruit vines all along the front and a healthy crop of leafy vegetables along the eastern side.  Our full-height apartment windows form another side and a translucent glass wall finishes our almost-enclosure.  Our eastern aviary is somewhat similar, walled in by dense vines, fruit trees and a host of green foliage bespeckled with flowers and vegetables.

Our front terrace is our main viewing area and we have replanted it recently with bird attracting shrubbery in mind.  We planted quite a few particoloured flowering plants in the garden and have a tableful of pots with trailing leaves and flowers tumbling down almost to ground level.  We have left some wilting leaves and other detritus on the ground to attract the insects and they have obviously attracted a few more birds.

Since my last post about our Currawongs, we have had repeat visits from one of them and have had several visits each day from a pair of adolescent Magpie-larks.  A Little Raven has checked out our domain a few times. None of these have previously been regular visitors but our resident Sparrows, Doves and family of Mynas call in regularly every day.  Our cloud of sparrows now spend more time on our smaller terrace, perhaps to avoid confrontation with the larger birds but they explore both areas when neither the Currawong nor the Raven is present.  And to correct my previous record, as our Currawong has matured a little, we now believe it to be a Grey Currawong, rather than a Pied Currawong - and it certainly responds to the song of the Greys more than the Pieds’.

At any one time, we often have 4 or even 5 species present and we have delighted in their antics. We are usually only from 1 to 5 metres away from them with just a single pane of glass between us.  They are well aware of our scrutiny, but obviously feel safe and confident unless we approach the open door.

The young Magpie-larks have spent a lot of time wandering around in the garden, selecting their lunch of insects from the flowers and other plants.  They peck at many of our plants and appear to be eating some of the petals on the flowers as well - they certainly examine them closely and peck enthusiastically at them too.  We often leave a few crumbs of toast out there and have experimented with a few other tasty morsels, greens and tiny pieces of fat or bacon rind, and the Magpie-larks have enjoyed both.  I didn’t imagine they would go for the greens, but they have happily consumed our little offerings rather than destroying the foliage in out plantings.

The Raven, the Currawongs and the Mynas have also attacked the little pieces of protein with gusto, and the Doves, Sparrows, Mynas and Magpie-larks have enjoyed foraging for the tiny breadcrumbs we have left out.  And we have watched the Currawong struggling with slightly larger tough crusts.  He/she is very clever.  He will toss the morsel around and if it is too crisp to swallow, he perches on the side of the birdbath and drops it in.  He allows time for it to soak a little before retrieving it and consuming it with greater comfort.

(We usually leave a small amount of seed on our other terrace and both the Doves and Sparrows call us early each morning to provide them with a bit of brekky, but they are quite selective of which seeds they eat first from the current seed-mix we provide.  The rapeseed is always left to last after everything else is consumed.)

All the birds except the Raven frequently use our little birdbath and we need to refill it several times a day when they splash vigorously and ruffle the water over the ground.  We often see 2 or 3 birds in the birdbath at the same time and it is comical to see the Currawong in particular trying to bathe in the bath that is far too small for it.  But we leave several different-sized water bowls around and all the birds visit several times a day to drink at, and bathe in, the bowl that most suits their respective sizes.  The Sparrows often bathe in the smallest bowls if the birdbath is in use or too deep for them to use.

The Magpie-larks and Mynas in particular are very inquisitive and often approach close to the window and cock their heads while they peer inside at us. The Magpie-larks have actually poked their heads around the door jamb to check us out – perhaps we need to clean the windows more often to ensure they can see us without risking getting trapped inside.  (We have had doves and sparrows inside on numerous occasions over the years and it stresses them until we can catch them or otherwise encourage to leave via the open door.) Occasionally, they give the windows a couple of desultory pecks, but without the insistence often displayed by mature male Magpie-larks (and others) who see their own reflection and imagine they are fighting off a rival.

The visits have often been quite extended, often 30 minutes or more, occasionally over an hour and all the birds have explored, and continue to explore, our plants for food – occasionally eating some of our greens, but regularly searching for bugs, beetles and other insects.  They seem to see it as their secluded private playground and come and go quite freely, often exploring the same areas quite closely and making full use of the area as a food and drink source, a bathing area and simply a place to hang out with whatever birds are around when they drop in.

The fact that the area is largely enclosed probably gives them a sense of security without limiting their ability to fly in and out at any time.  They seem to understand that we mean them no harm and they have certainly given us a great deal of entertainment and pleasure over the past couple of weeks in particular.  There is no doubt in my mind that they believe that they have a relationship with us as just another (bigger) species - to be watchful about, but they investigate us with as much fascination as we are enthralled by them.

[lindoig6]

More on our Balcony Birds

A few weeks after I wrote my last post, the Currawongs came back: this time an adult with two fledged juveniles.  The adult bird looked superb in its black and white livery and stark yellow eye, whereas the juveniles were dark grey rather than black, and had yet to develop their remarkable adult eye colouration.  They were almost as big as the adult, but not quite as bulky.

They stayed on the terrace for perhaps an hour while the Sparrows cowered deep in the foliage of our shrubbery.  Two of our Spotted Doves stood guard during the visitation and calmly stood their ground when any of the larger birds approached, but there was no direct conflict.

In due course, they Currawongs left and the Sparrows emerged after quite some time and a few Common Mynas joined them in the terrace.

