Ian’s Bird of the Week – Pale-headed Rosella

August 25, 2014 by Lee

Pale-headed Rosella (Platycercus adscitus) by Ian

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Pale-headed Rosella ~ by Ian Montgomery

Newsletter – 8/24/14

The bird of the week is the Pale-headed Rosella, which I’ll get to in a second, but this is a Special Edition as Where to Find Birds in Northern Queensland is at last being published. That is to say, it has been published on Google Play but not yet on the Apple iBook store. That will take a little longer as there are bureaucratic obstacles to be over come. These involve registering Birdway Pty Ltd with the US Inland Revenue and then Apple confirming the registration with the IRS. The first part was easy but the second seems harder as it takes a while for the registration to soak through and finally emerge in the IRS online databases. Anyway, I’ll let you know, loudly, when that happens. In the meantime, you can find it on Google at https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=CblRBAAAQBAJ.

Where To Find Birds in Northern Queensland

End of commercial!

The Pale-headed Rosella, is the widespread and familiar Rosella of Queensland, though it range does extend as far as northern New South Wales. There, and in southeastern Queensland, its range overlaps with the closely related Eastern Rosella and they sometimes interbreed.

The ones in the first two photos were taken outside my house. The first bird is feeding on the seeds of weeds, plenty of those here, and the second is feeding on the fruit of wild passionfruit, another weed, also called stinking passionfruit (Passiflora foetida) as the foliage emits a strong odour when crushed. They’re lovely birds, rather unobtrusive though their soft twittering calls reveal their presence, and I’ll always get pleasure from seeing them. They’re usually in pairs of family parties. The plumage is variable: the bird in the first photo has a much intense blue breast than the second one, but the field guides are tight-lipped about whether the plumage of the sexes differs.

Pale-headed Rosella (Platycercus adscitus) by Ian

They’re more forthcoming about the plumage of juveniles, as these often show traces of red or darker feathers on the head, like the one coming down for a drink in the third photo.

Pale-headed Rosella (Platycercus adscitus) by Ian

There are two races of the Pale-headed Rosella, a northern paler one on Cape York and south to about Cairns, and a southern darker one south of Townsville with a 300km/200mile band of intergrading between Cairns and Townsville. Originally these were described as two different species, the northern one being the Blue-cheeked Rosella, Platycercus adscitus, the southern one the Pale-headed Rosella, P. palliceps. When they were lumped together, the earlier name adscitus took priority, so the northern race is the nominate one and the southern darker one is race palliceps – unfortunately, given that it is the more intensely coloured. Adscitus means ‘approved’ or ‘accepted’, though exactly what was approved or accepted, I don’t know.

Pale-headed Rosella (Platycercus adscitus) by Ian

The Townsville birds in the first three photos belong to palliceps. The two, photographed together at Lake Eacham southwest of Cairns, are much closer the nominate race. The yellow is much paler overall, particularly on the back and the upper breast is mainly pale yellow, rather than blue, but there is a blue patch on the lower cheek. The bird in the fifth photo has clear traces of red on the forehead and is a juvenile; the one in the fourth photo has pinkish traces and may be a young bird too.

Pale-headed Rosella (Platycercus adscitus) by Ian

The taxonomy of Rosellas in general has been controversial and is still unsettled. Some authorities maintain that the Pale-headed, the Eastern Rosella and the Northern Rosella all belong to a single species even though they look quite different. Whatever, they’re lovely birds, and the good news is that the Pale-headed Rosella has benefitted from European settlement and the clearing of dense forests – they prefer more open areas.

Links:
Pale-headed Rosella
Eastern Rosella
Northern Rosella

Greetings
Ian

**************************************************
Ian Montgomery, Birdway Pty Ltd,
454 Forestry Road, Bluewater, Qld 4818
Tel 0411 602 737 ian@birdway.com.au
Bird Photos http://www.birdway.com.au/
Recorder Society http://www.nqrs.org.au

Lee’s Addition:

Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! (Job 19:23 KJV)

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: (2 Timothy 4:7 KJV)

Glad they finally have their book published. I know that Ian has been working on this for some time. It is always a great feeling when a project is completed.

Also, the Pale-headed Rosella is a beautiful bird. Another great creation from their Creator. I especially like that first photo.

Rosellas are members of the Psittacidae – Parrots Family. You can see Ian’s photos of this family by clicking here.

See:

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Masked Woodswallow

August 14, 2014 by Ian

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Masked Woodswallow ~ by Ian Montgomery

Newsletter – 8/14/14

When I was taking location photos along the inland route to Paluma several weeks ago, I came across a mixed flock of a couple of hundred Masked and White-browed Woodswallows. The White-browed featured as bird of the week in 2005, but the Masked hasn’t so here it is. The males in particular, first photo, are very elegant with a sharply defined, very black mask, soft grey back, almost white underparts and a white crescent between the mask and the back of the head.

The females, second photo, are similar to the males with less contrasting plumage, only a subtle crescent, and a buff wash to the upper breast. The yellow specks on the mask and breast of this female are pollen – these primarily insectivorous birds also feed on nectar, particularly in northern Australia in winter.

The female in the second photo and the juvenile in the third photo were in a mixed flock of Masked and White-browed that spent a week or so feeding on the locally common Fern-leaved Grevillea near where I live in 2005. The juveniles are similar to the females, but with browner plumage with pale spots and streaks.

