Category Archives: Bird of the Week

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Southern Boobook

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Southern Boobook (Ninox boobook) by Ian Montgomery

Southern Boobook ( Ninox boobook) by Ian Montgomery

Newsletter  5-4-2010

Here’s one for the lovers of owls – which, I imagine, includes almost everybody. This is the commonest and most widespread owl in Australia, and its plaintive ‘boobook’ or ‘morepork’ call is a familiar sound in a huge range of habitats from tropical rainforest, through leafy suburbs and city parks to almost treeless regions of the dry interior. Despite both its abundance and lots of effort on my part, it has eluded my camera since, as a graduate student, I took some slide photos of one through a window of the Zoology Department of Sydney University in the mid 1970s.

Southern Boobook (Ninox boobook) by Ian Montgomery

Southern Boobook (Ninox boobook) by Ian Montgomery

This weekend just past was the occasion of the AGM of Birds Australia North Queensland and it was held at a large cattle station (property) called Trafalgar about 50km southwest of Charters Towers outside Townsville. We went spotlighting in the station truck, ideally equipped for birding safari-style with two bench seats placed longitudinally back-to-back on the rear, on a clear Sunday night and after finding a rather flighty barn owl, we encountered a Boobook in a tree beside the road that was much more cooperative. Having photographed it from the truck, I eventually got down and set up the tripod much closer to the the owl. It stayed put, despite my flash and 3 spotlights and when we finally left, it was still there. The portrait in the first photo is in fact cropped from a photo that includes the whole bird, so you can appreciate that the conditions for photography were excellent.

Later we found a Tawny Frogmouth, also a willing subject, and on the road itself, a suicidal young Owlet-Nightjar – nearly got run over – which let me approach it so closely that I could no longer focus with my 500mm lens (minimum focusing distance 4.5m/15ft). The consensus seemed to be that it was the best night’s spotlighting ever. The clear sky with no light pollution meant that we could see both the Southern Cross and the Big Dipper/Plough simultaneously, and on the way back a just-past-full moon rose in the east.
The Boobook is a smallish owl ranging in size from 25-28cm/10-11in for males and 30-36cm/12-14in for females. This one seemed relatively large to me, so it was probably female. The current taxonomic treatment is to treat as a single species the various boobooks in Australia, New Zealand, southern New Guinea, Timor and some islands of eastern Indonesia. This leaves only the Sumba Boobook (Sumba is west of Timor) as a separate species, so there isn’t a ‘Northern’ Boobook as such.
Best wishes,
Ian
Links:

Barn Owl
Tawny Frogmouth
Australian Owlet-nightjar
—
Ian Montgomery, Birdway Pty Ltd,
454 Forestry Road, Bluewater, Qld 4818
Phone: +61-7 4751 3115
Preferred Email: ian@birdway.com.au
Website: http://birdway.com.au

Lee’s Addition:

Boobooks are in the Strigidae Family of the Strigiformes Order. I love that name. Not sure how it got it other than it’s sound.

Southern Boobook Audio from xeno-canto.org by Pakihi Okarito

But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it: (Isa 34:11a)

Ian’s Bird of the Week – White-winged (Black) Tern

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White-winged Tern (Chlidonias leucopterus) by Ian

White-winged Tern (Chlidonias leucopterus) by Ian

Newsletter – 4/25/2010

The weather is improving here, so I went birding a couple of times last week. The first time I went to Hodel Road, Giru, just south of Townsville, which goes through an area of marshy coastal grassland that can turn up interesting birds. At this time of the year, it can be good for White-winged (Black) Terns starting the migration back to the northern hemisphere and some, like the one in the first photo, may be in the unmistakable breeding plumage, with black bodies and pale wings. I’ve bracketed (Black) as this qualifier is usually added in Australia, while Birdlife International calls it just ‘White-winged Tern’.

More usually in Australia, we see White-winged Black Terns in non-breeding plumage – like the one in the second photo – and care needs to be taken to distinguish them from the related, slightly larger, Whiskered Tern in the same plumage. Perhaps the best field mark is the shape of the black band on the head. In the White-winged Tern it forms a vertical hoop over the crown of the head; in the Whiskered Tern it forms a horizontal hoop around the nape and the crown is whitish. There are also differences in the patterns of the upper wing. In the White-winged the dark leading edge (visible in the second photo) and the whitish rump gives the bird a patchier appearance than that of the more homogeneous Whiskered.

White-winged Tern (Chlidonias leucopterus) by Ian

White-winged Tern (Chlidonias leucopterus) by Ian

Some points that may be of interested to bird photographers relate to birds in flight coming towards the camera and to backgrounds. Telephoto lenses have very a shallow field of view, particularly at the high shutter speed/large aperture combination necessary to freeze the motion of the bird. This means that even if the auto-focus has operated correctly, the bird may have moved out of focus during the lag while the photo is taken. Some cameras have an autofocus option to compensate for constant movement, called ‘AI-Servo’ on Canon SLRs, and this is the occasion to use it.

The problem with backgrounds is that the autofocus may miss the bird and grab the background instead. Birds against the sky are easier than against the ground – unless there are clouds with high contrast. Practicing tracking birds in flight is the solution here, and I use a single focus point in the centre of the viewfinder. This gives much more control over auto-focusing and not only with birds in flight but also in spatially complex shots such as a bird in a tree with branches around it.

