Trevor's Birding

Australian Magpie, Botanic Gardens, Canberra

5 Comments »9th February, 2009; Category: Bird Behaviour, Garden birds, Magpies and Currawongs

Australian Magpie, Botanic Gardens, Canberra

A few days ago I wrote about the small group of White-winged Choughs I watched in the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra. While I was watching them digging around for food and them being most obliging to pose for my camera, the magpie in the photo above came swooping down from a nearby tree and clacked his beak. Not at me – but at the choughs. Seems that they have a little rivalry going on there. Perhaps the magpie was protecting his little patch of the gardens and didn’t want any other birds taking his food supply.

I’ve noticed a similar thing at home here in Murray Bridge, South Australia. Some of the magpies, especially the males, can be very aggressive towards other species. The will fly straight at them, almost hitting them with their wings and giving loud clacking beak noises.

Another thing IÂ noticed about the magpie shown in the photo is that it looks very much like the White-backed race of Australian Magpie. Most of New South Wales has the Black-backed race except the south coast from Bateman’s Bay on towards Victoria. The distribution of the White-backed Magpies might be even broader than this as my observations in this area are quite limited.

I’d be interested in readers’ comments.

Flowers in the Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra

Tragedy in Victoria

9 Comments »8th February, 2009; Category: General

My condolences to all those families who have lost family members in the tragic wildfires that have devastated the Australian state of Victoria over the last 48 hours.

For the benefit of my overseas readers, the major fires have been about an hour’s drive north, north east and south east of Melbourne, Victoria. Some are still raging out of control after record high temperatures and wild winds swept the firestorm through many rural communities.

As I sat down to write this the number of deaths has risen over the last half hour from 65 to 74 and now stands at 76. Many more are still missing, and as destroyed homes and burnt out vehicles are searched, the death toll is sure to rise, some predict over 100. It is already the most deaths due to fires in Australia’s history.

At least four towns have been severely devastated with most homes destroyed. One town has only one building unburnt. Over 700 homes have been lost.

I have no idea what effect these fires have had on the birdlife of the areas burnt, or of the wildlife in general. I can only imagine the worst. I know of at least one wildlife rescue centre that has been destroyed, together with the loss of all animals in care.

Healesville Wildlife Sanctuary to the north east of Melbourne has evacuated all of the endangered species, including the rare Orange-bellied Parrots, to Melbourne Zoo.

Update: Later in the evening the death toll stood at 84 and the number of homes lost at 750.

Update late Monday: The death toll now stands at 135 and is expected to rise further. It is now easily Australia’s worst natural disaster.

Update Thursday 19th Feb: The death toll has now reached 200 plus one fire fighter who lost his life during the cleanup. About 1830 homes were lost and 7000 people are now homeless.

I and the bird #93

No Comments »8th February, 2009; Category: Carnivals, I and the Bird, Non-Australian birds

It has been too long since my last contribution to the I and the Bird carnival.

At long last I managed to scrape in a link to the latest carnival over at Vickie Henderson Art. Her compilation of wonderful posts about birds from all over the world is called The Compelling Nature of Birds.

Go on – go on over there and have a read.

I’ll wait patiently here for you to return.

White-fronted Honeyeater

No Comments »7th February, 2009; Category: Garden birds, Honeyeaters, Murray Bridge

Juvenile White-fronted Honeyeater

I apologise for the poor quality of the above photo. I only had a few seconds to take it before the bird flew away, not to return. If it does, and I get a better shot, I’ll replace it.

This morning was very hot. It reached 45C (113F) just before lunch time, with a strong, hot northerly wind blowing up dust everywhere. Not a pleasant day by any measure.

New Home Block species

Despite the atrocious conditions I was able to add a new bird species to my home block list, a juvenile White-fronted Honeyeater. I had previously seen this species less than a kilometre away on several occasions, so it seemed inevitable that I’d record it here someday. Today was that day. It brings my home list to 110 species; adding new species doesn’t happen often these days.

Distribution of White-fronted Honeyeaters

This species is widespread throughout inland Australia west of the Great Dividing Range. It is absent throughout the northern parts of Western Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland as well as the south-western tip of western Australia, southern Victoria and Tasmania. Here in Murray Bridge is near the southern-most part of South Australia it can be found. It can occur in the Coorong area and once I saw one bird near Lucindale in the south east of the state.

Habitat and breeding

The White-fronted Honeyeater prefers dry inland scrubs, mallee and eucalypt woodlands. It usually breeds in the latter half of the year but will also respond to rain and breed at other times. The one I saw was an independent juvenile. It probably fledged sometime in the last two months.

Normally they lay 2-3 eggs in a cup shaped nest comprised of bark, grass, or spider’s web and is usually located low in a bush or even on the ground.

Reference:

Pizzey, G and Knight, F, 1997, The field guide to the birds of Australia, Sydney, Angus and Robertson.

White-winged Choughs, Botanic Gardens, Canberra

No Comments »6th February, 2009; Category: Bird Behaviour, Garden birds

White-winged Choughs, Botanic Gardens, Canberra

The White-winged Choughs I saw in the Australian National Botanic Gardens earlier this year are obviously used to large numbers of people visiting the gardens. They seemed quite at ease with me taking photographs of them from a few metres away.Â They were more intent on finding something to eat.

White-winged Choughs, Botanic Gardens, Canberra

Choughs spend much of their day on the ground, scratching in the dirt or removing any mulch put there by gardeners. One of them found a buried cone from a tree and there was suddenly a great kerfuffle and they all came running to have a taste of this delicacy.

I didn’t distrub them to have a closer look at the cone, but in the photo it seems to be something like a Hakea seed cone. It could also have been a Banksia seed cone.

Banksia flower, Botanic Gardens, Canberra