The ‘swallow’ part of the name comes from their buoyant, gliding flight and not because they are related to real swallows (family Hirundinidae). Rather, they are related to the Australian Magpie, Butcherbirds and Currawongs, usually combined in the one family, the Artamidae. There is an obvious similarity to the Magpie and Butcherbirds in their general form and bi-coloured bills and they are also quite aggressive, Woodswallows being quick to mob raptors in flight. The ‘personatus’ part of the scientific name comes from the Latin persona, meaning mask, a derivation that amused me when I though of show business ‘personalities’.

The White-browed and Masked Woodswallows are very closely related species, even though their respective plumages are quite distinct. They are both very nomadic and occur throughout mainland Australia, though not Tasmania. They often occur together in large mixed flocks. In eastern Australia, the White-browed predominates; in Western Australia, the Masked is more numerous and may occur alone. The two species will even nest together in small mixed colonies and occasionally interbreed.

Links:
Artamidae
Masked Woodswallow
White-browed Woodswallow

Greetings
Ian

Lee’s Addition:

“Even the stork in the heavens Knows her appointed times; And the turtledove, the swift, and the swallow Observe the time of their coming. But My people do not know the judgment of the LORD. (Jeremiah 8:7 NKJV)

What a neat looking bird. I especially like the clean line around his “mask”. We have seen Woodswallows in a zoo, but not this kind and not in the wild. That last photo is a super photo. Thanks, Ian, for sharing with us.

Swallows and Woodswallows are in two different families. Woodswallows are in the Artamidae – Woodswallows Family while the Hirundinidae Family has the Swallows and Martins.

Here is a photo of White-breasted Woodswallows that we saw at Zoo Miami:

White-breasted Woodswallow (Artamus leucorynchus amydrus) by Lee ZM

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Australian King Parrot

July 31, 2014 by Ian

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Australian King Parrot ~ Ian Montgomery

Newsletter – 7-31-14

Mea culpa again for the long delay since the last bird of the week. The good news is that, apart from dotting a few i’s, my current obsession Where to Find Birds in Northern Queensland is finished, so with luck you may get more frequent BotWs in the future. Here is an attractive and surprising omission from the BotW series, the Australian King Parrot. It’s one of the most spectacular Australian parrots and deserves the ‘King’ moniker. The French call it la Perruche royale.

King Parrot by Ian

It’s quite common along the eastern seaboard of Australia, with a preference for fairly dense coastal and highland forests including rainforest. That can make it hard to see but it’s quite vocal and the whistling call of the males is a very characteristic sound of eastern forest. It responds readily to being fed and can get quite tame. The one in the first photo was taken at O’Reilly’s in Lamington National Park, where the birds will perch on arms and shoulders and pose happily for photos. The males are distinguished from the females by the brilliant scarlet of the breast extending onto the head and having a conspicuou peppermint green blaze on the wings.

Australian King Parrot (Alisterus scapularis) Male by Ian

The females are gorgeous too with scarlet lower breast and belly, green heads and pinkish necks. The one in the second photo was busy exploring hollows in trees, but it was hard to imagine that she was contemplating nesting in May. Both sexes have blue backs, third photo, but this is usually hidden by the folded wings. The wing blaze may be missing or inconspicuous in females.

Australian King Parrot (Alisterus scapularis) Female WikiC

It’s usually just called the King Parrot in Australia and I used to wonder vaguely about the ‘Australian’ qualification. The reason for it is that is a Papuan one in New Guinea and a Moluccan one in western New Guinea and the islands of eastern Indonesia. Both these are rather similar to the Australian one, but smaller and differ mainly in the colour or lack of the blaze on the wings, and the amount of blue in the plumage.

Australian King Parrot (Alisterus scapularis) Male Closeup by Ian

There are two races of the Australian species. The larger nominate race occurs along most of the east coast, while the smaller race minor (obviously) occurs in northeastern Queensland. The literature doesn’t say much about minor except that it’s smaller, and there’s disagreement in the field guides about how far south it occurs: choose between Cardwell, Townsville and Mackay. I suspect Townsville is correct as there a big gap between the Paluma Range population and the Eungella/Clark Range one near Mackay. Anyway, the male in photo 4 and the female in photo 5 were photographed on the Atherton Tableland and are certainly minor.

Australian King Parrot (Alisterus scapularis) by Ian

It seemed to me from the photos that I took there that the northern males had brighter and more extensive blue hind collars and the females had brighter wing-blazes than southern birds. My sample size was small, but it might be an interesting project to check out whether these differences are consistent and to establish the exact geographical ranges of the subspecies. In northeastern Queensland it is mainly a highland species, with some movement to the lowlands in winter and I have seen them very occasionally near where I live.

Links:
Australian King-Parrot (I should have put hyphens in the photo captions)
Red-winged Parrot

Anyway, back to dotting i’s. The next stage in the book is to check out publishing via Apple iBooks, Google Play, etc. That’s something I know nothing about, so it will be interesting to find out how it’s done.

Greetings

Ian
**************************************************
Ian Montgomery, Birdway Pty Ltd,
454 Forestry Road, Bluewater, Qld 4818
Tel 0411 602 737 ian@birdway.com.au
Bird Photos http://www.birdway.com.au/
Recorder Society http://www.nqrs.org.au

Lee’s Addition:

Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen. (1 Timothy 1:17 KJV)

What beautifully created Parrots! They are just fantastic. Also, I was beginning to worry about Ian. It has been over a month since his last newsletter, Plum-headed Finches.

