Tag Archives: Ian Montgomery

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

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Red-capped Parrot (Purpureicephalus spurius) 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.

Red-capped Parrot (Purpureicephalus spurius) by Ian female

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.

Long-billed Black Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus baudinii) by Ian

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.

Cape Leeuwin by Ian

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

**************************************************
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:

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

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

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Black-fronted Tern (Chlidonias albostriatus) by Ian

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

Newsletter ~ 3/10-14

To mark the 500th bird of the week, here is a rather special tern from New Zealand, the Black-fronted Tern, which I photographed while on the quest for the very special Black Stilt. The tern is special, as it’s a New Zealand endemic, attractive and, unfortunately, endangered. The first photo shows a bird incubating at a typical nesting site on the gravelly bank of one of the branching – ‘braided’ – rivers in the Waitaki Valley on the South Island.

The second photo shows another incubating bird at the same colony four days earlier, when I found the sole Black Stilt. The plant with the palmate leaves is feral Lupin, one of the threats that this species faces, in this case by encroaching on the nesting sites.

Black-fronted Tern (Chlidonias albostriatus) by Ian

I took these photos from a sufficient distance with a 500mm lens so as not to disturb incubating birds, but like many terns they are quite aggressive and other non-incubating individuals like those in the third and fourth photos showed me how unwelcome I was by flying intimidatingly close to me and calling harshly.

Black-fronted Tern (Chlidonias albostriatus) by Ian

They look very smart in breeding plumage with sharp black caps, bright orange bills and legs, and white cheek stripe and rump contrasting with otherwise grey plumage. They’re quite small, 30cm/12in in length, with, by tern standards, quite short tail streamers. In non-breeding plumage, the cap is grey, streaky and less extensive and the orange of the bill and legs is paler. In the breeding season, this is an inland species, nesting only along the rivers of the South Island, though it used to breed on the North Island. Outside the breeding season, the birds disperse to coastal waters with some reaching Stewart Island in the south and North Island but don’t travel far and have never been recorded in Australia. They feed on small fish invertebrates mostly snatched in flight either from the water surface or the ground – they will follow ploughs – and will also plunge into water to catch fish.

Black-fronted Tern (Chlidonias albostriatus) by Ian

The population is estimated at about 5,000 individuals and declining, hence its endangered status. Main threats to the population are predation by introduced mammals particular stoats and weasels, feral weeds, disturbance by people and stock and hydroelectric schemes. Breeding success appears to be low, but colonies do respond well to conservation measures such as protection of nesting sites, removal of weeds by spraying and provision of artificial nesting sites such as rafts. The Black-fronted is one of two endemic New Zealand terns, the other being the marine White-fronted. It’s considered a close relative of the Roseate Tern is quite abundant and many migrate to southeastern Australia in winter.

Website links:
Black-fronted Tern 
White-fronted Tern 
Roseate Tern 
Black Stilt 

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 ostrich, the short-eared owl, the sea gull, and the hawk after their kinds; (Deuteronomy 14:15 NKJV)

Ian has again introduced us to another neat creation, the Black-fronted Tern. In that second photo, notice how well it blends in with the terrain. What a graceful looking bird.

Terns and Sea Gulls both belong to the Laridae – Gulls, Terns & Skimmers Family. Ian mentioned three of the Terns on his website, but he has plenty more photos fo that family.

Check out his Laridae Family which he breaks up into Laridae – Tribe: Sternini & Rynchopini (Terns and Noddies) and Laridae – Tribe: Larini (Gulls and Kittywakes).

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Nuggets Plus – Variety

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Sarus Crane (Grus antigone) by Lee at Wings of Asia

Sarus Crane (Grus antigone) by Lee at Wings of Asia

Today while doing my daily reading , I came across two verses that caused me to think about the varieties of birds and our talents.

Nuggets Plus

Nuggets Plus

And David said to his son Solomon, “Be strong and of good courage, and do it; do not fear nor be dismayed, for the LORD God—my God—will be with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you, until you have finished all the work for the service of the house of the LORD. Here are the divisions of the priests and the Levites for all the service of the house of God; and every willing craftsman will be with you for all manner of workmanship, for every kind of service; also the leaders and all the people will be completely at your command. (1 Chronicles 28:20-21 NKJV)

Magnificent Hummingbird (Eugenes fulgens) by Judd Patterson

Magnificent Hummingbird (Eugenes fulgens) by Judd Patterson

David was handing over the kingdom to Solomon, his son, who was young. David had wanted to build a temple for The LORD, but was told no, but that Solomon would be the one to build the temple.

Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) at Bok Tower By Dan'sPix

Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) at Bok Tower By Dan’sPix

David is explaining this to Solomon and the people of Israel. He was encouraging his son and also the people and reminding them of these promises from God:

  • Be strong
  • of good courage
  • do it
  • not fear
  • nor be dismayed
  • LORD God—my God—will be with you
  • not leave you
  • nor forsake you,
  • until you have finished all the work

Then in the next verse (21) he explains the different division (variety) of work to be done:

  • every willing craftsman
  • for all manner of workmanship
  • for every kind of service;
  • also the leaders and all the people will be completely at your command.
House Sparrow by Ray

House Sparrow by Ray

Isn’t it amazing when we see all the variety in the birds the Lord Created? They are all birds, but they vary so much in height, width, color, beaks, feet, behavior, the way and place they build their nest, etc, etc.

Blue-footed Booby (Sula nebouxii) by Ian

Blue-footed Booby (Sula nebouxii) by Ian

How about us? We are all different and each have different talents and abilities. Our interest vary. Many of our readers are bloggers, yet each of us do it differently.

Birdwatchers vary in how they view the birds. Some like to view the birds through a camera, binoculars, just their eyes. Some make list of all kinds, some never bother. There really isn’t a right way or wrong way to watch birds, unless you are doing something harmful to the birds.

Keel-billed Toucan (Ramphastos sulfuratus) by Margaret Sloan

Keel-billed Toucan (Ramphastos sulfuratus) by Margaret Sloan

In the Christian realm, again, we are all different and there is so much variety in our talents and abilities, yet the Lord gave them to us.

Are we willing to use them?

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Ian’s Bird of the Week – Yellowhammer

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Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella) by Ian 1

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Yellowhammer ~ by Ian Montgomery

Newsletter ~ 2-17-14

Continuing the theme of finches and finch-like birds here’s a photo of a male Yellowhammer along the same lane in Co. Louth as the Eurasian Bullfinch. The Yellowhammer is a bunting and belongs to the family Emberizidae, which includes the New World Sparrows.

When the first photo was taken, the Hawthorn was in full bloom. The second photo was taken 12 days later – on the same day as last week’s Bullfinches – and the Hawthorn is almost finished. Yellowhammers have a characteristic rapid slightly nasal song often rendered as ‘little bit of bread and NO cheese’ with the ‘NO’ higher and the ‘cheese’ lower and longer than the other notes. Sadly, European populations of Yellowhammers have suffered from intensive farming and the removal of hedges.

Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella) by Ian 2

Like many other European, or more strictly ‘British’ songbirds, Yellowhammers have been introduced into New Zealand where they have done well. Vagrants from the New Zealand population have been recorded on rare occasions on Lord Howe Island, so the Yellowhammer is the only member of the family on the Australian List. The third photo was taken in New Zealand when I was searching at a known site for the extremely rare Black Stilt on the Ahuriri River in the Waitaki Valley on the South Island. I had just parked nearby but stopped to take the Yellowhammer photo on the principle of a bird in the hand . .

Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella) by Ian 3

In fact, less than ten minutes later I took this photo, which featured as bird of the week three days after I’d taken the photos (I couldn’t wait to show it off!).

Black Stilt (Himantopus novaezelandiae) by Ian

The sharp-eyed among you would have noticed that the sequence number of the Black Stilt is 44 greater than that of the Yellowhammer so it was a busy ten minutes and you might wonder what featured in the intervening photos. Well, they were of a smart New Zealand tern called the Black-fronted as there was a small colony of them nesting in the pebbles beside the river. That hasn’t featured as bird of the week, so I’ll hold it over till next time.

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 seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of all the earth. (Genesis 7:3 NKJV)

The Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella) is a passerine bird in the bunting family Emberizidae. It is common in all sorts of open areas with some scrub or trees and form small flocks in winter.

The Yellowhammer is a robust 15.5–17 cm long bird, with a thick seed-eater’s bill. The male has a bright yellow head, yellow underparts, and a heavily streaked brown back. The female is much duller, and more streaked below. The familiar, if somewhat monotonous, song of the cock is often described as A little bit of bread and no cheese, although the song varies greatly in space. Its name is thought to be from the German word ammer meaning bunting.

Its natural diet consists of insects when feeding young, and otherwise seeds. The nest is on the ground. 3-6 eggs are laid, which show the hair-like markings characteristic of those of buntings.