On the website, I’ve been experimenting with changes to the layout of bird photos. The changes involve technical aspects such as getting rid of frames, but the advantages from a user’s point of view include being able to bookmark individual photos (rather than just species), and scroll bars to prevent thumbnails extending way below the window. If you’re interested, have a look at http://www.birdway.com.au/otididae/australian_bustard/source/australian_bustard_99577.htm – I’d welcome your feedback.

The other birding outing last week was to get photos of nesting Chowchillas at Paluma (this gallery uses the new layout and has 600px-wide images instead of 500)

Best wishes,
Ian
—
Ian Montgomery, Birdway Pty Ltd,
454 Forestry Road, Bluewater, Qld 4818
Phone: +61-7 4751 3115 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              +61-7 4751 3115      end_of_the_skype_highlighting
Preferred Email: ian@birdway.com.au
Website: http://birdway.com.au

Lee’s Addition:

The White-winged (Black) Tern is in the Laridae Family of the Charadriiformes Order. There are 102 members of the family. Only 39 of those are Terns, the rest are Gulls, Noddy, Skimmers, and Kittiwakes. They are small terns generally found in or near bodies of fresh water across from Southeastern Europe east to Australia.

Their behavior like the other “marsh” terns (Chlidonias), and unlike the “white” (Sterna) terns, these birds do not dive for fish, but fly slowly over the water to surface-pick items on the surface and catch insects in flight. They mainly eat insects and small fish. In flight, the build appears thick-set. The wing-beats are shallow and leisurely.

Their breeding habitat is freshwater marshes across from southeast Europe to central Asia. They usually nest either on floating vegetation in a marsh or on the ground very close to water, laying 2-4 eggs in a nest built of small reed stems and other vegetation. In winter, they migrate to Africa, southern Asia and Australia. It is a scarce vagrant in North America, mainly on the Atlantic coast, but a few records on the Pacific coast and inland in the Great Lakes area.

The White-winged (Black) Tern is another of the neatly created birds which shows the Handiwork of God.

Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.” (Genesis 1:20 NKJV)

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Black-fronted Dotterel

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Black-fronted Dotterel (Elseyornis melanops) by Ian

Black-fronted Dotterel (Elseyornis melanops) by Ian

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Black-fronted Dotterel ~ by Ian Montgomery

It is easy to think of waders, such as sandpipers and plovers, in terms of challenges – both the survival challenges that long distant migrants face and the identification challenges that these migrants, usually in non-breeding plumage, pose for birders. So, it’s easy to overlook the unchallenging ones – distinctive native species, easy on the eye and easy to identify that are delightful members of the Australian countryside such as the Black-fronted Dotterel.

The Black-fronted Dotterel is a small plover: at 16-18cm/6-7in in isn’t much longer than the proverbial sparrow (14-16cm). It shows a marked preference for shallow fresh water, only rarely occurring in saline environments, and can manage with quite small and transient pools. It is widespread throughout Australia and Tasmania, absent only from the most arid regions of western central Australia, and also resident in New Zealand. The first photo shows a bird – males and females are identical – on the wetland in Pentland on the Flinders Highway west of Townsville, a popular drop-in spot for passing birders. The second photo was taken at sunset at Bowra, a wonderful property near Cunnamulla in southwestern Queensland, long managed in a bird-friendly way by the McLaren family and now being purchased by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy ( http://www.australianwildlife.org/Bowra.aspx ).

Black-fronted Dotterel (Elseyornis melanops) by Ian

Black-fronted Dotterel (Elseyornis melanops) by Ian

Unlike the migrants, residents such as the Black-fronted Dotterel, don’t have a separate breeding and (drab) non-breeding plumages. Because of irregular rainfall patterns, they can breed at any time of the year and need to be able to respond quickly and attract mates at short notice. They nest in exposed positions on the ground, so they compromise by having bold patterns with small splashes of colour on the bill and eye-ring that break up the outline of the bird, rather than blend into the background, and can be surprisingly difficult to see when crouched motionless.

On the related subject of migrant plovers, this is a good time of the year to look for birds in, or acquiring, breeding plumage. We did one of our regular wader counts at Lucinda, near Ingham north of Townsville, last week and there were still numbers of Lesser and Greater Sand Plovers around. I’ve posted photos of these – and a Grey-tailed Tattler – in breeding plumage to the website:
Lesser Sand Plover
Greater Sand Plover
Grey-tailed Tattler

Best wishes,
Ian
—
Ian Montgomery, Birdway Pty Ltd,
454 Forestry Road, Bluewater, Qld 4818
Phone: +61-7 4751 3115
Preferred Email: ian@birdway.com.au
Website: http://birdway.com.au

Lee’s Addition:

I always enjoy finding out about Ian’s Birds of the Week. Never know what he will show us. I trust you enjoy finding out about birds in other parts of our fantastic world as well.
The Dotterels are in the Charadriidae Family of the Charadriiformes Order. There are 67 birds in the family that includes Plovers, Lapwings, Killdeer, Wrybill, and the Dotterels. There are only 6 Dotterels; Red-kneed, Eurasian, Hooded, Shore, Black-fronted, and Tawny-throated. The Inland Plover was the Inland Dotterel