These parrots are members of the Psittacidae – Parrots Family. There are approximately 365 members, depending on whose list. The greatest diversity of parrots is in South America and Australasia.

Checkout all of Ian’s Parrot photos (around 50 species)

King Parrot at Wikipedia

Psittacidae – Parrots Family

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Plum-headed Finches

June 28, 2014 by Ian

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Plum-headed Finches ~ by Ian Montgomery

Newsletter – 6-28-14

Bird of the week numbering has been a bit wonky lately, two #502s, no #503 to compensate, and two #504s and the one previous to this, Halls Babbler was #506 and should have been #507. Hopefully, we are back on track now with #508, the Plum-headed Finch. One of my favourite methods of bird photography is to relax by a water-hole in a comfortable camping chair and see what comes along. I did this at Bowra in April, and was treated to several pairs of Plum-headed Finches, presumably breeding as a result of rain several weeks earlier.

The ‘plum’ bit refers to the gorgeous cap, dark and extensive in the male, above, or paler and less extensive in the female, which has consequently space for a white eye-stripe. Males have black chins, females white ones. The specific modesta presumably refers to the understated colours, but I think the barred breast and flanks make them look very smart, and it’s always a pleasure to see them.

The genus Neochmia contains only three other species, all of them Australian: Star, Red-browed and Crimson Finches, and none barred, so the Plum-headed looks quite distinctive. In the past it has been placed in its own genus, but mitochondrial studies show that it’s quite closely related to both the Star and Red-browed Finches.

They have quite a widespread distribution in Queensland and New South Wales, but mainly inland and rather patchy. With an average length of 11cm/4.3in, they’re quite small. They’re popular as cage birds and used to be trapped a lot, but have been protected since 1972.

The bird in the fourth photo was photographed in the light of the setting sun, hence the lovely glow. I’ve been on the road for a few days taking (almost) the last location photos for Where to Find Birds in Northeastern Queensland so I’ll keep this short. One more day trip along the inland route to Paluma, and that’s it.

Links to the other members of the tribe:

Red-browed Finch
Crimson Finch
Star Finch

Best wishes

Ian

**************************************************

Ian Montgomery, Birdway Pty Ltd,
454 Forestry Road, Bluewater, Qld 4818
Tel 0411 602 737 ian@birdway.com.au
Bird Photos http://www.birdway.com.au/
Recorder Society http://www.nqrs.org.au

Lee’s Addition:

Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so. (Genesis 1:30 NKJV)

What a neat looking Finch, Ian. Thanks again for sharing with us. Plum-headed Finches belong to the Estrildidae – Waxbills, Munias & Allies Family which has 141 species.

Ian’s Finches:

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Chestnut-breasted Quail-thrush

May 21, 2014 by Ian

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Chestnut-breasted Quail-thrush ~ by Ian Montgomery

Newsletter – 5/21/14

One of the specialties at Bowra is the Chestnut-breasted Quail-thrush a mainly terrestrial inhabitant of stony areas with scrubby bushes, particular mulga, in dry, but not desert, parts of western Queensland and NSW with a widely-separated population in Western Australia. It has suffered in eastern Australia from habitat clearance, but can usually be found at Bowra in an area called the Stony Ridge on the road that runs west of the homestead. This location, incidentally is also good for another specialty, Hall’s Babbler.

Quail-thrushes are shy and either sit tight and flush suddenly with a quail-like whirring of their wings or run for cover. The Chestnut-breasted usually runs, but this time we unwittingly encircled this male bird which took refuge in a dead tree, the first time I’ve seen any quail-thrush do so. It looked confused rather than alarmed and wandered for a long time from branch to branch providing unusually good opportunities for photography until it hopped down onto the ground and ran away. On this occasion we saw only the brightly coloured male; females have more subdued colours, brown replacing the all the black plumage except the spotty wing coverts and rely on camouflage to escape detection when nesting on the ground. Quail-thrushes feed on both insects and seeds and there are an Australasian taxon with about four species in Australia and one in New Guinea.

Chestnut Quail-thrush by Ian

Quail-thrushes presumably get the quail part of their name from their terrestrial habits and whirring flight and the thrush part from their body shape. Cinclosoma is bird-taxonomy-speak for thrush in a confused sort of way. Confused because the Latin cinclus means thrush but derives from the Greek Kinklos a waterside bird of unknown type mentioned by Aristotle and others and though to be either an Old World Wagtail or a wader. To add to the confusion, Cinclidae refers to the Dipper family, not the thrushes, with Cinclus cinclus being the Eurasian White-breasted Dipper.

White-throated Dipper (Cinclus cinclus) by Ian

The confusion continues with actual taxonomy. The western race of the Chestnut-breasted is sometimes (IOC) treated as a separate species, the Western Quail-thrush. Meanwhile the geographically intermediate and closely-related Cinnamon Quail-thrush of central Australia desert country is sometimes split in two as well, with the Nullabor race being treated as a separate species, though it has also been lumped with the Chestnut-breasted. If that’s not enough, Birdlife International puts the Quail-thrushes in a family of their own, the Cinclosomatidae, while Birdlife Australia and the IOC lump with the Whipbirds and called them Psophodidae. (Birdlife International use to lump them and call them the Eupetidae.) I though you’d like to know! Let’s just enjoy the photos:

Greetings
Ian
**************************************************
Ian Montgomery, Birdway Pty Ltd,
454 Forestry Road, Bluewater, Qld 4818
Tel 0411 602 737 ian@birdway.com.au
Bird Photos http://www.birdway.com.au/
Recorder Society http://www.nqrs.org.au

Lee’s Addition:

The people asked, and He brought quail, And satisfied them with the bread of heaven. (Psa 105:40)

Thanks, Ian, for introducing us to another interesting bird. Your timing is perfect, as I am away from my computer for a few days.