Over the next several days, we had numerous visits by one or both juvenile Currawongs, but not to our knowledge, the adult bird.  The first day, both juveniles perched on the glass along the edge of our terrace, quietly warbling to each other.  What a magical serenade it was: almost continuous, a simple melodious convivial conversation between siblings.  On another occasion, only one bird appeared, but it carolled quietly and melifluously, presumably calling to its companion for 15 minutes or so before flying away.  We have heard plenty of full-volume calls from some distance away, but this seemed to just be a gentle invitation to its sibling to join it on the terrace.

On each occasion the Currawongs have been on the terrace, we have also had one or two Spotted Doves present.  They appear to be protecting their traditional space, unafraid of the Currawongs, but clearly intimating that this is their primary space where interlopers are welcome to visit but will not be permitted to stake their own claim.  Of course, the Sparrows stayed out of sight as did the Mynas (to my surprise).  But the moment the Currawongs left, the smaller birds resumed their normal activities and relationships.

The last several days, only one Currawong has visited, albeit a few times each day.  It has foraged, along with our Doves (and once with a few brave Mynas - safety in numbers?), for crumbs and other scraps we have left out.  There has been very little sign of conflict and today, it even took a bath in our small birdbath.  It is not a big bath but has simultaneously accommodated a couple of Mynas in the past.  Today though, the Currawong wallowed in the bath and splashed almost all the water around the terrace.  It was so big that it hung over both sides of the birdbath and finally sat up on the glass of the balcony looking very scrawny and bedraggled.  Its wet feathers clung to its body and made it look half the size of its former self, but it soon shook itself out, preened itself industriously and quickly dried to its previous splendour.

Interestingly, our Doves have also been very active in the past week or so: perhaps one of the reasons they have been passively enforcing their rights over our terrace.  They were quite amorous with each other for a few days and mated at least once a couple of days ago and are now building a nest in a street-tree right across the street from here.  During lunch today, they visited our terrace at least 15 times, scratching around in our garden and collecting small sticks to build their nest. I have seen quite a few Dove nests and they are never more than about 20 small sticks placed together to form the most scruffy fragile-looking structure that seems impossible to imagine holding eggs, hatchlings and chicks prior to fledging.

We would love to have them nest in our shrubs but at least we are now confident that we will soon have both adult and juvenile Doves residing on our terraces again.

[lindoig6]

Our Pied Currawong Family

We had an incident on our terrace a month or two ago that has prompted me to write a piece for this blog.

We had a visit from a Pied Currawong – not a common visitor, but it was by no means the first time one of these large birds has explored our terraces.  I love the calls of Currawongs and have referred to them numerous times in this (and other) blogs.

In this case, we witnessed Nature in the raw.  We love the other birds that call our terraces home and in particular, we had watched quite a few fledgling House Sparrows making use of our property during the previous few weeks.  On this occasion, however, one of the young Sparrows met its end at the hands (beak) of the Currawong.  The Currawong perched momentarily on the glass surrounding our terrace then swooped down and adroitly plucked a young bird from its perch in our shrubbery and immediately flew away with it.

As much as we love our Sparrows, it makes sense that they might be prey for larger birds.  After all, the Currawong also needs to eat to survive – and it may well have chicks of its own in the trees a couple of hundred metres away.  There are no ethics in the animal world – it is a dog-eat-dog world, or in this case, a bird-eat-bird world.

Humans ‘prey’ on almost all other species – whether for food or other reasons (sport, research, pest control, other species’ conservation and so on).  As a species, we Westerners do not think it cruel or unethical to kill and eat fish, chickens, pigs, sheep or cattle (with a fringe cohort that argues against this) and we should not be surprised if other species occasionally prey on us (polar bears, lions, sharks, etc.) or on other species to ensure their own survival. And of course, other human cultures prey on a wide range of species from insects, snails, dozens of species of bush meat, birds, kangaroos, seals, even whales – almost any species large enough to catch.

We did not enjoy watching one of our beloved Sparrows being taken by the Currawong, but equally, we would not have enjoyed knowing that the Currawong or its chicks had starved to death either.

Interestingly, the Currawong returned an hour or two later, presumably in search of dessert, but the Sparrows fled with great cacophonic commotion into the depths of the shrubbery.  A Spotted Dove that was also on the terrace at the time joined in the chorus with agitated calls that I have not previously heard from a dove.  Thwarted, the Currawong transferred to our other terrace where it  (unsuccessfully) chased another Sparrow until it observed us watching it and flew away to resume its hunt somewhere else.  It has returned a couple of times since and our Sparrows have silently absented themselves from our terraces for the duration, but on one occasion a Spotted Dove claimed territory on the terrace and the Currawong chose not to make an issue of it.

We have quite a few Sparrows that call our terraces home (i saw at least 10 in the seed bowl at one time this morning) so it might be argued that one less wouldn’t make much difference.  But how would we feel if a crocodile took just one of our mothers or one our three brothers or sisters?  (This question is predicated on the probability that small birds share meaningful filial relationships.)  Equally though, is one less Pied Currawong chick more or less significant that one less Sparrow chick.  After all, we have recently been in Gippsland where there are many thousands more Pied Currawongs than Sparrows.  Should that change the way we feel about the loss of an individual of one species or the other?

And does the balance of sentiment change again if one species is comparatively rare (endangered) whilst the other is at lesser risk?  I don’t have any definitive answers, but it is something to think about.  It is well established that humans care more about larger animals than smaller ones, unless the smaller one is cute and cuddly.  Protecting an elephant is regarded as more important than protecting a billion butterflies.  Protecting the habitat of a cute sugar glider is seen to be more worthy of a charitable donation than one to conserve warthogs. Chimpanzees are seemingly more important to us than fireflies.  There is no logic in this, but it is an undeniable fact.

