A Large Flock of White-winged Choughs
2 Comments »24th January, 2009; Category: Bird Behaviour
White-winged Choughs, Botanic Gardens, Canberra
At the moment I am working outside in the cool of the evening on my laptop. I’d just sat down to do something with no thought about birding when I was distracted by a flock of White-winged Choughs in our garden.
Normally we have a family groups of about 8 regularly patrolling the grounds, feeding and minding their own business.
I was attracted by the extra noise being created by this flock this evening. I looked up and counted at least 16 birds flying past, all making quite a racket. This number is a little unusual as normally family groups around here number from about five to a dozen, rarely more.
All I can assume is that two neighbouring groups have met where their territories cross over. That was the probable cause of the noisy and larger than normal group. Whatever the reason, they have now moved on and I can no longer hear them. Their territories can cover many hectares.
The photo above was taken a few weeks ago a long distance from here in Murray Bridge. It was taken during a visit to Canberra Botanic Gardens.
A Starling in a hurry
2 Comments »19th January, 2009; Category: Bird Behaviour, Eagles Hawks and Kites, Murray Bridge, Raptors
Common Starling
Common Starlings are not my favourite birds.
In fact, here in Australia they are considered a pest, especially by fruit growers and people who have a few fruit trees in their back yard. A small flock can completely ruin a crop of apricots in a few hours, for example.
There is a wider environmental issue to also consider. Common Starlings are often found in flocks of hundreds and even number in the tens of thousands in fruit growing areas. Large flocks like this feed on the crops when they are ripe; for the rest of the year they are seriously depleting food sources of many of our native species. Even worse is the fact that they use tree hollows for their nests, thus denying native birds precious nesting sites. They are also very messy in their nesting habits, fouling the hollows to the point where only Starlings will reuse the hollow.
Last night I was at an outdoor function being conducted by our church. We hold this event on Sunday evenings every year in January in the town sound shell. Despite the very loudly amplified music the birding was spectacular. Not many species flew over, mind you, but one incident involving a Common Starling really caught my attention.
Two Australian Hobbies (Little Falcons) live around the CBD and I’ve seen them soaring around the area on a number of occasions. One of them zoomed past the sound shell at great speed heading for some trees in the park opposite. It did a few loops around a tall pine tree disturbing a Common Starling in the process which sped of in the opposite direction, hotly pursued by the falcon. Both disappeared behind a building. I hope that the falcon caught his supper.
White-winged Choughs in the heat
Yesterday I wrote about Magpies in the hot weather we are having. So far we have had a rather mild summer, but the last few days has brought in the hot weather we’ve been expecting for some weeks. More hot days are forecast for the coming week.
During warm weather our bird baths are well used by the resident birds in our garden. When it is hot there is a constant stream of birds of many different species taking advantage of the water for both drinking and bathing. It is great entertainment for us as well as providing a much needed resource for the birds.
At one stage yesterday I was amused by the family of eight White-winged Choughs who all came to have a drink. All at once. I am so pleased that they did not decide to have a bath as well. A single Magpie can almost empty the bird bath in minutes; I’d hate to think how little water would have been left after eight WW Choughs had finished bathing!
Magpies in the heat
Australian Magpie on a hot day
Yesterday we had the hottest day of this summer so far. It reached 45C under our front veranda – that’s 113F for those of you who use that temperature scale.
It was hot.
Very hot.
Apart from needing to go to the Post Office early in the morning I stayed indoors all day. The evaporative air conditioner chugged away nicely from late morning until well into the evening. One aspect of this form of cooling is that you need to keep a few windows partially open to keep the flow of air moving. We often open the sliding door shown in the photo above a few centimetres. It wasn’t long before the resident magpie family found the lovely cool air coming from the house.
Earlier they had been enjoying bathing in the bird bath, but this was even better evidently. At one stage I noticed six birds taking advantage of the cool air. It will be interesting if other species follow suit on the hot days still to come.
Australian Magpies on a hot day
Kangaroos and Honeyeaters: a happy arrangement
Brown-headed Honeyeater
Quite often I receive some fascinating accounts about birds from my readers. Often these are left in the comments box and all are able to read them.
On other occasions people use the contact form and this is fine too, but only I get to read them. Some of these are too good to keep to myself.
Kerry is one such reader. By coincidence she lives only a fifteen minute drive from where I live. Her experience of the relationship between kangaroos and honeyeaters is fascinating. I have also seen this kind of behaviour with koalas in Victoria.
Thanks to Kerry for giving me permission to quote her.
Hi Trevor, I have just discovered your site and I absolutely love it!
My husband and I are wildlife carers through Fauna Rescue and we have just recently moved into the area (we are half way between Murray Bridge and Tailem Bend on 120 acres of mallee scrub) so your site is proving very helpful in identifying local species.
One of our favourites is the Brown-headed Honeyeater. We raise orphan kangaroos and we have 2 acres of mallee scrub fenced in to raise the kangaroos (we have western greys and reds). Come late winter, the little Brown-headed Honeyeaters assiduously collect fur from our kangaroos to line their nests and this continues all the way through to December (for refurbishment purposes we assume).
They only ever pluck fur from the western greys and ignore the reds completely. We assume that is because the greys have longer fur than the reds, which are more desert dwelling. The honeyeaters land on the backs of the western greys and pluck fur out until their beaks are completely stuffed and then they fly off. I have seen up to three birds on the back of one roo, busily plucking out fur. The roos don’t mind at all and make no effort to move away or brush the birds off – maybe they like the sensation of being groomed so it is a symbiotic relationship! They are extraordinary little birds.