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Ian’s Emberizidae Family Photos

Emberizidae – Buntings, New World Sparrows & Allies

Ian’s Bird of the Week

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Ian’s Bird of the Week – Eurasian Bullfinch

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Eurasian Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) by Ian

Eurasian Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) by Ian

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Eurasian Bullfinch ~ by Ian Montgomery

Newsletter – 2/3/14

In response to last week’s photos of the Chestnut-breasted Mannikin, I received a photo of an American Evening Grosbeak – thank you Jeff – with a similar large pale finch bill. Typical Northern Hemisphere finches such as the Evening Grosbeak belong to the family Fringillidae while all the native Australian finches belong to the family Estrildidae, so I thought it might be of interest to say a little about finch taxonomy and change, as what we think of as typical finch seed-eating bills appear to have arisen independently in more than one instance.

So, this week’s bird is for a change a Fringillid finch, the Eurasian Bullfinch and a favourite of mine since I was a birding teenager in Ireland many years ago. the male is perhaps the most colourful of European song birds and it was always, and still is, a thrill for me to see one. They aren’t uncommon, but are secretive and usually occur in pairs rather than flocks so are easy to overlook unless you look out for their characteristic white rumps as they fly out of the thick foliage of hedges, probably their favourite habitat.

Eurasian Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) by Ian

Eurasian Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) by Ian

The bird in the first two photos is feeding on the flowers of the Blackthorn and both its English name and its scientific one Prunus spinosa reveal why it is a popular hedge shrub for stock, having been around a lot longer than barbed wire. It has other uses to including making Blackthorn walking sticks and clubs, such as Shillelaghs. It produces an attractive look fruit called sloes, which look a bit like black grapes but are very astringent.

(edited)
Eurasian Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) Female by Ian

Eurasian Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) Female by Ian

Back to Bullfinches. The female, third photo, has a latte-coloured breast instead of a salmon pink one, but is just as elegant and was the partner of the male in the other two photos. The hedge in question is near my sister’s house in Co. Louth in an area (below) where there are still plenty of hedges and is good for other song birds like Yellowhammers and Winter Wrens.

Looking North from near Clogherhead by Ian

Recent DNA work has shed some light on the inter-relationships between various families of song birds with thick seed-eating bills, the most familiar of which are the Fringillid finches, the Estrildid finches, the Eurasian Sparrows (Passeridae), the Buntings and North American Sparrows (Emberizidae). These were originally ascribed to the same superfamily Passeroidea by Sibley and Ahlquist (1990) and that grouping is still largely intact but includes other families that do not have thick bills, including the Sunbirds and Flowerpeckers such as the Mistletoebird (Nectariniidae), the Pipits and Eurasian Wagtails (Motacillidae) and the New World Wood Warblers (Parulidae).

It now seems that the Sunbirds and Flowerpeckers split off first, then the Estrildid Finches and Weavers (Ploceidae), then probably the Sparrows and finally the Wagtails and Pipits, the Fringillid Finches  the Buntings and New World Sparrows and the New World Warblers. From this we can conclude that Estrildid and Fringillid Finches are not closely related and that a traditional morphological approach to classification would have failed to link the Wagtails and New World Warblers to the Fringillidae.

In case all this taxonomic detail leaves you cold, I’ve included links to the all the families mentioned on the Birdway website so can check out the photos instead. The sharp-eyed among you will notice that the BirdLife International sequence of families on the website is not quite the same as the order here. That’s because it predates the latest sequence which I’ve extracted from a 2012 paper on global bird diversity in Nature by Jetz et al. No doubt the grouping and order will change again in the future.

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:

And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. (Luke 14:23)

What a beautifully colored bird and, of course, Ian took great photos. Even Ian gets into the “taxonomic detail.” Those recent DNA work he mentioned is shaking up the birding community. These studies keeping bird guide book writers busy.

The Bullfinch is a bulky bull-headed bird. The upper parts are grey; the flight feathers and short thick bill are black; as are the cap and face in adults (they are greyish-brown in juveniles), and the white rump and wing bars are striking in flight. The adult male has red underparts, but females and young birds have grey-buff underparts. The song of this unobtrusive bird contains fluted whistles.

(Wikipedia)

See Ian’s Bird of the Week and the various links in the article.

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Ian’s Bird of the Week – Chestnut-breasted Mannikin/Munia

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Chestnut-breasted Mannikin (Lonchura castaneothorax) by Ian

Chestnut-breasted Mannikin (Lonchura castaneothorax) by Ian

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Chestnut-breasted Mannikin/Munia ~ by Ian Montgomery

Newsletter ~ 1-23-14

Please accept my apologies that it is over a month since the last bird of the week. I seem to have been distracted by Christmas, New Year, etc.