So I remain puzzled. Are (largely) vegetarian Sparrows more deserving of our sentiment than (largely) carnivorous Currawongs?

[lindoig6]

A Loooong Post about the ‘Sounds of the Bush’

We have been in south-central Gippsland for 12 weeks, unable to move elsewhere during the Covid-19 lockdown but have travelled extensively on daytrips to exercise by taking long walks in the bush. We have walked several hundred kilometres and the relative cacophony of birdsong juxtaposed against the ‘sound of silence’ a mere kilometre away has caused me to think a lot about the sounds of the bush and birdsong in particular.

It is hard to imagine that anyone in Australia (maybe almost anywhere in the world) would be confused about the creature they were listening to if they heard a ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo’ across their neighbour’s fence or even a couple of blocks away.  But there are plenty of other birdcalls and songs that are just as distinctive.  I will talk about some of our Aussie birds shortly, but other countries have birds that are equally as evocative.  In Scotland, for example, I very quickly came to recognise the presence of Eurasian Skylarks even when I couldn’t find them and of course, Common Blackbirds singing at dusk are just as recognisable in Europe as they are here.  It is hard to misdiagnose the call of a Skua or a Peacock, or some species of ducks or owls.

In Australia, almost everyone would recognise the calls of Magpies, Ravens, Kookaburras, Boobooks, Currawongs, Whipbirds, Bellbirds and perhaps a dozen more, even if they were unaware that there were more than one species of some of them, with notably different calls. Most people would hazard a guess at an Emu drumming even if they had never heard one other than on television.

On the other hand, many of our birds are silent or almost so.  Many others are not encountered often enough (or often enough in places where we are) for most of us to become familiar with their calls, so we can be forgiven for not recognising them or understanding their language.

The more we hear particular species’ calls, the more likely we are to recognise them when we hear them again.  But with so many species and subspecies, with so many different calls, nobody can be expected to know more than a small proportion of them.  Perhaps you might be able to guess at a narrow range of possible species and use a bird app or a set of CDs of all Australian bird calls to identify the species, but this might be an insurmountable task if we don’t know where to start.  It is further complicated because, although we might intuitively imagine that big birds would emit louder and/or lower-pitched calls than smaller ones, this is not always the case.  Even remembering (accurately) what we heard in the bush whilst wading through a potentially long series of calls on our app is fraught and misidentification is a serious risk.

In an earlier post, I mentioned the joy I get when I hear the calls of the Pied Currawong, the Grey and Pied Butcherbirds and the Common Blackbird.  Their calls are quite beautiful, melodic, clear and distinctive and they transport me to times and places of significance to me, locking me into emotions and experiences that were important to me at some time – and remain so to this day.

Pied Currawongs remind me of cold mornings camping at Katoomba, hot bushwalks around Canberra, and particularly the high drama that was my life when living alone in Sydney.  The Butcherbirds’ clear ringing song is an unusually pleasant memory of our former apartment in Caloundra when almost everything was disastrous doom and gloom.  And Blackbirds are stereotypically Melbourne for me, especially my earlier years there, although I have since enjoyed their lyrical dawn and dusk serenades on many occasions.

But what of other birds?  In no particular order, I have recently thought about numerous species and their significance to me – whether that refers to a time, a place or an experience.  Here are some of them……..

Peaceful Dove – anything but peaceful with its incessant calling that seems to penetrate a kilometre or more in the bush.  I have seen and heard so many of them, but they always remind me of hot, dry, still, deserted places.  I first heard them in Queensland but recognised the call in crowded Kalbarri and that is what has stayed with me.  They say you never forget your first time, but that is only partly true.  In my earlier post (referred to above), I described my first encounters with Eastern Koels and Channel-billed Cuckoos in Sydney and I will always remember them, but for some reason, I associate Peaceful Doves with Kalbarri, despite having seen and heard them numerous times before without recalling those sightings.

Laughing and Spotted Doves – predominantly from Perth and Melbourne.  Their soft, repetitive murmuring seems to have been most often heard when I have been in bed and I still imagine snuggling under the covers and listening to the Laughing Doves on the roof or in the trees outside my window as a child. A warm, safe and comforting feeling.

Everyone loves the warbling of a Magpie.  Indeed, it has been recognised as one of the most iconic sounds of Australia: as has the mirth of the (Laughing) Kookaburra. In general, it is the quiet pleasant communication between birds but nobody fails to imagine that some of the time, the Magpie is simply carrying on a conversation with us.  We talk to them, they respond.  Who hasn’t had such an encounter with an inquisitive bird a mere metre or two away, head cocked to one side, listening to our wisdom before imparting some nonsense of its own?

Corellas – usually but not only the Little Corella. Many people hate them for the damage they can do but I love them.  My first memorable encounter with them was at Halls Gap in the Grampians, where hundreds of them squabbled over the best few inches of branch to roost on that particular night.  They tend to swarm into and out of the same tall trees for at least a couple of hours every night and are very often seen (by us) around camping areas.  They are wonderful aerobats, great characters, comics, highly vocal and seem intent on discussing every detail of their day’s adventures with every other bird in the flock so it is an entertaining, if noisy, reunion when many campers are trying to relax, listen to their televisions, or sleep. Interestingly, they are off on new adventures before many of us surface in the morning, usually without waking any of us.

Galahs are somewhat the same, performing superb aerobatics, just because they can.  Their monosyllabic call evokes the desert for me wherever I am: hot, clear evenings even though I have seen them right across the country at all times of the day, and occasionally at night.  They are stereotypically Outback birds in my mind, even though I know they are not.