I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. (Isaiah 41:18 KJV)

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Christmas Imperial Pigeon

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Christmas Imperial Pigeon (Ducula whartoni) by Ian Montgomery

Christmas Imperial Pigeon (Ducula whartoni) by Ian Montgomery

Bird of the Week: Christmas Imperial Pigeon by Ian Montgomery
Newsletter: 04/13/10

We are, we hope, near the end of a persistent wet season, during which I haven’t taken many photos. So, here is an attractive bird from the archives, photographed on a trip to Christmas Island in 2006, the Christmas Island Imperial Pigeon. It’s comparable in size (length 38-40cm/15-16in) to the Pied Imperial-Pigeon of northern Australia, but quite different in colour, much darker with strikingly iridescent plumage. In the first photo, the sunlight highlights the green iridescence of the back and wing feathers, while the second photo shows the purplish-grey and rufous-brown plumage of the underside.

Christmas Imperial Pigeon (Ducula whartoni) by Ian Montgomery

Christmas Imperial Pigeon (Ducula whartoni) by Ian Montgomery

It’s endemic to Christmas Island, a mere speck – area 140 sq km – in the Indian Ocean 500 km south of Java. Because of its small range and therefore limited population, it is classified as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. It seemed to be quite common on the island and the population is thought to be stable, though there are concerns that it could be affected by an infestation of yellow crazy ants on Christmas Island. Control measures have reduced the ant infestation, but eliminating them has proved difficult and the baits used also affect other invertebrates such as the famous terrestrial red crabs.

It’s closest relative is the Pink-headed Imperial-Pigeon (Ducula rosacea) which is widespread but rather rare in the islands of Indonesia and East Timor. It has suffered from both habitat destruction and hunting. Some authorities consider that the Christmas Island Imperial-Pigeon may be a race of the Pink-headed.

I’ve added photos of three more Australian mammals to the website: the Euro (a blackish kangaroo), Bush Rat and Fawn-footed Melomys (also a rodent). The latter two obliged us with good view coming into feed on grain at Kingfisher Park over Easter, undeterred by the rain.

Best wishes,
Ian

Links:
Christmas Imperial Pigeon
Pied Imperial-Pigeon
Euro
Bush Rat
Fawn-footed Melomys
—
Ian Montgomery, Birdway Pty Ltd,
454 Forestry Road, Bluewater, Qld 4818
Phone: +61-7 4751 3115
Preferred

Email: ian@birdway.com.au
Website: http://birdway.com.au

Lee’s Addition:
The Christmas Island Imperial-Pigeon has recently been changed to the Christmas Imperial Pigeon. It is in the Columbidae Family of the Columbiformes Order. There are 321 birds in the family of various Doves and Pigeons, plus Bronzewings and Bleeding Hearts.

Check out the Doves and Pigeon page. Doves and Pigeons are mentioned many times in the Bible.

So I said, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest. (Psalms 55:6 NKJV)

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Welcome Swallow

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Welcome Swallow (Hirundo neoxena) by Ian

Welcome Swallow (Hirundo neoxena) by Ian

Newsletter: 4-6-10

Birds Australia North Queensland had planned to visit Cooktown for Easter, which turned out to be very wet throughout northeastern Queensland. A few intrepid souls, presumably not camping, made it there, but a friend and I spent a few days at Kingfisher Park in Julatten near Mossman before returning home. We did manage to get out birding a few times between showers and one afternoon I spent an hour or two trying to photograph birds hawking for insects over the fish ponds of a nearby Barramundi farm. As is often the case, the poor weather brought both the insects and their avian predators down to low levels – poor light but good practice.

Welcome Swallow (Hirundo neoxena) by Ian

Welcome Swallow (Hirundo neoxena) by Ian

The birds consisted of a mixture of Welcome Swallows, Tree Martins and White-rumped Swiftlets, and I’ve posted images of all three to the website, though I’ve chosen the Welcome Swallow here as being the most photogenic. This is a familiar and widespread bird in Australia, though it is absent from the the arid centre and northern Western Australia and much of the Northern Territory. It is similar in appearance and habits to the Barn Swallow of the northern hemisphere, and like it builds a cup-shaped nest in sheltered sites, particularly buildings.

Welcome Swallow (Hirundo noexena) by Ian

Welcome Swallow (Hirundo noexena) by Ian

The first photo shows a bird hawking low over grass and obligingly spreading all its tail feathers to brake or turn. The second one is flying over the fish pond and the third is a photo taken some time ago of a bird perched beside Ross River in Townsville.

The name ‘Welcome’ emphasizes its familiarity, but it also suggests to me migration and a harbinger of Spring. In fact, unlike the Barn Swallow, it is resident over much of its range and only in Tasmania and southeastern Australia does it migrate for the southern winter but only as far as Queensland and Torres Strait. The Barn Swallow is a famous migrant traveling from Europe to Africa, North to South America and Northern to Southern Asia. Some even get as far as Australia and turn up annually in small numbers in northern coastal areas.