Ian’s Bird of the Week
Odontophoridae – New World Quail Family

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Black-breasted Buzzard

May 8, 2014 by Ian

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Black-breasted Buzzard ~ by Ian Montgomery

Newsletter ~ 5/8/14

I went to Bowra Station near Cunnamulla, SW Queensland, to meet some birding pals from Victoria for Easter. Cunnamulla is almost exactly half-way between Bluewater and Melbourne by the shortest inland route (2,532km Bluewater-Melbourne CBD) and Bowra is an AWC reserve, famous for its dry country birds and wildlife. I returned with an intractable bout of flu which has left me horizontal for 2 weeks, but I am now much better and able to tackle long-neglected tasks like the Bird of the Week. So, here is something worth waiting for, one of the less-well known endemic Australian raptors, the Black-breasted Buzzard.

At the end of the drive from Bluewater to Bowra, I saw this raptor perched on road-kill – the euphemism used here for run-over native wildlife – near the entrance to Bowra, thought ‘that’s not a Black Kite’, turned the car round and picked up my camera to take the first photos of the trip. Reluctant to leave lunch behind, it tolerated my approach for about 30 seconds before flying away into the afternoon sunshine, second photo. In both photos, you can see the long, hooked bill that gives it its generic name (hamus is the Latin for hook), reddish crown and nape and the beginnings of it eponymous black-breast. In flight, you can see the characteristic white wing patches on the middle of the first six primary flight feathers, probably its best field mark and the complete absence of barring on the wing and tail feathers.

This was the first time I’d seen a Black-breasted Buzzard either close up or perched. Mostly, one sees them singly and infrequently in flight soaring in the open skies of the drier parts of Australia. They’re common enough to have an official status of ‘Least Concern’ but uncommon enough to give me a thrill each time I see one. Apart from concerns of rarity, they’re impressive birds in their own right, being, I have just discovered, the third largest Australian raptor with a wingspan to 1.5m/5ft and an expert at soaring.

Two days later, we stopped for lunch at this dam at the far end of the property, about 15km/10 miles away from the entrance. A Black-breasted Buzzard soared high above us and then came round and flew overhead for a closer look, fourth photo. Comparing the pattern of wear on the flight feathers, indicates that this was the same individual. In this photo, the black breast of the adult bird is obvious as are the rusty flanks. Apart from dark blotches on the wing linings, the lack of barring is also apparent.

Black-breasted Buzzards are known to feed on carrion and live prey, but their speciality is the eggs of large ground-nesting birds such as Brolgas, Bustards and even Emus. The latter have tough eggs which even that hooked beak would have trouble penetrating so, amazingly, these birds use stones to break them, dropping them from either a standing position or in flight. Though they are thought to belong to a rather ancient Australasian lineage of raptors this use of tools elevates them globally to the top of the class, sharing this position with the Egyptian Vulture which also throws stones at eggs. The Black-breasted Buzzard is the sole member of its genus (monotypic) and its closest relative is though to be the Square-tailed Kite, another monotypic, uncommon Australian endemic with dubious, gastronomic tastes, in its case nestlings. This ancient lineage is thought include a third Australian endemic, the Red Goshawk, and several New Guinea species including the long-tailed buzzards and perhaps the New Guinea Harpy Eagle. This just goes to show how indiscriminately common names like buzzards, goshawks, kites and eagles are applied to raptors.

The last photo shows a juvenile Black-breasted Buzzard photographed at a joint pre-merger Birds Australia and Townsville BOCA outing to a dry country station called Pajingo, south of Charters Towers in 2009. As you can see the juvenile lacks the black breast of the adult, though pale patch on the wing is very similar. At the time, we unanimously agreed that this was a pale morph Little Eagle. I posted it at such on the Birdway website and it wasn’t until last year that the error was brought to my attention. This is what Steve Debus, one of the Australian experts on raptors said: “the image shows virtually no typical light-morph Little Eagle characters, such as the pale ‘M’, or the barring on flight feathers (including primary ‘fingers’) and tail, feathered legs etc.” and other points made were the long, slender bill of the Black-breasted Buzzard and the ‘chunkier’ head of the Little Eagle. Good to know.

Best wishes
Ian

Lee’s Addition:

But these you shall not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the buzzard, (Deuteronomy 14:12 NKJV)

What a neat bird, but I agree with the verse. Don’t think I would care to eat a buzzard, especially after it eats “road-kill” The colors on this Buzzard are really neat and would help it stay disguised until it is too late for its prey.

The Black-breasted Buzzard is a member of the Accipitridae – Kites, Hawks & Eagles Family. Out of the 256 species in the family, 28 of them are Buzzards.

I just realized that I have not had any articles in the Birds of the Bible for Buzzards. Will have to make a page for them. Stay tuned.

See:

Australian King Parrot by Bellamoon Nature

April 30, 2014 by Lee

Australian King Parrot (Alisterus scapularis) Female by Ian

For God is the King of all the earth: sing ye praises with understanding. (Psalms 47:7 KJV)

Australian King Parrot by Bellamoonnature

KING PARROT – One of the most spectacular, brilliantly coloured of all parrots endemic to Eastern Australia. Male king parrots are the only Australian parrot with a completely red head, females have a green head and breast. Found in humid and heavily forested regions. Thank you for viewing Enjoy!