Grey Shrike-thrush – a lovely nondescript bird with a big, melodic voice.  I first saw one in the West McDonalds near Alice Springs and heard its call with wonder. Such a small bird, so hard to find, yet singing its little repertoire so loudly just a metre or two in front of me. I rarely saw others until our enforced stay in Warragul but have now heard so many of them that I can identify them even if I can’t see them.  At one time, I imagined (from the end of their call) that they were similar to a Whipbird (equally hard to spot, despite their loud distinguishing call), but now know better and can easily identify both from their calls.

Most people hate the Common Myna, claiming them to be foreign invaders, aggressively supplanting our native birds.  But let’s not blame the bird for being what it is. After all, it was humans that introduced it to Australia and if it is aggressive, that is simply crucial to its survival strategy.  I am not even convinced of its risk to our own birds.  If you refer to my earlier post about the birds on our terraces at home, you will note that they have been put in their place by our far less aggressive Spotted Doves and House Sparrows (admittedly also introduced species). The reason I have highlighted this species is because their range of vocalisations is extensive and can be piercingly loud and grating or soft and musical.  Indeed, I often imagine different birds when I hear them because ‘surely, that can’t be a Myna!’

The calls of Magpie-larks and Willy Wagtails can also be shrill and deafening, especially for such small birds. Although I like their cheeky playfulness, I find their voices unpleasant, grating, raucous, piercing and uncharacteristic of diminutive species.  Magpie-larks in particular can screech at almost painful levels at a range of 100 metres or more.

The Masked Lapwing also has a distinctive call, albeit not as piercing as the Magpie-lark.  I first encountered them as a bowler in a cricket team where the run-up at one of the pitches we used was also used as a nesting site for a pair of Lapwings for at least 3 successive years.  The poor birds were frantic whenever we played there, screeching and diving at us constantly whilst we poor humans erected a few sticks to surround a small no-man’s-land near the eggs in the scrape on the ground.  Bowlers in particular found it frustrating to run around this quarantined area as they approached the crease – and many a catch was dropped when a fielder was screamed at for chasing a ball too close to the sacred ground.  Amazingly, despite the Saturday afternoon inconvenience to them, the Lapwings successfully fledged their chicks year after year.  More recently, when living in Richmond, my love of this species was renewed when they would call from the oval across the road every evening, particularly in the colder weather.  Huddled cosy by the fire, listening to the unmistakable calls from across the road became one of the more enjoyable features of our winter evenings.

Australian Ravens (the eponymous Aussie crows) are also birds of wonder for me.  All our crows and ravens have somewhat similar calls, but my favourite by far is the Australian Raven with its long, slow, lazy, down-turning groan.  Caaaahhhaaharrr – very different to our other corvids.  I grew up in Western Australia where all ‘crows’ were Australian Ravens and their call always reminds me of hot, dry, dusty days in the ‘great southern wheatbelt’ where I spent a lot of my recreational time as a child and adolescent.  On my relatives’ wheat and sheep farms, they were seen as pests, attacking newborn lambs and spilling grain from the unsewn tops of wheat bags. One uncle in particular temporarily stored hundreds of bags of grain at the side of the house and the ravens were attracted to it – to uncle’s annoyance.  He sometimes set himself up in the sleepout with his shotgun, but it took no more than a couple of inches of barrel to appear between the louvres before the ravens took flight.  He claimed that they were the cleverest birds on earth – much to his chagrin.

A rare call in Gippsland has been that of the White-plumed Honeyeater that has seemed the most prominent and distinctive call almost wherever else I have travelled in Australia.  I have heard it in a couple of places in Gippsland, but it is one of the most recognisable calls (for me) and its absence in this area has surprised me.

On the other hand, there are other calls that I find instantly recognisable, including most of those mentioned above. Among the others are the Black-cockatoos, White-headed Stilts, Oystercatchers, Striated and Spotted Pardalotes, Southern Boobooks, Bell Minors, Black Swans, White-faced Herons to name a few.

But there are also some areas of confusion. I always imagined that the sound of the Whistling Kite was diagnostic – until I heard the almost identical whistling of Black Kites.  Similarly, most ducks quack, but how does one differentiate between one quack and another? Many small bush-birds twitter away, largely hidden in dense thickets and it is hard to identify them from their call, especially if more than one species is calling in the same area.  But if you think it may be a particular species, it is sometimes possible to confirm it – although it might be harder to rule it out.  I was recently in an area where numerous birds were calling but I thought I saw a Brown Thornbill and heard its call.  I used an app on my phone to confirm my identification and interestingly, we were suddenly surrounded by several more Brown Thornbills, all trying to interact with the app.

I have been on the beach at dusk and have been able to identify Masked Lapwings, Silver Gulls and Oystercatchers from their calls, but anything else is a guess.  I have also been at sea surrounded by majestic seabirds and found it almost impossible to identify any from their occasional calls.  Some of that is simply lack of familiarity, but many pelagic species seem to be silent or have somewhat similar calls making identification other than by sight difficult.

Some birds rarely use their voice, but others are great communicators, at least between their species.  Families of Babblers are constantly babbling, almost never silent, simply keeping contact within the group.  Noisy Miners are (naturally) very noisy and who hasn’t been irritated by their incessant ‘chip, chip, chip, chips’?  New Holland Honeyeaters, Grey Fantails and Superb Fairy-wrens seem to be twittering constantly as they flit around the foliage hunting for a feed.