Best wishes,
Ian

Links:
Welcome Swallow
Barn Swallow
Tree Martin
White-rumped Swiftlet

Kingfisher Park
Birds Australia North Queensland
—
Ian Montgomery, Birdway Pty Ltd,
454 Forestry Road, Bluewater, Qld 4818
Phone: +61-7 4751 3115
Preferred Email: ian@birdway.com.au
Website: http://birdway.com.au

Lee’s Addition:

The Welcome Swallow is in the Hirundinidae Family of the Passeriformes Order. What a shot, Ian, of that Swallow flying with wings and tail out. I hardly get to see our swallows, they fly so fast.

The Welcome Swallow is metallic blue-black above, light grey below on the breast and belly, and rusty on the forehead, throat and upper breast. It has a long forked tail, with a row of white spots on the individual feathers. These birds are about 15 cm long, including the outer tail feathers which are slightly shorter in the female. The call is a mixture of twittering and soft warbling notes, and a sharp whistle in alarm.

Young Welcome Swallows are buffy white, instead of rufous, on the forehead and throat, and have shorter tail streamers.

The winter range in northern Australia overlaps with that of wintering Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica), but the latter is readily separable by its blue breast band.[5] Welcome Swallows readily breed close to human habitation. The nest is an open cup of mud and grass, made by both sexes, and is attached to a suitable structure, such as a vertical rock wall or building. It is lined with feathers and fur, and three to five eggs are laid. Two broods are often raised in a season.

The female alone incubates the eggs, which hatch after two to three weeks. The young are fed by both parents, and leave the nest after a further two to three weeks.

These birds are extremely agile fliers, which feed on insects while in flight. They often fly fast and low to the ground on open fields in large circles or figure 8 patterns. They will often swoop around animals or people in the open.

An immature Welcome Swallow preening by Nick Talbot

(Info from Wikipedia)

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Spotted Bowerbird

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Spotted Bowerbird (Chlamydera maculata) by Ian

Spotted Bowerbird (Chlamydera maculata) by Ian

Bird of the Week: Spotted Bowerbird
Newsletter: 3/30/2010

I’ve recently been updating the Bowerbird galleries on the website, including those of the Satin, Great Bowerbirds and Spotted. Both the Satin and Great have featured as bird of the week in the past, so here is the Spotted Bowerbird. It is closely related to the similar Great Bowerbird, but is smaller (to 30cm/12in in length compared with 38cm/15in) and much more richly coloured, buff and brown, rather than fawn and greyish-brown. It also has a pink erectile crest on the nape used in display, more prominent on the male but smaller or absent in females and young birds.

Spotted Bowerbird (Chlamydera maculata) by Ian

Spotted Bowerbird (Chlamydera maculata) by Ian

Both the photos were taken near the roadhouse at Belyando Crossing, the only place where you can get petrol and food on the 400km stretch between Charters Towers and Clermont on the inland route south of Townsville, and a reliable spot for this species. In the first photo, the bowerbird is showing interest in the mango, remains of my breakfast, currently being commandeered by a Blue-faced Honeyeater. If you look carefully, you can see the crest, but it is more obvious in the second bird which is displaying to another one, out of sight below.

Spotted Bowerbird (Chlamydera maculata) by Ian

Spotted Bowerbird (Chlamydera maculata) by Ian

The Spotted Bowerbird is a bird of mainly inland eastern Australia, though it reaches the coast in central Queensland. It occurs widely in Queensland, though absent from the north where it is replaced by the Great, and in New South Wales as far south as the border with Victoria and southeastern South Australia. It is common in the northern part of its range, but rarer in the south. It is replaced in central western regions of Australia (southern Northern Territory, central Western Australia and northwestern South Australia by the similar but darker Western Bowerbird. These three all belong to the genus Chlamydera, and in northern Cape York and Papua New Guinea there is a fourth species, the Fawn-breasted Bowerbird, while a fifth species, the Yellow-breasted Bowerbird, is found in New Guinea but not in Australia.

The males of all these bowerbirds build avenue bowers consisting of two parallel walls, like that of the Satin Bowerbird but unlike the maypole bower of the Golden Bowerbird that was illustrated 4 weeks ago when it featured as bird of the week. All five species collect white and green objects, and seem to show an almost fetishistic preference for shiny objects – stones and shells, historically, but nowadays glass and metal. Only the three southern species have pink crests and these three all collect red objects; the Fawn- and Yellow-breasted Bowerbirds lack the crests and I cannot find any reference to their collecting red objects. Young birds, presumably males, also collect objects in juvenile display areas that lack a proper bower. The third photo, shows one of these, playing with a blue plastic bottle ring, perhaps an indiscriminate choice of exuberant youth!

Golden Bowerbird (Prionodura newtoniana) by Ian

Golden Bowerbird (Prionodura newtoniana) by Ian

On the subject of bowerbirds, the attached photo of a Golden Bowerbird has been chosen as the icon for the upcoming Birds Australia Congress and Campout in Townsville in August;  .

Links:
Photos of Satin, Golden, Great, Spotted and Fawn-breasted (but not Western) Bowerbirds: http://www.birdway.com.au/ptilonorhynchidae/index.htm.