“Some birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.” – Stephen King.

“In order to see birds it is necessary to become part of the silence” – Robert Lynd

Australian King Parrots belong to the Psittacidae – Parrots Family.

Australian King Parrots range from North and Central to Southern Victoria. They are frequently seen in small groups with various species of rosella. Further from their normal eastern upland habitat, they are also found in Canberra during winter, the outer western suburbs and north shore of Sydney, and the Carnarvon Gorge in Central Queensland

There are three species of king parrots – medium-sized parrots in the genus Alisterus; the Australian King Parrot (Alisterus scapularis), the Papuan King Parrot (Alisterus chloropterus), and the Moluccan King Parrot (Alisterus amboinensis). The three species are found in Eastern Australia, New Guinea, and Indonesian islands including the Maluku islands respectively. Predominantly of red and green plumage, the long tailed parrots are related to the genera Aprosmictus and Polytelis.

(Information – Bellamoonnature and Wikipedia)

Moluccan King Parrot (Alisterus amboinensis) ©WikiC – Brevard_Zoo

Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods. (Psalms 95:2-3 KJV)

Lee’s Addition:

I trust you enjoy this video by Bellamoon. My computer is off line, in fact, not even set up. A new flooring is being installed in that room and it is getting a new coat of paint. So it will be down for several days. This is being scheduled ahead of time.

Bellamoonnature – YouTube

Ian’s Australian King Parrots

Psittacidae – Parrots Family

Australian King Parrot – Wikipedia

Birds of the World

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Red-capped Parrot

March 15, 2014 by Ian

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Red-capped Parrot ~ by Ian Montgomery

Newsletter ~ 3/15/14

I’ve had a request for a Western Australian endemic from an American friend who is visiting WA this coming September. So here, Laurie, is the Red-capped Parrot which you should see there. The first photo shows a male of this fairly large (length to 38cm/15in), brightly coloured – some would say gaudy – parrot, which is reasonably common in suitable habitat in a relatively small area of southwestern Australia, mainly south of Perth, west of Esperance and within 100km of the coast.

The second photo shows a female, similar to but more subdued in colour than the male, with greenish patches in the red cap and under-tail coverts and less intense violet breast.

The female is perched in a Marri tree, a Western Australian bloodwood, Corymbia, formerly Eucapyptus, calphylla. This is the main food plant of the parrot and their ranges mostly coincide. Marri has tough woody globular nuts and the long pointed bill of the Red-capped Parrot is adapted to exploiting the one weakness in the nut defences – the valve through which the seed is shed. The parrots can prise out the seed without having to gnaw through the woody wall.

It’s clearly a fine source of bird food, as another Western Australian endemic Baudin’s or the Long-billed Cockatoo has evolved along identical lines for the same reason -an elegant example of parallel evolution. The male cockatoo in the third photo is showing us exactly how it’s done: piece of cake really, given the right equipment. Not surprisingly the range of this cockatoo is similar to that of the parrot.

Actually, this bird featured as bird of the week in November 2006, but this is, if a repeat, at least a different photo. The first and third photos were taken on the same day. Kalgan is east of Albany on the way to the famous-for-birding Two Peoples Bay and Dunsborough is west of Bussleton near Cape Leeuwin. Cape Leeuwin has this splendid lighthouse built in 1895 and marks the point where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean.

I did take this one photo of the lighthouse on the same day, but my clearest memory is of a Rock Parrot feeding on the ground near it, but that bird featured as bird of the week in October 2006: http://www.birdway.com.au/psittacidae/rock_parrot/index.htm: a good day for unusual parrots.

Greetings
Ian

Lee’s Addition:

And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” (Genesis 1:22 NKJV)

What a beautifully created Parrot. As you may know, Ian allows me to reproduce his newsletter. I use these to introduce us to the fantastic birds around the world. He has great photos on his site.

(This blog is birdwatching from a Christian perspective and therefore I do not believe in evolution, but realize birds have reproduced, producing different variations withing the families and orders. They are all still birds though.)

See:

Ian’s Bird of the Week

Parrot Family – Ian’s

Psittacidae – Parrots Family

Cockatoo Family – Ian’s

Cacatuidae – Cockatoos Family

Ian’s Bird of the Week – American (and Pacific) Golden Plover

November 30, 2013 by Lee

American Golden Plover (Pluvialis dominica) by Ian 1

Ian’s Bird of the Week – American (and Pacific) Golden Plover ~ by Ian Montgomery

Newsletter ~ 11/29/13

Before we get onto Golden Plovers, here is some good news. The Pizzey and Knight Birds of Australia Digital Edition has now been published. The Windows PC version is available from www.gibbonmm.com.au and the iPad, iPhone and iPad version is available from the iTunes store. You can check it out here: www.gibbonmm.com.au/tour/PKBA_iOS.aspx and here: https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/pizzey-knight-birds-australia/id714625973?mt=8. The Android version has not yet been published but is due before Christmas.

It has been a long time coming, but a quick look at the reviews will show why. It’s very much more than just a field guide, though even the Field Guide/Bird Guide modules set new standards with very thorough descriptions, both illustrations and photos (including many of mine) of more than 900 bird species, sounds of more than 700 species, maps showing subspecies and seasonal variation and breeding and modules for Similar Birds, Identification, My Location, My Lists and Birding Sites. Check it out for yourself!

