Trevor's Birding

A Goldfinch at the Bird Bath

6 Comments »19th February, 2007; Category: Bird baths, Finches, Garden birds

We have a constant parade of visitors to the bird baths we have in our garden. I haven’t done a statistical analysis, but I would say with confidence that the most frequent visitors would have to be the many New Holland Honeyeaters. They would be closely followed by the Pardalotes, both the Striated and the Spotted. The list of species seen drinking from the bird baths is growing. This has been particularly so during recent months. The summer has been very hot and very dry.

European Goldfinch

One recent addition to this list was the European Goldfinch. This introduced species is widespread in south eastern Australia, including Tasmania. I understand that while is it widespread and can be locally common, its numbers are not great anywhere. Here in my home town Murray Bridge in South Australia there are several colonies around town, including one large group living near the Post Office and Railway Station.

We live about 5km from the Post Office and the Goldfinch is only an occasional visitor to our garden. It is therefore an interesting addition to the list of birds that have visited our bird baths.

Related articles:

European Goldfinch – another article about this species.

Birds in the heat – more about birds at our bird baths.

Time for a bath – visitors to our bird baths (including a complete list).

European Goldfinch

Night, night to one poor Night Parrot

No Comments »18th February, 2007; Category: Birds in the News, Nocturnal birds, Parrots and Lorikeets

There has been an exciting discovery in far western Queenland. It has been reported in The Australian newspaper that a dead Night Parrot has been discovered.

The Australian has learned that National Parks and Wildlife Service officers have found a dead night parrot in the state’s far west, confirming the survival of Australia’s rarest bird.

In a discovery of international significance, the parrot was found in November in the Diamantina Lakes region after it flew into a barbed-wire fence. The Government has kept the find secret to avoid birdwatchers searching for night parrots while it does a survey to find more.

A road-killed night parrot found in 1990 near Boulia, in northwest Queensland, by Australian Museum scientists was the first confirmed record of the species since 1912.

Now the Night Parrot, a nocturnal species, is a rather rare bird. In fact, it has only been reliably sighted a handful of times in the last century. It is arguably Australia’s rarest bird – no – make that THE rarest Australian bird.

The Night Parrot Pezoporus occidentalis is one of Australia’s most intriguing birds and possibly its least known. It lives in remote parts of the continent, comes out at night and runs along the ground like a quail. Since its discovery by Europeans, the Night Parrot has been a subject of debate, particularly in regard to its abundance and natural history. Australian Museum online.

Related articles:

Night Parrot – Australian Museum online article.

Not an ex-parrot – article on Snail’s Eye View with several links to relevant sites.

Bad news for one dead parrot, good news for species – this link is to the original article in The Australian newspaper.

Chestnut-rumped Thornbill

1 Comment »17th February, 2007; Category: Garden birds, Thornbills

In our garden we have recorded over one hundred different species of birds over about 22 years of residence here. About forty of these are what I would regard as resident, that is, they are present all the time or daily visitors. About a similar number are regular visitors, that is, they may be seen once a week or even only once a month. Some of the seasonal visitors would fall into this category. The remainder would be classified as vagrants, occurring only from time to time with no observable pattern to their appearance.

Yellow-rumped Thornbills are resident in our garden. I have seen Yellow Thornbills here a few times over the years and in the nearby districts quite a few times. The same could be said of the Chestnut-rumped Thornbill. This species was a regular visitor to our garden in the late 1990s and 2000, but my records only show a few sightings here since then.

From time to time over recent days we were aware of a different bird call in the garden but I was unable to track it down. A small flock eventually came to the bird bath and in so doing they revealed themselves to us. They didn’t stay for long and I was only able to get one rather poor photo. If you look closely you may be able to see a little of the rusty coloured tail. As they fly away from you, this area is a bright chestnut colour; they are aptly named.

Chestnut-rumped Thornbill

Chestnut-rumped Thornbills are essentially a bird of the inland of Australia. Murray Bridge (where I live) is about as far south as they are found. They can also be found throughout much of northern South Australia, western New South Wales, south-western Queensland, central Australia and southern Western Australia.

UPDATE: since taking the photograph above the Chestnut-rumped Thornbills have visited the garden again. This time I was able to get some better shots of them.

Click on the photos to enlarge.

Chestnut-rumped Thornbill

The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs

4 Comments »16th February, 2007; Category: Ducks Geese and Swans

I have been featuring various idioms, their origins and meanings on my writing blog. Some of these feature bird related topics or words. Today I highlight another of these interesting expressions.

This week’s idiom: “To kill the goose which lays the golden eggs.”

Origin:

This saying comes from the Aesop’s fable The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs.

A man and his wife had the good fortune to possess a goose which laid a golden egg every day. Lucky though they were, they soon began to think they were not getting rich fast enough, and, imagining the bird must be made of gold inside, they decided to kill it in order to secure the whole store of precious metal at once. But when they cut it open they found it was just like any other goose. Thus, they neither got rich all at once, as they had hoped, nor enjoyed any longer the daily addition to their wealth. (From Wikipedia)

Meaning:

The commonly used meaning of this expression relates to the act either and individual or an organisation that abuses a source of income or profit through excessive greed to the point where that income is destroyed.

Example:

By not looking after the needs of his customers, the shopkeeper killed the goose that laid the golden eggs.

Photo:

The photo below shows a Cape Barren Goose, an Australian bird. It does not lay golden eggs. Some entrepreneurs tried to harvest these birds from the wild for use in their restaurants here in South Australia. They were soon stopped because the total world population is only something like eight to ten thousand. Such slaughter would inevitably have resulted in “killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.”

Cape Barren Goose

Bird restuarants in Nepal

2 Comments »15th February, 2007; Category: Birds in the News

Several species of endangered vultures in Nepal are getting some special treatment.

Restaurants For Endangered Vultures [ 2007-2-9 ] By Bhimsen Thapaliya
In an innovative measure to save the endangered vultures, Nepalese conservationists have set up clean feeding centres where the large fliers can have their favourite food that is free from killer toxins. The vulture restaurants are attracting the birds from distant places raising the hope that the uncontaminated diet would help recover the South Asian birds under critical decline.

For more about this unusual conservation measure click here.

To read about my adventures in Nepal click here.