Best wishes
Ian
—
Ian Montgomery, Birdway Pty Ltd,
454 Forestry Road, Bluewater, Qld 4818
Phone: +61-7 4751 3115
Preferred Email: ian@birdway.com.au
Website: http://birdway.com.au

Lee’s Addition:

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Golden Bowerbird

Golden Bowerbird by A. J. Mithra

Spotted Bowerbird is part of the Ptilonorhynchidae – Bowerbirds Family in the Passeriformes Order

If a bird’s nest chance to be before thee in the way in any tree, or on the ground, whether they be young ones, or eggs, and the dam sitting upon the young, or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young: But thou shalt in any wise let the dam go, and take the young to thee; that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days. (Deuteronomy 22:6-7 KJV)

Family#126 – Ptilonorhynchidae
*

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Banded Honeyeater

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Banded Honeyeater(Cissomela pectoralis) by Ian

Banded Honeyeater(Cissomela pectoralis) by Ian

Newsletter – 03-21-10

I’ve continued updating some of the Honeyeater galleries on the website. Last week, we had one of the largest, the Helmeted Friarbird, but here is one of the smaller ones, the Banded Honeyeater with a length of about 12cm/5in. Fledgling Banded Honeyeaters have fudge-coloured upper parts, wings, tail and breast-band which change to black in adult birds (of both sexes), contrasting smartly with white underparts, throat and rump.

Banded Honeyeater(Cissomela pectoralis) by Ian

Banded Honeyeater(Cissomela pectoralis) by Ian

At least that’s what they are supposed to do. In practice, most of the birds one sees are in transitional plumage varying between that shown in the first photo at a waterhole, which has the brownish back and head and yellow cheeks of the juvenile, but the black wings and tail of the adult. The bird in the second photo feeding on melaleuca blossom, has got almost fully black and white plumage but still has a few brownish feathers on the back. On the trip to the Top End of the Northern Territory last year where Banded Honeyeaters are fairly common, I deliberately searched for a completely black and white bird without success, and this was the best I could find. I’d be interested to hear whether others have noticed this too.

The Banded Honeyeater has a northern distribution from the Kimberley region of Western Australia to North Queensland, where it is uncommon south of Cooktown. These birds are ‘blossom nomads’ and and in recent years have been seen regularly at White Mountains National Park, between Charters Towers and Hughenden and south of Townsville, when the grevilleas are in bloom in early winter.

Taxonomically, the Banded Honeyeater has traditionally been lumped in the same genus (Certhionyx) as the superficially similar Black and Pied Honeyeaters. Recently studies have indicated that the three species are not closely related and each has been relegated to its own (monotypic) genus, Cissomela in the case of the Banded. It is apparently closer to the White-cheeked Honeyeater and allies (Phylidonyris) while the Black is closer to the Scarlet Honeyeater and relatives (Myzomela). I’ve recently updated the galleries of all these species, including some colourful photos of Scarlet and White-cheeked feeding in red and yellow blossom respectively in Paluma last Friday. (Both these have featured as Bird of the Week previously, disqualifying them from, or at least handicapping them in, selection this week).

Links:
Banded Honeyeater
Black Honeyeater
Pied Honeyeater
White-cheeked Honeyeater
Scarlet Honeyeater

Best wishes,
Ian
—
Ian Montgomery, Birdway Pty Ltd,
454 Forestry Road, Bluewater, Qld 4818
Phone: +61-7 4751 3115
Preferred Email: ian@birdway.com.au
Website: http://birdway.com.au

Lee’s Addition:
The neat looking Banded Honeyeater is in the Meliphagidae – Honeyeaters Family of the Passeriformes Order. Ian has also written about the Rufous-banded Honeyeater and the Bar-breasted Honeyeater.

The IOC 2.4 Version list these birds as:
Banded Honeyeater (Cissomela pectoralis) as is
Black Honeyeater (Sugomel niger)
Pied Honeyeater (Certhionyx variegatus)
White-cheeked Honeyeater (Phylidonyris)
Scarlet Honeyeater now the Scarlet Myzomela (Myzomela sanguinolenta)

You will be well pleased visiting the Ian’s links above. All of those birds are very neat looking birds. The Lord has created the honeyeaters with a remarkable tongue that is “partially tubelike and split, with a brushlike tip superbly adapted for extracting nectar. Honeyeaters also have specially adapted kidneys that allow them to process maximum nutritional benefit from this food source.” (Complete Birds of the World, National Geographic)

More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. (Psalms 19:10 KJV)

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Helmeted Friarbird

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Helmeted Friarbird (Philemon buceroides) by Ian

Helmeted Friarbird (Philemon buceroides) by Ian

Newsletter 03-10-2010

As with the Pheasant Coucal last week, I didn’t have to leave the house to photograph the Helmeted Friarbird in the first photo on the red flowers of a nearby Umbrella Tree. This tree has been flowering profusely for weeks and attracting a noisy variety of Honeyeaters and Lorikeets. The Helmeted Friarbird – length to 37cm/15in is the largest of the 4 species of Friarbirds found in Australia. Friarbirds get their name from the colour of the plumage, like the brown habits worn by friars and Helmeted refers to the feathered crown, in contrast to the naked crown of the more widespread Noisy Friarbird.

Helmeted Friarbird (Philemon buceroides) by Ian

Helmeted Friarbird (Philemon buceroides) by Ian

This particular individual is sub-adult; it has pale fringes to the feathers of the back and neck which marks it as an immature bird, but it has the red eye and knobbed bill of the adult – very young birds have brown eyes and lack the knob. The second photo shows an adult bird feeding on an orange Grevillea and you can see that the plumage is more evenly coloured.