The sound of one species that is unmistakable to me, even if I don’t see it and it does not call is the Crested Pigeon.  The sound made by its wings in flight is absolute proof of the species.  (A bit like the sound of wind in Sheoaks – instant recognition).

But then there is the sound of the Superb Lyrebird – or rather the cacophony of sounds.  Being such a brilliant mimic, one needs to listen for a few moments to ensure you are not listening to a Whipbird and a Rosella and a motor bike and a chainsaw and the ringtone of a phone and…….  It is the variety of replicated sounds that enables you to identify this species.  Whether there is an innate ‘natural’ call of the species is perhaps doubtful because it incorporates the calls of so many other local birds (and incidental sounds) into its repertoire.

Despite some places and periods of silence in the bush where birds may or may not be present, there are wonderful experiences when the air is alive with birdsong.  Far and near, we might hear twittering and tweeting, raucous squawking and shrieking, melodic warblings, single peeps and long carolling.  These are often somewhat frustrating times when we are trying to see and identify the birds near us, but are constantly distracted by another call or another shadow, or another bird catching our attention because it is nearer or larger or louder and we simply don’t know where to look next.

Equally, we may be at a beach or beside a lake or surrounded by dense thickets or very tall trees and we can hear birds all around us or high in the canopy, but simply can’t find them.  In Gippsland, I have recently been in towering forests with many small birds flitting around the leaves, but have simply been unable to focus my binoculars on them because they are so small, so far away and so active in their foraging, cloaked in foliage and silhouetted against a bright sky.

[lindoig6]

Talking with Magpies

Earlier in this blog, I posted something about communication between birds and humans and I enjoyed another example of it today.

I was doing the dishes in our caravan with the door open and an Australian Magpie came up to the door and gave a gentle squawk at me.  I responded with my best attempt to replicate its voice.  It did it again, so I repeated my call.  After 3 or 4 repetitions, the bird stopped calling, but after a few minutes, I called to it.  It immediately responded and for the next several minutes, every time I squawked, it called back to me like clockwork.  In my mind, there is not the slightest doubt that we were communicating one-on-one with each other.  No real idea what the messages meant, but this particular bird has come to the van several times, once even standing on the step while I was barely half a metre away. We have left crumbs outside the van a few times and even a crust once and a few birds (including my Magpie friend) have visited to take advantage of our munificence.

I suspect the Magpie was begging for food today and probably felt cheated that its best efforts to ask for it went unrewarded.

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And just a few minutes later.....

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A Superb Lyrebird, going about its daily routine.

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Even more!

Masked Lapwing (with one of its three chicks), Welcome Swallow (collecting mud for its nest), Striated Thornbill, Australian Pelican and Little Black Cormorant, Pacific Gull, White-eared Honeyeater, Pacific Black Duck, Black Swan family, and2 Eastern Yellow Robins

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And some more......

Eurasian Coots (heartily in love), Whistling Kite, White-bellied Sea-eagle, Australian Magpie (F), Red-capped Plover, Grey Fantail, Little Raven, Crimson Rosella, King Parrot (F - Queen?) and 2 Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoos sharing a secret.

[lindoig6]

An entirely self-indulgent, completely gratuitous collection of recent bird photos from south-central Gippsland.

Peregrine Falcon, Superb Fairy-wren, Pied Oystercatcher, Galah, Pallid Cuckoo, Crested Tern, Pied Currawong, Grey Currawong, Cape Barron Goose and Laughing Kookaburra.

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An unhelpful aid to avian identification

Most of us have seen the cute little T-shirts on kids that say something like ‘My Nana went to California and all she brought me back was this stupid shirt’.  Well one of my rellos went on holidays and all he bought me back this shitty shirt! 

No doubt the gift (that was greatly appreciated by the way) was a serious attempt to assist me in my passion for identifying birds.  Simply match the scat to the scatter and add another tick to my life-list.

Unfortunately, in the field, I have not found the shirt to be a suitable substitute for a Field Guide – even if I am wearing it at the time.  The images seem not to be sufficiently reliable for conclusive identifications. I have found scat on leaves at the foot of a tree with one of the subject species on a branch immediately above and it has not matched the corresponding image on the shirt well enough to confirm the species.  I surmise that this could be for one of numerous reasons. For example, the trajectory of the missile might take it past some leaves or another branch that distorts the pattern on the ground.  It may be that the bird in question is simply one of several that routinely roost on that branch so its original owner may not be the species I am observing at the time.  The deposit could have been disturbed by small mammals or rodents foraging in the leaves, or wind and rain or irregular ground topography may have created variations in the pattern I am observing.

As much as I would like to take advantage of the intended purpose of the shirt, I have found it less than entirely reliable as a Field Guide.  It is also limited in scope, lacking equivalent images of the other 750-odd species that should have been displayed to ensure the comprehensiveness of the item.

And whilst on the topic of deposits discarded by birds, I had an uncle who often stated that ‘you would have a better chance of being hit by a seagull flying over the MCG’ with respect to any event that he thought might be unlikely to occur.  It is noted, however, that in practice, some people have experience exactly that so my uncle’s predictions may not always have been any more reliable than my T-shirt.

And as a little anecdote at my own expense, I recall participating in an office cricket match whilst working in Sydney.  It was a great day, but there were no shops nearby we all had to bring our own lunch with us.  I took two sandwiches and at lunchtime, I was lazing around in a slip catch cradle, sheltering from the sun under some trees.  I was just about to start my lunch when ‘SPLAT’ – my sandwich was covered in a very unwelcome deposit keenly targeted by a bird in the tree above me. The rest of my colleagues thought this was a great joke, but on my return from the rubbish bin, I settled back to enjoy the second half on my lunch.  ‘At least, lightning never strikes twice in the same place’ I said to the surrounding throng, still guffawing at my misfortune.  SPLAT!!!!  Enough said – but I was really hungry by the time the match was over.