I’ve just been down to Bowen and Ayr checking out locations and taking photos for the digital version of Jo Wieneke’s Where to Find Birds in North-east Queensland, and have visited beaches and mudflats I had waders on the brain when I was considering the choice of this week’s bird. So when I noticed in my iPad version of Pizzey and Knight, that the 2009 record of an American Golden Plover at Boat Harbour NSW – second photo – had been accepted by the BirdLife Australia Rarities Committee (Pizzey and Knight is very thorough!) I thought Aha, let’s do a comparison of Pacific and American Golden Plovers.

American Golden Plover (Pluvialis dominica) by Ian 1

Waders in non-breeding plumage are often rather drab and very confusing for identification but some of them are sartorially quite splendid when breeding. To see Northern Hemisphere waders in breeding plumage, Australian birders need to be either lucky just before the birds leave Australia in March or follow them to their breeding grounds. I first photographed the American Golden Plovers beside an icy lake in Barrow on the northern tip of Alaska in June 2008, first photo. Gorgeous birds they are with striking black and white and gold spangled upper parts and black bellies and faces with a broad white band along the sides of the neck and upper breast.

In March the following year, I was in Sydney and visited my accountant in Sutherland at a time when there was an unconfirmed report of a non-breeding American Golden Plover at nearby Boat Harbour on the Kurnell Peninsula near Botany Bay. This bird was in a flock of about 30 Pacific Golden Plovers, the species that is the common one in Australia in the southern summer/northern winter. Non-breeding Golden Plovers are notoriously difficult to separate from one another and at that stage 5 out of 7 reports of American Golden Plovers submitted to the Rarities Committee had been rejected. Having both species together made it much easier, as one bird stood as clearly different from the others, with much greyer plumage and white rather than buff facial markings (comparing photos 2 and 4).

American Golden Plover (Pluvialis dominica) by Ian 2

Plumage is variable, of course, and not enough for definite identification in this case. The situation was complicated by the Pacific Golden Plovers beginning to change into breeding plumage. The bird in the third photo, for example, is in nearly complete breeding plumage, though the black plumage still has grey patches. In this plumage, the most obvious field mark is the white band along the neck and breast. In the Pacific, it is narrower and much more extensive than the band in the American one and extends down the side of the lower breast to the undertail coverts.

Pacific Golden Plover (Pluvialis fulva) by Ian 3

There are differences in size too, the American being larger, heavier-billed and relatively shorter-legged but these are variable too and only reliable if you have birds in the hand and a statistically large sample. So, at the end of the day, the committee wanted to know about relative lengths of tails, primary and tertiary wing feathers of resting birds. These can be judged from photos as well as in the hand and the submitters of the rarity report included one of my photos. The wing tips of Pacific Golden Plovers do not extend much beyond the tail, but the wing tips of American ones extend about 50mm beyond it.

Pacific Golden Plover (Pluvialis fulva) by Ian 4

So, those are the lengths you need to go both literally and figuratively sometimes to identify rare birds! The Pacific Golden Plover nests mainly in northern Russia but its breeding range does extend to western Alaska and overlaps with that of the American Golden Plover, so there is no doubt that they are separate biological species. If all this seems a bit arcane, don’t worry: just enjoy the photos. Golden Plovers of any hue are lovely birds and I always enjoy seeing them.

Best wishes
Ian

Lee’s Addition:

A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver. (Proverbs 25:11 KJV)

Thanks, Ian, for more lessons on how to identify birds, especially these two plovers. I have had the privilege of seeing the American Golden Plover, but not the Pacific one. It does look like specks of gold on their wings. The only bird mentioned with golden feathers in the Bible is the dove.

Though you lie down among the sheepfolds, You will be like the wings of a dove covered with silver, And her feathers with yellow gold.” (Psalms 68:13 NKJV)

Ian didn’t mention their songs, but here are the two from xeno-canto. Both by Andrew Spencer.

American Golden Plover – song

Pacific Golden Plover – call and song

There are actually three Golden Plovers:

See:

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Rufous Whistler

November 13, 2013 by Ian

Bird of the Week #493: Rufous Whistler ~ by Ian Montgomery

Here’s another good candidate for bird of the week that has slipped through the cracks. It’s a good candidate because it’s an attractive bird that sounds beautiful as well. Males are grey and black with a rufous belly, white throat and black breast band and look very dapper. The bird in the first two photos belongs to the nominate race rufiventris, widespread through most of mainland Australia but absent from Tasmania. Males of the nominate race have black eyebrows and lores (the area between the eye and the bill), more obvious in the first photo.

Rufous Whistlers are very vocal with a rich vocabulary which includes loud calls with a Whipbird-like finish – probably territorial between males – repeated ‘joey-joey-joey’ song and trills. The ‘joey’ song note, repeated up to 30 times, is sung by both sexes alternating and accompanied by a seesawing dancing motion of the body. This is wonderful to watch, and the male in the second photo is in mid-performance. The trills are apparently only made by the male.

The third photo shows a female with grey back and rufous belly and streaked throat and breast.

Rufous Whistler (Pachycephala rufiventris) Female by Ian

Juveniles are similar to females, but with browner upper-parts, heavier streaks, bills with a pale base, and rufous edges to the flight feathers (as do immatures of other species such as the Golden Whistler), fourth photo.