The Helmeted Friarbird is a northern species and, in Australia, it occurs only in Queensland and the Northern Territory. The Queensland race of the Helmeted Friarbird (yorki) has a silvery crown and is best distinguished from the rather similar Silver-crowned Friarbird by the shape of the rear edge of the facial skin – curved in the Helmeted, but with a backward-pointing spur in the Silver-crowned – and by its calls. In the Top End of the Northern Territory, another race of the Helmeted Friarbird (ammitophila) lacks the knob on the bill – see the third photo – and has different calls. This race is often called the Sandstone Friarbird and is a characteristic bird of the escarpments of Kakadu and Arnhem Land.

Helmeted Friarbird (Philemon buceroides) by Ian

Helmeted Friarbird (Philemon buceroides) by Ian

Friarbirds are large Honeyeaters and the Helmeted Friarbird is only in exceeded in size among Australian Honeyeaters by the Yellow Wattlebird, a Tasmanian endemic. Only the Silver-crowned is an Australian endemic, the other 3 species also occur in New Guinea, where another 12 species of Friarbird occur.
Noisy Friarbird
Little Friarbird

On the subject of Honeyeaters, I’ve added new photos of Banded Honeyeaters and Yellow-tinted Honeyeaters to the website:

Best wishes,
Ian
—
Ian Montgomery, Birdway Pty Ltd,
454 Forestry Road, Bluewater, Qld 4818
Phone: +61-7 4751 3115
Preferred Email: ian@birdway.com.au
Website: http://birdway.com.au

Lee’s Addition:

Friarbirds and Honeyeaters are both in the Meliphagidae Family of the Passeriformes Order.

http://www.birdway.com.au/meliphagidae/banded_honeyeater/index.htm

“The friarbirds (also called leatherheads) are about 15 species of relatively large honeyeaters in the genus Philemon. Additionally, the single member of the genus Melitograis is called the White-streaked Friarbird. Friarbirds are found in Australia, Papua New Guinea, eastern Indonesia and New Caledonia. They eat nectar, insects and other invertebrates, flowers, fruit and seeds.

The friarbirds generally have drab plumage. In many instances their plumage is mimicked by smaller orioles, which use the aggressive nature of the friarbirds to avoid aggression themselves.

And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. (Genesis 1:30 ESV)

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Pheasant Coucal

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Pheasant Coucal(Centropus phasianinus) by Ian

Pheasant Coucal(Centropus phasianinus) by Ian

Newsletter – 3-6-2010

White I was making a cup of coffee this morning and pondering what to choose as Bird of the Week, this Pheasant Coucal supplied the answer by posing on a small tree, having just had a drink in the pond below. Coucals, like other cuckoos, are shy birds so I photographed it through the window – first photo – before carefully opening the French door onto the verandah to try to get a clearer view. I got the door open all right, but it spotted me raising the camera and large lens and took off before I had managed to take more than a couple of shots – second photo.

Pheasant Coucal(Centropus phasianinus) by Ian.jpg

Pheasant Coucal(Centropus phasianinus) by Ian.jpg

Pheasant Coucals are splendid birds: large (to 70cm/28in in length), red-eyed with richly patterned short wings and a long tail. In breeding plumage, the head and body is blackish with shiny feather shafts and the bill is black. In non-breeding plumage the black, of both the plumage and the bill, fades to buff.

Their usual call is a wonderful “deep, hollow, descending, descending ‘coop-coop-coop-coop-coop’, like liquid glugging from bottle” to quote Pizzey and Knight. They also have a sharp alarm call that sounds coarse paper being torn suddenly. There are several territories near my place, mostly along the creek, so the sound of their ‘bottle’ call is very characteristic of summer and I realise how much I’ve missed it when they start calling in the spring.

The range of the Pheasant Coucal includes coastal north western, northern and eastern Australia from the Pilbara to the Sydney region. It is generally common, but less so at the edge of its range in central New South Wales. It also occurs in New Guinea and related species, such as the Greater Coucal, are found in the warmer parts of Asia and in Africa.

Unlike other cuckoos, Coucals build their own nest and were until recently placed in their own family (the Centropidae). Genetic studies have shown that they close affinities with other cuckoos, and it is now usual to treat them as a subfamily of the cuckoos (Centropodinae within Cuculidae).

The Pheasant Coucals fly very poorly. The usual strategy is to climb to the top of a tree and glide with a few wing-beats to the destination. Sadly, they lack traffic sense and are frequently casualties on highways. Here in North Queensland, they are called ‘pheasants’ in the same way Bush Stone-Curlews are called ‘curlews’.