[lindoig6]

‘Conversing’ with birds

One very memorable night, we were camped in a remote area near Arthur River in Tasmania.  It was bitterly cold and drizzly and we were trying to collect some wood dry enough to build a fire (we have carried kindling and firewood with us ever since – sometimes for 10,000 km or more), when we heard a bird call.  It was an unfamiliar call, so I used the app on my tablet to identify the call.  It was the Southern Boobook calling from quite some distance away and we identified it conclusively by listening to the recorded soundbite in the app.  What fascinated us was that immediately I played the call on my tablet, it was answered by the bird in the distance, even when I had the volume turned quite low on the app.  It obviously had better hearing than mine.  This continues on and off for more than an hour – until WE got tired of it.

We don’t often play calls like this (it is not considered good birding practice), but there have been a couple of other occasions when listening to some calls on the app has evoked an entirely unexpected response from a nearby bird.

On the other hand, we were with a birding group on Christmas Island some years ago and the group leader set up an amplifier powered by his car battery and blasted bird calls across a huge area of the Island where we knew the target species was present. Alas, we heard not a single note in response!

Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands birding trip.

As much as I love birding, this is the only seriously focussed birding excursion we have been on – unless we count a couple of pelagic trips lasting just a few hours as part of a much longer experience.  Normally, our travels take us somewhere and I look for birds wherever we are, but this trip was exclusively a birding trip comprised of obsessive birding fanatics.

A year or two before this trip, the record number of Australian bird species seen by anyone in a calendar year was 703 (Shane Dooley – his book ‘The Big Twitch’ records this marathon).  But one of our co-expeditioners had beaten his record during the previous year and celebrated by having his number of sightings tattooed across his chest. Silly boy!  He actually beat his own record again in the year we travelled with him and his tattoo immediately became out of date.  I often wonder what he did to correct the record!

Our other co-expeditioners included several of Australia’s top male and female birders and we learned a lot from them.  I still practice one specific lesson learned during that trip to this very day – never become as obsessive about anything as these people were about seeing just one more elusive vagrant species.  They were up at 3 or 4 am, crossed the island by car and climbed jungle mountains through rain, fog and mud, to arrive at a possible venue before first light – just in case the rumoured Chinese Pond-Heron made its appearance that day. It never did, but we all saw one fly across an open sportsground on Cocos Island a week later!

That trip introduced me to another aspect of birding that I had not previously encountered.  We saw a lot of Pacific Swifts in two areas: one on Christmas Island that we nicknamed Swift Alley and the other not far from our digs on West Island, Cocos.  Some of the experts in our group believed that the birds we were seeing were a previously unreported species (in Australia) called Blyth’s Swifts (Apus leuconyx) rather than the more common Fork-tailed Swift (Apus pacificus).

We needed photos to prove the case so between us we took thousands of photos of the birds as they flew past, mainly just before dusk in low-light conditions.  Most of the photos failed to show the birds at all.  They fly extremely fast and turn and climb with acrobatic agility - and focussing on one before it gets out of range or simply disappears into the trees is extremely fraught. Nonetheless, we got enough shots of birds, parts of birds, silhouettes, etc., to present a case to BARC – the Birdlife Australia Rarities Committee that authenticates (or otherwise) unusual sightings.  That was my first encounter with the workings of Birdlife Australia and its committees.  Our case was compiled by one of the experts in the group and included some of my photos (and other people’s too) but alas, BARC was unconvinced so that was one species that never made it to any of our records.

After the expedition was completed and everyone else went home, Heather and I stayed on for a few days in both Cocos and Christmas Islands and we identified 2 additional species on Cocos and 4 more on Christmas Island (including 2 target endemics) that the fanatics in the group had missed (or ‘dipped’ as the birding fraternity is wont to say).

[lindoig6]

Bird behaviour on our terraces

Living on a corner, we have two terraces, one facing north and the other east. We put a small amount of budgie or canary seed out on the eastern one most mornings and the birds have developed a very obvious 'pecking order'.  On that side, we are visited by Spotted Doves that call insistently if we don't put their breakfast out at the appropriate time - and the change to and from daylight savings really confuses them.  They are obviously resident birds and it has been fascinating to observe their annual ritual of courting, mating, nest-building and in due course, they bring their fledglings to us as well - but only for a few weeks. The young are then hunted off to forage elsewhere and any attempts to return are vigorously repulsed by their parents.

We used to have up to about 40 House Sparrows living around here when we first moved in, but numbers are down to around 15 or 20 at present.  If we put seed out and the sparrows are there but no doves, the sparrows will sit patiently waiting for the doves to arrive and will not attempt to eat until the doves are well ensconced in their breakfast.  Then everyone eats happily together with only very occasional bullying by the doves.  (One exception occurred a few months ago when a dove picked up a young sparrow in its beak and shook it violently before releasing it.  The sparrow resumed eating as if nothing had happened and this was repeated at least 4 times within the next 2 or 3 minutes.)