Anyway, here is a spontaneous one. I’m in the public library in Ingham at the moment getting my car serviced. I was planning to work on the book Where to Find Birds in Northeast Queensland, but had a nagging feeling that I should really do the bird of the week. I found a table at the back of the library with a pleasant view over the adjacent Tyto Wetlands and spotted 3 Chestnut-breasted Mannikins feeding on the ornamental grass seeds just outside the window.

Chestnut-breasted Mannikin (Lonchura castaneothorax) by Ian

Chestnut-breasted Mannikin (Lonchura castaneothorax) by Ian

I had my camera with me and got a couple of photos of one before they noticed me (second photo) and flew away. The photos are a bit cloudy having been taken through glass, but it was good quality plate glass. Members of the genus Lonchura are usually called Mannikins in Australia but they also occur in Asia where the name Munia is used.

This incidentally, is the view of Tyto Wetlands from the library. The dark speck on the lawn in the foreground on the left hand side is the bird in the first two photos.

Chestnut-breasted Mannikin at Tyto Wetlands by Ian

Chestnut-breasted Mannikin at Tyto Wetlands by Ian

Tyto Wetlands gets its name from the Barn Owl genus Tyto as it is a known haunt of the elusive Eastern Grass Owl Tyto longimembris which nest sometimes in the grassy area between the wetlands and the local airstrip. I have seen them here on a number of occasions and they have been reported here quite recently, but no photos unfortunately yet.

Ingham is quite a small sugar-cane town so it is greatly to their credit that they, under the guidance and encouragement of John Young of recent Night Parrot fame, have created this wonderful wetland and sanctuary. There is also a large wetland centre near the highway, well worth a visit if you are passing this way.

Now back to the book. I finished the bird section and am now taking photos of as many as possible of the locations and that quest has taken me to some interesting spots that I’ve never visited before.

Best wishes
Ian

Ian Montgomery, Birdway Pty Ltd,
454 Forestry Road, Bluewater, Qld 4818
Phone: 0411 602 737 +61-411 602 737
Preferred Email: ian@birdway.com.au
Bird Photos http://www.birdway.com.au/
Recorder Society http://www.nqrs.org.au

Lee’s Addition:

Then adorn yourself with majesty and splendor, And array yourself with glory and beauty. (Job 40:10 NKJV)

Sounds like you were as busy as the rest of us. What a beautiful bird. I love the clean lines where the colors change. Another neat creation.

Munia and Mannikins belong to two different families. This Chestnut-breasted Mannikin is actually one of the 151 species in the Estrildidae – Waxbills, Munias & Allies Family. There is a family with Manakins that can confuse someone because of the close spelling.  (Mannikin vs Manakin) The  Pipridae – Manakins Family has 52 species in their family.

See:

Ian’s Bird of the Week

Ian’s Estrildidae Family Photos

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Yellow-rumped Munia/Mannikin

Estrildidae – Waxbills, Munias & Allies Family

Pipridae – Manakins Family

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Bird of the Week – New Zealand Pigeon

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New Zealand Pigeon (Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae) by Ian

Bird of the Week – New Zealand Pigeon ~ by Ian Montgomery

Newsletter ~ 12/24/13

Well, Christmas is nearly on us and I’ve put up the ‘icicle’ Christmas lights beside the almost too-warm pool (29ºC), so I thought a bird photo including some real Southern Hemisphere snow would be correspondingly inappropriate. This proved difficult as I usually avoid the snow and the best candidate, the Kea of New Zealand was bird of the week two years ago even though the snow was incidental to the story about Keas’ passion for dismantling motor vehicles.

So I settled for this one of New Zealand Pigeon. The three-pronged smudge above its head is snow, believe it or not, and it’s actually the isolated three-pointed star visible above and to the right of the main tree in the second photo – taken at about the same time and place in the spectacular surroundings of Milford Sound in the Fiordland of the south west of the South Island.

New Zealand - Milford Sound by IanI was there one evening to book a place on an early cruise the next morning to search for fiordland penguins, and having done so went for a stroll and encountered various local inhabitants including Paradise Shelduck, New Zealand Pigeons and, near the car park, a Weka. the third photo shows the same pigeon on the same branch from a better angle and you can see the beautiful purple and green iridescence of the plumage contrasting with the snow-white belly. With a length to 50cm/20in and a weight up to 800g/28oz, these are large birds, as big or bigger than Imperial-Pigeons, Wompoo Fruit-Doves and Eurasian Wood Pigeons.