Rufous Whistler (Pachycephala rufiventris) Juvenile by Ian

Several other races have been described in Northern Australia, and the males of these generally lack the black eyebrow, see the fifth photo. This bird belongs to perhaps the most distinctive race pallida which has a much paler belly, and this race is found in Cape York, e.g. the Mitchell River Catchment, and Northwestern Queensland.

Rufous Whistler (Pachycephala rufiventris pallida) by Ian

The large heads of the Whistlers gives the genus the unflattering name Pachycephala (‘thick-head’) and the family the name Pachycephalidae – http://www.birdway.com.au/pachycephalidae/index.htm.

Best wishes
Ian

Lee’s Addition:

He will raise a signal for nations far away, and whistle for them from the ends of the earth; and behold, quickly, speedily they come! (Isaiah 5:26 ESV)

Xeno-canto Rufous Whistlers

What a beautiful sound that Whistler is making. Must be nice to hear them in person. The bird is also an attractive bird. They belong to the Pachycephalidae – Whistlers and Allies Family which has 52 species in it. Predominantly a reddish-brown and grey bird, it makes up for its subdued plumage with its song-making ability. Like many other members of the Pachycephalidae, it has a variety of musical calls.

The family Pachycephalidae, collectively the whistlers, includes the whistlers, shrike-thrushes, shrike-tits, pitohuis and Crested Bellbird, and is part of the ancient Australo-Papuan radiation of songbirds. Its members range from small to medium in size, and occupy most of Australasia.

The whistlers are stout birds with strong bills, and the group was once known as the thickheads due to the large rounded heads of many species. Their plumage is rufous, brown, or grey in the majority of species. Nevertheless a few species, particularly the Golden Whistler and its close relatives, have bright plumage. One of the more unusual traits of this family is found in the feathers of some of the pitohuis, which have toxins. These toxins are probably a deterrent to parasites and may also serve to dissuade predators from taking the birds. (Wikipedia)

See:

Ian’s Pachycephalidae Family

Pachycephalidae – Whistlers and Allies Family – Here

Ian’s Bird of the Week

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Spotted Pardalote

October 30, 2013 by Ian

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Spotted Pardalote ~ by Ian Montgomery

Newsletter ~ 10/30/13

I mentioned a while ago that while preparing photos for the electronic version of the book Where to Find Birds in North-East Queensland by Jo Wieneke (http://www.nqbirds.com), I found that many bird species hadn’t yet had their moment of fame as bird of the week. Spotted Pardalote is one and a surprising omission as pardalotes – http://www.birdway.com.au/pardalotidae/index.htm – are among the most of beautiful small Australian birds. The first photo shows a male of the nominate red-rumped race.

At 8-10cm/3.2-4in in length, the Spotted Pardalote is one of the smallest and only the Weebill (8-9cm) is consistently smaller. Because of the square spots on the wing, it is also called the Diamondbird, risking dreadful puns about ‘gems’. The female is similar, but not so strongly marked and lacks the yellow throat, second photo. Both these birds were close to the ground, but they spend a lot of time in the upper foliage of tall trees, where they’re very hard to see well. All the pardalotes, however, have distinctive calls, very loud for such small birds, and this usually reveals their presence.

The third photo shows a slightly uncertain-looking juvenile. These are similar to females, but the markings are less obvious: in particular the background colour of the crown is grey rather blackish.

Spotted Pardalotes usually nest in burrows in sand banks or road cuttings. If you surprise one near the ground, there’s a good chance that there is a nest nearby. The range of the Spotted Pardalote includes eastern and southern mainland Australia from Northeastern Queensland to SW Western Australia and Tasmania.

I’ve been continuing to add reptiles to the website. The latest lot are lizards, mainly dragons http://www.birdway.com.au/lacertilia/index.htm. Here is one of the more spectacular, the gorgeous Boyd’ Forest Dragon, endemic to Northeastern Queensland.

Progress with Jo’s book has been steady. I’ve added all the bird photos (over 400) and have just finished adding website-like internal links from all the places to all the birds and back again to make navigation easier. The next thing is to visit as many places as possible to check that the information is still up-to-date and get lots of location photos. That stage will start get underway seriously towards the end of November when a birding pal Madeleine joins me from Sydney for the travelling.

Best wishes
Ian

Lee’s Addition:

The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen. (Isaiah 43:20 KJV)

Wow! I really like those Pardalotes and that Dragon is really neat also.

The Pardalotes belong to the Pardalotidae Family and only has the Spotted, Forty-spotted, Red-browed, and the Striated Pardalotes.

Pardalotes or peep-wrens are a family, Pardalotidae, of very small, brightly coloured birds native to Australia, with short tails, strong legs, and stubby blunt beaks. This family is composed of four species in one genus, Pardalotus, and several subspecies. The name derives from a Greek word meaning “spotted”. The family once contained several other species now split into the family Acanthizidae.

Pardalotes spend most of their time high in the outer foliage of trees, feeding on insects, spiders, and above all lerps (a type of sap sucking insect). Their role in controlling lerp infestations in the eucalyptus forests of Australia may be significant. They generally live in pairs or small family groups but sometimes come together into flocks after breeding.

Pardalotes are seasonal breeders in temperate areas of Australia but may breed year round in warmer areas. They are monogamous breeders, and both partners share nest construction, incubation and chick rearing duties. All four species nest in deep horizontal tunnels drilled into banks of earth. Externally about the size of a mouse-hole, they can be very deep, at a metre or more. Some species also nest in tree hollows.