The Common Mynas are not allowed on that terrace during breakfast! Immediately a myna approaches that terrace, it is chased away by either, or both, the sparrows and the doves.  But on our northern terrace, not more than 2-3 metres away, all the birds co-exist in harmony and we often have 3 or 4 species foraging together – often wreaking havoc on our vegetable greens.  We occasionally break up a crust of bread and put it in a bowl on that terrace and the sparrows will take a piece and bash it on the ground until sufficiently small crumbs break off for them to eat.  Sometimes they will even soften it in the birdbath if it is too stale.  If a myna is there at the same time, it will invariably steal the morsel from the sparrow, rather than get one from the bowl for itself. Unperturbed, the sparrow will just get another piece, as often as not to have that stolen too.

The doves in particular watch us carefully throughout the day and as we move around the apartment, they will move from place to place, and terrace to terrace, to keep us in view for much of the day.

We have a small birdbath on each terrace, one of which is very occasionally used to get a drink but has NEVER been used for bathing.  The other birdbath is used numerous times a day for drinking and bathing and in the hot weather, we often have a dove sitting next to a myna in the birdbath with a couple of sparrows drinking on the edge.  Bath-time is a riot of frantic splashing that almost empties the water and we need to refill it several times a day.

When we travel, it is often for several months at a time so none of the birds get fed their daily ration from us.  They obviously survive and flourish in our absence and look quite fit and healthy on our return – but all their regular behaviours drop straight back into place the very next day!

Very occasionally, a sparrow or dove will wander inside the apartment and we need to chase them out, but they rarely panic as much as expected - I presume because they have become so accustomed to us that they know we won't harm them.

We have learned such a lot about avian behaviour just by watching our own terraces.

[lindoig6]

Inner-city Bird Diversity

Birds on our Balconies

We live in a small high-rise on the edge of the Melbourne CBD, on the lowest level of apartments, 6 floors above street level.  We are on the intersection of two heavily trafficked streets, with constant construction and traffic noise all day and most of the night.  We have two outside terraces and despite the noise and pollution, we have been visited by many birds over the years we have lived here. The list of 19 species that we have seen on our terraces is as follows:

Common Blackbirds

Grey Butcherbirds

Pied Butcherbirds

Sulphur-crested Cockatoos

Pied Currawongs

Rock Doves (Feral Pigeons)

Spotted Doves

Galahs

Silver Gulls (ubiquitous Seagulls)

White-plumed Honeyeaters

Australian Magpies

Magpie-larks

Common (Indian) Mynas

Little Ravens

House Sparrows

Common Starlings

Song Thrush (barely-fledged chick – no idea how it got there)

Red Wattlebirds

Domestic chicken (presumed escapee from a higher apartment in a nearby tower)

In addition, I have also seen regular flypasts by several of the above species as well as four more that have not actually landed on our terraces:

Peregrine Falcons

Nankeen Kestrels

Masked Lapwings

Rainbow Lorikeets

Birds nearby

Most people imagine that big cities are virtually devoid of wildlife and what there is, is limited to cats, dogs, rats, mice, sparrows and seagulls.  But landings and sightings from our apartment, less than a kilometre from the centre of the city, number 23 species and I have seen at least another 15 on my walks across the Yarra into the CBD.  They include:

Eurasian Coots

Little Black Cormorants

Little Pied Cormorants

Great Cormorants

Darters

Pacific Black Duck

Nankeen Night-herons

White-faced Herons

Australian White Ibises

Australian Pelicans

Welcome Swallows

Black Swans

Chestnut Teal

Grey Teal

Crested Terns

I do quite a lot of bird surveys and within a further kilometre of home, I have reported personal sightings of at least the following 41 additions.

Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo

Long-billed Corella

Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike

Black-fronted Dotterel

Red-kneed Dotterel

Maned Duck (Australian Wood Duck)

Pink-eared Duck

Great Egret

Superb Fairywren

Grey Fantail

European Goldfinch

Australasian Grebe

Hoary-headed Grebe

Common Greenfinch

Pacific Gull

Hardhead

Swamp Harrier

New Holland Honeyeater

Sacred Kingfisher

Eastern Koel

Musk Lorikeet

Bell Miner

Noisy Miner

Dusky Moorhen

Spotted Pardalote

Red-rumped Parrot

Little Penguin

Crested Pigeon

Red-capped Plover

Australian Reedwarbler

Crimson Rosella

Sharp-tailed Sandpiper

White-browed Scrubwren

Silvereye

Grey Shrike-thrush

Royal Spoonbill

Yellow-billed Spoonbill

Pied Stilt

Australian Swamphen

Willy Wagtail

Little Wattlebird

Who would have thought I could possibly have seen 79 different species of urban birds within a kilometre of Southbank – in an area of less than 4 square kilometres? Other people have obviously seen other species as well, so maybe this figure might be closer to 90 species.  The landscape is certainly not barren, but I am lucky.  I live close to large areas of saltwater, freshwater, marshland, luxuriant parks and gardens with a good range of habitats for so many species. Away from this area, the variety and abundance of wildlife is rarely as prolific.

[lindoig6]

More trivia

Second-rate images

I mentioned that the images in my blog were often not my best image of the particular species. The reason for this was probably laziness.  I was eager to launch the blog so I used some of the photos that I accumulated in a particular folder a year or two ago.  That folder contained many of the bird photos I had taken in the previous 2-3 years – but were specifically collected to indicate features of the species that might aid identification: often poor photos, but indicative of the features I was trying to portray rather than great pics of the birds themselves.

I have subsequently taken a lot more photos, some of which are better representations of those features as well as of many species I had been unable to include in my original collection.  I will try to update my collection in the next month or so and where appropriate, replace some of the poorer images with better ones if I find them.

Superb Fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus) - non-breeding male

The sound of birds

We all love birdsong and everyone probably has a favourite bird whose song or call evokes some special memories or feelings.  I have several.