New Zealand Pigeon (Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae) by Ian

They’re very confiding, and this one and its mate, sitting on another branch in the same tree, just watched me as I walked around them taking photos from different angles. They look plump and gastronomically appealing, so it’s not surprising that the population declined after human settlement until protection was granted in 1921. The Norfolk Island sub-species wasn’t so lucky: it was still around in the 1830s but there have been no records since 1900.

New Zealand Pigeon (Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae) by Ian

The following morning dawned bright and sunny, last photo, and a very obliging cruise-boat captain found me a pair of nesting Fiordland Penguins within 10 minutes of leaving the jetty and took us almost alarming close so that I could get some photos: http://www.birdway.com.au/spheniscidae/fjordland_penguin/index.htm.

New Zealand - Milford Sound by Ian

Now there’s some real snow on the mountains on the left. I wish you a safe and peaceful Christmas and an enjoyable and enriching 2014.
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:

Thanks, Ian, and Merry Christmas to you. I like the clean line between the green and the white on its breast. (Could have used it for the birds series.)

It appears that Ian gets around quite a bit lately. Since he started helping with that book, his search for certain birds has intensified. All for our benefit. We get to enjoy his great photographs of some very neat species.

I trust you enjoy reading his newsletters about his birdwatching adventures as well as I enjoy them. To see all of his articles here:

Ian’s Bird of the Week

Ian’s Doves and Pigeon Photos – Columbidae Family

New Zealand Pigeon – NZ Birds Online

New Zealand Pigeon – ARKive

New Zealand Pigeon – Wikipedia

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

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American Golden Plover (Pluvialis dominica) by Ian 1

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

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

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

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

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

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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:

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

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Rufous Whistler (Pachycephala rufiventris) 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 Whistler (Pachycephala rufiventris) by Ian

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

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

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

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

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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:

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

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Ian’s Bird of the Week – Spotted Pardalote

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Spotted Pardalote (Pardalotus punctatus) 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.

Spotted Pardalote (Pardalotus punctatus) by Ian

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 Pardalote (Pardalotus punctatus) by Ian Juvenile

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.

Boyd's Forest Dragon by Ian Montgomery

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

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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 

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:

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

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Tooth-billed Bowerbird (Scenopoeetes dentirostris) Court 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.

Tooth-billed Bowerbird (Scenopoeetes dentirostris) by Ian

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.

Tooth-billed Bowerbird (Scenopoeetes dentirostris) by Ian

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.

Tooth-billed Bowerbird (Scenopoeetes dentirostris) by Ian

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

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

**************************************************
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:

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

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

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

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

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Birdwatching Reviews – Guest Writers

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Scarlet Myzomela (Myzomela sanguinolenta) by Ian at Birdway

Scarlet Myzomela (Myzomela sanguinolenta) by Ian at Birdway

He has made His wonderful works to be remembered; the Lord is gracious, merciful, and full of loving compassion. (Psalms 111:4 AMP)

While we are reviewing while I am still in the “coasting mode“, today let’s review the various Regular and Guest Writers. I am so thankful for all of them and especially two who are regulars and have their own pages (menu).

Ian Montgomery, an Australian, was one of first photographers who gave permission to use his photos. From there, he gave permission to reproduce his newsletters in our Ian’s Bird of the Week series. I have enjoyed them and trust you have also. He has introduced us to many birds we would never have seen or heard about.

Bird and Newsletter Date

Golden Bowerbird (Prionodura newtoniana) by Ian

Golden Bowerbird (Prionodura newtoniana) by Ian

A J or a j mithra as he prefers, is from India and has been providing articles about birds and challenging us to better serve the Lord. He always seem to make great spiritual comparisons between the avian behavior and the lessons to be learned from them. You can find these at the tab,  a j mithra and he writes most of the Nuggets Plus.

a j mithra:

Nuggets Plus:

Robin Eating by Jim Fenton

Robin Eating by Jim Fenton

We also have various writers, like Dottie Malcolm and her grand-daughter, Emma, who write now and then. They are members of our church. Stephen is also from our church.

Dorothy (Dottie) Belle Malcolm’s:

Emma Foster:

Stephen Simpson’s:

Guest Writers From the Past:

And others:

The Lord has been gracious to allow the blog to have these add their additions. So, check these out. Must be one or two you haven’t read before. And thank you for visiting here as often as you do. Pressing the “Like” now and then helps us know which type articles you enjoy the best.

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