Links:
Pheasant Coucal
Greater Coucal

Recent additions to the website:
Photos of Brown Goshawk and Collared Sparrowhawk in flight
Diamond, Brown Cuckoo– and Bar-shouldered Doves .
Little Corellas in flight
Double-barred Finch
Southern Cassowary and Emu and
Rainbow Lorikeet (including Orange-collared race)

Best wishes,
Ian
—
Ian Montgomery, Birdway Pty Ltd,
454 Forestry Road, Bluewater, Qld 4818
Phone: +61-7 4751 3115
Preferred Email: ian@birdway.com.au
Website: http://birdway.com.au

Lee’s Addition:
Here is the sound of a Pheasant Coucal (duet from a pair in undergrowth) by Vicki Powys from xeno-canto:

What a neat bird. From the pictures, the bird seems sort of plain, but very beautiful. Since they are closely related to the Cuckoos, they are in the Cuculidae family, which is in Cuculiformes order.

and the owl, and the night-hawk, and the cuckoo, and the hawk after its kind, (Leviticus 11:16 YLT)

See the Cuckoo page

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Golden Bowerbird

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Golden Bowerbird (Prionodura newtoniana) by Ian

Golden Bowerbird (Prionodura newtoniana) by Ian

Newsletter – 02-28-2010

Searching for a suitable Bird of the Week, I found that the Golden Bowerbird hasn’t, I don’t think, featured as BOW before. That’s a serious omission which we’ll now rectify. It’s serious because all bowerbirds are special, the Golden Bowerbird is particularly gorgeous, its a local specialty and it’s survival is of real concern in the case of global warming.

The adult male Golden Bowerbird is golden-yellow below and glossy golden-olive above, with a yellow erectile patches on the nape and crown. The rarely-seen female is, in comparison, a rather drab olive-brown (there’s a photo of one on the Birdway website, link below). With a length of 23-25cm/9-10 in, it’s the smallest of the Australian Bowerbirds but, as compensation, it builds the biggest bower. It is found only in highland rainforest in the wet tropics of northeastern Queensland from Mount Elliott near Townsville north to Mount Cook near Cooktown. It nest only above 900m/3,000ft, but moves lower in winter. A good place to see them is near Paluma, about one hour’s drive from where I live.

Golden Bowerbird (Prionodura newtoniana) at bower by Ian

Golden Bowerbird (Prionodura newtoniana) at bower by Ian

Most Australian Bowerbirds, such as the Satin Bowerbird, build ‘avenue’ bowers consisting of two parallel walls of twigs on a display platform. The Golden Bowerbird builds a ‘maypole’ bower, consisting of at least two columns, each consisting of sticks arranged around a sapling. This can be up to 3m/10ft in height but more typically is about 1m high like the one in the photo. Between the saplings is a branch used as a display perch and the male bird decorates this with lichens and rainforest flowers, often orchids. The bowers are often incorrectly referred to as ‘nests’, but the bowers are built and maintained by the males to attract females for mating and the females build their own nests. If the male bowerbird disappears, the bower will be taken over by another male so a particular site remains in use used decades.

The concern about global warming arises because their habitat consists of islands of highland rainforest in a sea of coastal lowlands. If warming eventuates, the boundaries of the highland rainforest may rise in altitude and the islands may ultimately disappear. The Golden Bowerbird has iconic status here, but other species would be affected too, such as the Mountain Thornbill. Consequently, Paluma Range has been classified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) and monitoring of the bowers of Golden Bowerbirds is undertaken by Birds Australia North Queensland.

Best wishes,
Ian

Links:
Golden Bowerbird
Satin Bowerbird
Mountain Thornbill
Birds Australia North Queensland

Recent additions to Website include photos of:
Spotted Bowerbird
Superb Fruit-Dove
Little Bronze-Cuckoo
Australian Brush-Turkey
Australian Bustard
Long-tailed Finch
—
Ian Montgomery, Birdway Pty Ltd,
454 Forestry Road, Bluewater, Qld 4818
Phone: +61-7 4751 3115
Preferred Email: ian@birdway.com.au
Website: http://birdway.com.au

Lee’s Addition:

Bowerbirds are in the Ptilonorhynchidae family of the Passeriformes order.

Who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth And makes us wiser than the birds of the heavens?’ (Job 35:11 NASB)

 

Ptilonorhynchidae
*

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Olive-backed Oriole

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Olive-backed Oriole (Oriolus sagittatus) by Ian

Olive-backed Oriole (Oriolus sagittatus) by Ian

Newsletter 2-19-2010

I’ve just revised the galleries for the Australian Orioles, so here is the Olive-backed Oriole. It’s less colourful than its Australian relatives, the Green/Yellow Oriole and the Australasian Figbird, but it’s an attractive bird all the same and one that I always enjoy seeing. The first photo shows a young adult. It has the characteristic green and grey plumage, red eye and pink bill of the adult, but the wing feathers still have buff, rather than white, edges. The contrasting white background and black streaks of the breast look smart, and the black streaks look as if they’ve been skillfully painted on by an oriental potter.

Olive-backed Oriole (Oriolus sagittatus) Y by Ian

Olive-backed Oriole (Oriolus sagittatus) Y by Ian

The second photo shows a juvenile bird with brownish back and wings and dark eyes and bill. It’s just beginning to acquire adult plumage with a greenish tinge developing on the head.

The Olive-backed Oriole is quite widespread in northern, eastern and south-eastern Australia occurring from Broome in the west through the top half of the Northern Territory and through almost all of Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. It’s resident in the north but a breeding migrant in the south east, returning to northern Australia in the winter. It is well camouflaged and rather unobtrusive when feeding on fruit in foliage, but it has a loud, musical call, often rendered as ‘orrie, orrie-ole’, that is a characteristic sound of open woodlands.