Many people love the carolling of the Magpie or the cackle of the Laughing Kookaburra (perhaps not so much the maniacal screech of the Blue-winged Kookaburra).  For me, two of my favourites are the Grey and Pied Butcherbirds. They seem to emit such pure tones when they call from the top of a building or the upmost twig of a dead tree.  Their song is eerily spine-tingling and carries a long way, especially in cooler weather (at least it seems that way to me).  Their carolling is louder and more diverse than a Magpie’s and evokes a sense of open space and peaceful contentment in me.

I also love the Pied Currawong, but perhaps for different reasons.  Their calls are also almost pure tones and carry a long way, often echoing around a little, making the call slightly more complex.  I used to hear them in Canberra, but the first time I really noticed their beauty was at Katoomba in the Blue Mountains where their calls resounded across the Megalong Valley from dawn until after dusk.  They were also a feature of many of my wonderful times in Sydney and whenever I hear one, it transports me back to some of the best times of my life. Their calls are very evocative and trigger reminiscences of special times and places of excitement and exoticism – all very emotional for me.

The Common Blackbird is also a wonderful songster.  It sits atop the highest point in its territory, whether in the city or the bush, and sings its heart out just before dark.  It is another very musical bird with a range of songs that evoke special feelings of quiet, calm and gentleness, even melancholy, at the end of day.

In contrast to the musicality of these birds, I discovered two birds when I was in Sydney that engender quite different feelings.  I recall hearing what sounded like a baby in distress crying time and time again over almost 2 days, but I couldn’t track the poor child down.  Then when we were eating a takeaway in the El Alamein Gardens in Kings Cross, I heard it again – in the tree above us.  A local identified it for us as an Eastern Koel.  We have subsequently seen both males and females on a few occasions, but didn’t realise that they sometimes migrated south into Victoria – until one Sunday morning when I was introducing a small group of seniors to birding in the Royal Botanic Gardens.  Out of the blue (literally), Heather and I heard a distinctive call and both immediately said ‘That’s a Koel’.  Sure enough, very high in the clear blue sky, a male Koel flew from west to east across the Gardens and disappeared from sight – a wonderful and quite unexpected lifer for all in the group (except Heather and me).

Another very distinctive, somewhat raucous call is emitted by the Channel-billed Cuckoo.  The first time we saw and heard them was when we alighted from the train to take a boat trip up the Hawkesbury River from Brooklyn. Just as we were leaving, the surrounding trees came alive with several shrieking birds, chasing each other from tree to tree and shattering the silence with the most dramatic calls. They are very distinctive large birds and they were instant lifers for us, but their call is so distinctive that we have since identified them several times from at least 2 or 3 kilometres away across the Harbour.  We have heard their call, recognised it immediately, and found the birds quite quickly with our binoculars despite them being such a long way away.

[lindoig6]

A tautologically miscellaneous collection of random bits & pieces

I have completed most of what I set out to do in this blog but will add a few more facts as well as sharing some of my personal birding experiences and sightings. I expect that this will be a mish-mash of unrelated items so will include a few headings to separate unconnected paragraphs.

Online Field Guide

Just as I was completing the main blog, I saw a post on Facebook in which Cornell University was launching its new Birds of the World website (https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/home).  It claims to include every species in the world (wouldn’t that be wonderful?!!) and has quite a lot of excellent information about each bird.

Unfortunately, it has two limitations from my perspective.  The first is that it is a website so you need to be online to use it – and we are often birding well out of range of even the poorest internet access. The second is that it is a subscription service and requires you to ‘keep feeding the meter’.  It is relatively inexpensive and only costs $US8 a month, $US49 a year, or $US129 for 3 years.  That is not a huge sum, but most people would only use a tiny fraction of its data, usually for birds in just one or two countries and most hardcopy Field Guides and apps can do an adequate job for a similar one-off cost.  If you were doing a lot of international travel, it might be great but their free Merlin app is probably good enough to aid your identification even if it doesn’t include all the additional data about each species.

Cornell’s four key identification factors

Cornell University celebrated Bird Week 2020 in the USA by publishing an aid to bird identification. It is in four parts, each dealing with a different skill or area of focus, namely size and shape (GISS), colours and patterns, songs and calls, and habitats.  I think I covered most of this in one way or another in my earlier posts, but for a more succinct discussion, you may wish to look at the following links.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/build-your-bird-id-skills-size-shape/

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/bird-id-skills-color-pattern/

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/how-to-learn-bird-songs-and-calls/

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/bird-id-skills-habitat/

Kingdoms Come!

And earlier in this blog, I referred to the 3 taxonomic ‘Kingdoms’ used to classify living organisms. I have since been challenged to look somewhat more widely at the literature.  Depending on who you follow, whose science is most compelling, or the opinions you most value, there are definitely 3 kingdoms – or maybe 4, perhaps 5, even 6 - all explained in detail to justify each definition.  Who knows, someone might even invent others, but it seems that various taxonomists hold opposing views as to how to classify life.  Irrespective of how many kingdoms anyone may adopt as their standard, until someone can convince me otherwise, I maintain (as I have for 70-odd years) that ALL birds – at least those currently extant or extinct within the last few thousand years – belong to the Animalia Kingdom!

This reminds me of a completely un-birding anecdote from the 1990s.  I was one of the ‘pioneers’ of the internet in Australia and was involved in trying to establish and impose standards on how the internet, and e-business in particular, should interoperate.  I wasn’t very successful in imposing any standards but everyone agreed how essential ‘standards’ were – and of course, there were always so many different ones to choose from!