Singing in the rain
Winter is finally here in South Australia. The nights are cool – even a little chilly and the mornings are damp with dew and a lovely crispness in the air. We haven’t had a frost yet which is rather unusual for this time of the year. By the end of May we’ve usually had several – perhaps three or four – but the temperature hasn’t yet dropped below about 6C. Plenty of time for frosts later.
Over recent weeks we have had some reasonable falls of rain. For most of this week we have had periods of light drizzle, several heavy showers and other times of steady light rain for extended periods. Yesterday it rained steadily from about 4am to mid-morning.
Everything looks clean and fresh. A green tinge of grass can be seen everywhere. When the sun emerges like it did this morning, the birds come out to sing. Thornbills twittering everywhere. I heard several Mallee Ringnecks calling as I walked down the driveway to collect the paper. A Black Faced Cuckoo Shrike glided overhead giving its churring call. Honeyeaters are busy collecting their breakfast from the few flowers out at this time of the year. Small flock of Galahs fly overhead and the mournful cry of a Raven can be heard in the distance.
The only downside to all this rain and cooler weather is that few birds come to visit the bird baths. My chief source of photos has dried up, so to speak. I guess I’ll just have to get out there in the bush or down by the river and see if I can get some photos.
Meanwhile, I invite you to head over to another blog I write, Trevor’s Travels. Over the next three weeks or so I am featuring a series of articles on the birds and animals of Nepal.
Surfing Magpie Lark
10 Comments »25th May, 2007; Category: Bird Behaviour
From time to time I read about strange, usual and downright funny behaviour exhibited by birds. A recent posting on the Birding-Aus forum related this rather bizarre behaviour:
I work at Monash University in the south eastern suburbs of Melbourne and have recently seen some bizarre behaviour from a Magpie-lark near work. After you get off the Monash freeway at Forster Road there are traffic lights as you wait to turn into Forster Road.
For the last 6-9 months there has been a Magpie-lark spending a lot of time at this intersection and it will continuously fly between the two cars at the front of the line (while they are stopped) pecking and attacking reflections in the windows, roof and mirrors. It only ever seems to attack the front cars in the line.
More interestingly recently it appears to have learnt to car surf; as the cars start and go around the corner it will stay on the roof for a while and then (purposefully?) slide down the windscreen of the car as it gets faster round the corner. As the car gets up to around 20-30 km/hr it will then open up its wings and fly/get blown over the top of the car and back to where it can attack the next set of cars. This behaviour appears to be all about having fun rather than attacking any possible reflected intruder.
John
My thanks to John for permission to use his comments.
Some time ago I ran a series of twenty birding bloopers. These relate to birders mis-identifying their sightings. They are well worth a read.
Magpie Lark
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More bird photos can be seen in my photo gallery.
Great Birding Moments # 30 Superb Blue Wren
Superb Blue Wren (male)
On a recent picnic in the Newland Head Conservation Park near Victor Harbor we had the delight of a family of Superb Blue Wrens hopping around on the gravel near our feet. There seemed to be about six or seven females and non-coloured males accompanied by one male in full breeding plumage.
As the light catches the iridescent colours on the male it is always a Great Birding Moment. The brilliant colour is almost enough to make one gasp in amazement. The fact that they are happy to feed on the ground only a few metres away is an added bonus.
Click on the photo to enlarge the image.
For more photos click here.
For more Great Birding Moments click here.
Bird Strikes on Windows
A major problem for many people is bird strikes on windows. Actually – it’s a bigger problem for the birds as it is a major contributor of death in birds. Large apartment and office buildings are a major hazard for birds, but the common or garden variety home can also be a source of danger for our birds.
Every few weeks we are aware of another unfortunate bird crashing into one of our windows. Here is a photo of one New Holland Honeyeater who was only stunned by its encounter with one of our windows. After sitting stunned for a few minutes it flew off happily – well, perhaps with a bit of a head ache.
New Holland Honeyeater
I came across a web site recently that gives a range of ideas for preventing bird strikes on windows. I’m not sure if any of these actually work, but they are worth a try. If they only save the occasional bird it is worth pursuing.
Disclaimer: The site is a commercial site and I have no financial interests in the products, nor have I tried any of them.
Still more rain
Two days ago I wrote about the rain we were receiving. We have been in drought conditions here in South Australia for some time with little good rainfall for over eighteen months. Coupled with a long, hot summer the situation was getting serious. We were on quite severe water restrictions with the promise of further bans in coming weeks.
Since Thursday, however, it has hardly stopped raining. In the last 60 hours we have had about 85mm. Now this may seem not a great deal of rain compared to some parts of the world, but considering our annual average is only 344mm, this rain represents almost 25% of our annual precipitation. It was very steady rain meaning there was very little runoff; it was the long steady rainfall we had been praying for. More is forecast for the coming week.
More rain is needed:
We still have a long way to go before water restrictions can be lifted, however. It will take much more rain over a long period of time to replenish our depleted reservoirs. Even more rain is desperately needed in the Murray-Darling catchment basin in the eastern parts of Australia. This river system waters vast areas of food producing farmlands and orchards. Good rain over several years will be needed to bring the river system back into balance again.
Birds and the rain:
The rain was quite heavy for most of today. I didn’t hear any birds calling until the rain stopped at about 5pm. In fact, I didn’t even see any birds for most of the day. As soon as the rain stopped, the birds started calling again. The Little Ravens were the first to call, followed closely by the Magpie Larks, New Holland Honeyeaters and the Pardalotes. No birds came to visit the bird baths today. I wonder why?