Other additions to the website include:

Green/Yellow Oriole

Female Magnificent Riflebird

Brown Falcon

Spotted Bowerbird

Best wishes,

Ian

—

Ian Montgomery, Birdway Pty Ltd,

454 Forestry Road, Bluewater, Qld 4818

Phone: +61-7 4751 3115

Preferred Email: ian@birdway.com.au

Website: http://birdway.com.au

Lee’s Addition:

The Olive-backed Oriole is in the Oriolidae Family of the Passeriformes Order. These are considered the Old World Oriole family, whereas the Icterus Family has the New World Orioles.  The Oriolidae family not only has Orioles, but also Figbirds.

Green Figbird (Sphecotheres viridis) by Ian

Australasian Figbird (Sphecotheres vieilloti) by Ian

“The orioles are a family of Old World passerine birds. The family Oriolidae comprises the figbirds in the genus Sphecotheres, and the Old World orioles in the genus Oriolus.[1] Several other genera have been proposed to split up the genus Oriolus. For example, the African black-headed species are sometimes placed in the genus Baruffius. The family is not related to the New World orioles, which are icterids, family Icteridae. The family is distributed across Africa, Europe, Asia down into Australia. The few temperate nesting species are migratory, and some tropical species also show seasonal movements.

The orioles and figbirds are medium sized passerines, around 20–30 cm in length, with the females only slightly smaller than the males.[1] The beak is slightly curved and hooked, and, except in the figbirds, as long again as the head. The plumage of most species is bright and showy, although the females often have duller plumage than the males do. The plumage of many Australasian orioles mimics that of friarbirds (a genus of large honeyeaters), probably to reduce aggression against the smaller orioles.[2]

Green Oriole (Oriolus flavocinctus) by Ian

Green Oriole (Oriolus flavocinctus) by Ian

Orioles are arboreal and tend to feed in the canopy.[1] Many species are able to survive in open forests and woodlands, although a few are restricted to closed forest. They are opportunistic omnivores, with the main components of their diet being fruit, berries, and arthropods.

Orioles are monogamous, breeding in territorial pairs (although the Australasian Figbird, and possibly also the other figbirds, breed in loose colonies).[1] Nesting sites may be chosen near aggressive species such as drongos, shrikes or friarbirds, which confer a degree of protection. The nest is a deep woven cup suspended like a hammock from a branch. They usually lay two or three eggs, but as many as six have been recorded.” (From Wikipedia)

The trees of the LORD are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. In them the birds build their nests; the stork has her home in the fir trees. (Psalms 104:16-17 ESV)

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Chestnut Teal

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Chestnut Teal (Anas castanea)by Ian

Chestnut Teal (Anas castanea)by Ian

Graham Pizzey has neat descriptions in his field guide (Pizzey and Knight: Field Guide to the Birds of Australia). This is what he says about the Chestnut Teal: ‘Male: elegant small duck with bottle-green head, rich chestnut body, white flank-mark, black stern’. The females, who do all the incubation and often nest on the ground, are, in contrast well camouflaged. The males, do, however, help to look after the ducklings.

Chestnut Teal (Anas castanea) Male by Ian

Chestnut Teal (Anas castanea) Male by Ian

It is a southern species, so it was good to encounter these ones in New South Wales in January. They are abundant in Tasmania and common in southeast and southwestern Australia but occur only as vagrants north of the Tropic of Capricorn.

The female is very similar to both sexes of the closely related and more widespread Grey Teal, but is distinguished by darker colouration and the Grey teal has a diagnostic whitish neck and lower face. To complicate identification, the male Chestnut Teal moults after breeding into the ‘eclipse’ plumage which looks like the female and retains this plumage from February to April. Eclipse plumage occurs almost universally in those duck species which have brightly coloured males.

Chestnut Teal (Anas castanea) Female by Ian

Chestnut Teal (Anas castanea) Female by Ian

Recent additions to the website include photos of:

Common Tern
Greater Sand Plover
Blue-faced Honeyeater
Little Curlew
Comb-crested Jacana

Best wishes,
Ian
—
Ian Montgomery, Birdway Pty Ltd,
454 Forestry Road, Bluewater, Qld 4818
Phone: +61-7 4751 3115
Preferred Email: ian@birdway.com.au
Website: http://birdway.com.au

Lee’s Addition:

Teals are in the Anatidae Family (Ducks) of the Anseriformes Order. The other two families in the Order are the Anhimidae – Screamers and the Anseranatidae – Magpie Goose.

Teals are “any of about 15 small ducks of the genus Anas (family Anatidae), found on the six major continents and many islands. Within the divisions of true duck species, the teal belong in the dabbling duck group. Many of the teal are popular as game birds, the best known being the Holarctic green-winged teal (A. crecca), a bird about 33–38 centimetres (13–15 inches) in length, usually found in dense flocks. The small blue-winged teal (A. discors) breeds across Canada and the northern United States and winters south of the U.S” (Britannica Online)

If you come across a bird’s nest in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs and the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young. (Deuteronomy 22:6 ESV)

See Also:
Chestnut Teal – DSE Australia
Chestnut Teal – Wikipedia
Chestnut Teal Anas castanea – World Bird Guide