See:

Ian’s Birdway Photos of Pardalotidae Family
More of Ian’s Bird of the Week
Pardalotidae – Pardalotes Family
Spotted Pardalote – Wikipedia
Pardalote – Wikipedia

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Tooth-billed Bowerbird II

October 9, 2013 by Ian

Tooth-billed Bowerbird (Scenopoeetes dentirostris) Court by Ian

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Tooth-billed Bowerbird ~ by Ian Montgomery

Newsletter ~ 10/9/13

At the weekend, I followed some friends for an overnight stay at Paluma, the small village in highland rainforest about 60km north of Townsville. and they took me to view 4 display courts of the Tooth-billed Bowerbird near the village that they had already checked out. This species featured as bird of the week three years ago, but it’s an interesting subject and I got better photos this time. In contrast to some of the bowerbirds, it is sombre in plumage and cryptic in pattern but makes up for this with unique behaviour.

Alone among the promiscuous bowerbirds (the catbirds are monogamous), the male doesn’t build a bower to attract females but has a display platform or court, a cleared space on the forest floor with a central tree trunk or stem and it decorates the court with the leaves of rainforest trees, carefully placed lower side up. The central tree in the first photo is smaller than usual, but I’ve chosen this one as there are signs of the bird having chewed through some offending shoot near to it to keep the space clear. The same court is used from one year to another and the courts of different males may be relatively close proximity (50-100m/yards) to each other in what is called an extended lek. and there were four courts along the path where we were.

The males sing a strange, loud and varied song with lots of mimicry from perches above the court. So during the breeding season – September to January – they are quite easy to find. The vegetation in their preferred habitat is dense so hearing them is easier than seeing them and seeing them is easier than photographing them: the second photo is a fairly typical view of one through the foliage.

When they’re singing, they are fairly approachable and I got quite close to this one before it flew up onto an unencumbered branch above the court and continued singing in full view (third photo). The fourth photo is cropped to show both the toothed edge to the lower mandible and the ridged inside of the upper one, a clever designed mechanism of chewing off leaves. Some while later, at another court we saw a male pick and drop a leaf, which it let fall. It then picked another on and flew off with it in the direction of its court. Apparently, it is not unusual for the birds to steal the leaves of other males, so there is the same competition for accumulating decorations as in other bowerbirds.

I recorded the calls of three males on my phone and included one of the files below.

Last week, I mentioned a pending Snake of the Week and this aroused some interest, so here it is. I photographed this small whip snake seven years ago in a dry area in far Northwestern Queensland near the border with the Northern Territory. We tried to identify it by consulting a weighty tome on the Reptiles of Australia, but failed to find anything that quite matched it and gave up.

Sombre Whip Snake by Ian

Some years later, I bought the 2008 edition of A Complete Guide to the Reptiles of Australia by Steve Wilson and Gerry Swan. It contains an Appendix which starts: “Late in the preparation of this 2008 revised second edition, a timely study of small tropical whip snakes (Demansia) was published. The work formally recognises additional species of these swift diurnal snakes, some of which have been familiar to herpetologists for many years.” So, there you are: the first time I’ve photographed a yet to be described species of vertebrate; it doesn’t often happen with birds.

I’ve been adding Primates http://www.birdway.com.au/primates/index.htm, Lizards http://www.birdway.com.au/lacertilia/index.htm and Snakes http://www.birdway.com.au/ophidia/index.htm to the Other Wildlife section of the website, hence the interest in snakes.

Best wishes
Ian

Lee’s Addition:

What a neat bird and description of them. Now we not only get to see them, but hear them also. Thanks again, Ian, for allowing me to share these newsletters.

The snake, is interesting also, though I am not a big snake fan. I know most are beneficial and I don’t go out of my way to kill them, I just keep my distance.

White-eared Catbird (Ailuroedus buccoides) at National Aviary

Bowerbirds are an interesting group of birds. They belong to the Ptilonorhynchidae – Bowerbirds Family, which has twenty members currently. Looking at the Family page, I realized this is the second time Ian has written about the Tooth-billed Bowerbird. That was in August of 2010.

Fawn-breasted Bowerbird (Chlamydera cerviniventris) Bower at Zoo Miami

We were able to see the White-eared Catbird at Zoo Miami and at the National Aviary. At Zoo Miami, the keeper showed me the bower of the Fawn-breasted Bowerbird. You can see how he lined his bower with leaves. Unfortunately the birds were off display at the time.

White-eared Catbird (Ailuroedus buccoides) – Photo by Lee at Zoo Miami

Bowerbirds by Ian – Photos

Ian’s Bird of the Week

Tooth-billed Bowerbird – Wikipedia

Lee's Birdwatching Adventures Plus

Birdwatching from a Christian Perspective

Tag Archives: Australia

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Pale-headed Rosella

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Masked Woodswallow

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Australian King Parrot

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Australian King Parrot ~ Ian Montgomery

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Plum-headed Finches

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Plum-headed Finches ~ by Ian Montgomery

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Chestnut-breasted Quail-thrush

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Black-breasted Buzzard

Australian King Parrot by Bellamoon Nature

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Red-capped Parrot

Ian’s Bird of the Week – American (and Pacific) Golden Plover

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Rufous Whistler

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Spotted Pardalote

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Tooth-billed Bowerbird II

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Ian’s Bird of the Week – Australian King Parrot ~ Ian Montgomery

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Ian’s Bird of the Week – Plum-headed Finches ~ by Ian Montgomery

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