Truly Strange Bird – Creation Moments

February 24, 2021 by Lee

A Truly Strange Bird

Psalm 40:5
“Many, O LORD my God, [are] thy wonderful works [which] thou hast done, and thy thoughts [which are] to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: [if] I would declare and speak [of them], they are more than can be numbered.”

Though God created the entire living kingdom in only a few days, the variety and creativity of what He made seems nearly unlimited by our standards. One of the more unusual creatures He made was thought extinct until it was rediscovered in 1958.

The kakapo parrot lives in New Zealand. The most unusual parrot on Earth, it is one of only a few known parrots that prefers to sleep during the day and becomes active at night. Weighing in at five pounds, it is also the world’s heaviest parrot. It is, perhaps not surprisingly, the world’s only non-flying parrot.

The Creator’s unusual expression of inventive creativity in designing the kakapo did not end here. The mating habits of the kakapo are especially peculiar for birds. In mating season, the males gather in locations that are used year after year for mate selection. Female parrots come to these places to inspect the males to select a mate. However, in most un-bird-like fashion, the males provide absolutely no help building the nest or rearing the young.

The kakapo is remarkable because of its many strange traits, most of which would make it least fit for survival. In other words, not only is it an unusual creature, but its more unusual characteristics seem to put it at a disadvantage as far as evolution is concerned. So while evolution would not have made the kakapo, our inventive Creator did, perhaps as a witness against evolution.

Prayer: Dear Father in heaven, I thank You for the beauty and creativity You have placed into Your work of creation and for the blessings these gifts add to life. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Author: Paul A. Bartz

Ref: Discover, Mar. 1985. p. 36. Photo: Kakapo by Chris Birmingham CCA 2.0.xcf

Kakapo (Strigops habroptila) ©Dept of Conservation

Just thought you might enjoy reading about this uniquely created Avian Wonder from Our Creator.

Save The Parrots

Now That’s A Parrot – Squawkzilla

August 7, 2019 by Lee

Meet ‘Squawkzilla,’ the massive prehistoric parrot scientists say terrorized other birds

A reconstruction of Heracles inexpectatus, the New Zealand parrot. The team initially thought the fossils belonged to a giant eagle. Photograph: Brian Choo/Flinders University

“Fossils of the largest parrot ever recorded have been found in New Zealand. Estimated to have weighed about 7kg (1.1st), it would have been more than twice as heavy as the kākāpo, previously the largest known parrot.” (The Guardian)

Kakapo (Strigops habroptila) ©WikiC showing whiskers around beak

“Palaeontologists have named the new species Heracles inexpectatus to reflect its unusual size and strength and the unexpected nature of the discovery.

Prof Trevor Worthy of Flinders University in Australia, the lead author of the research published in the journal Biology Letters, said: “Once we decided it was something new and interesting, the challenge was to figure out what family it was from.

“Because no giant parrots have been found previously, parrots were not on our radar – thus it took some time to differentiate all other birds essentially from parrots to conclude that the unique suite of characters was definitive of a parrot.”

Paul Scofield, a senior curator of natural history at Canterbury Museum, said the fossil had been excavated in 2008, and initially the team had thought the bones were part of a giant eagle.”

From the Washington Post: “The large bones, believed to be the bones of an ancient eagle, flew under the radar for a decade. It was during a research project in the lab of Flinders University paleontologist Trevor Worthy that a graduate student rediscovered the bones. After that, a team of researchers began reanalyzing the findings earlier this year, according to the BBC.

“It was completely unexpected and quite novel,” Worthy, the study’s lead author, told National Geographic. “Once I had convinced myself it was a parrot, then I obviously had to convince the world.”

Kea (Nestor notabilis) by Ian

Researchers concluded that the bird probably couldn’t fly and consumed what was along the ground and easy to reach, according to National Geographic. But that might not have been enough to satiate the giant parrot.

It’s possible the bird had more carnivorous ways, like another New Zealand parrot, the kea, which has been known to attack and subsequently munch upon living sheep, the magazine reported.

Keas, the world’s only alpine parrots, are native to New Zealand’s South Island. (Erin E. Williams for The Washington Post)

Michael Archer, a co-author of the research and paleontologist at the University of New South Wales, told National Geographic that heracles might have even been eating other parrots, giving way to a nickname: “Squawkzilla.”

Archer told Agence France-Presse the bird had “a massive parrot beak that could crack wide open anything it fancied.”

Heracles probably won’t be the final unforeseen fossil from the St. Bathans area, Worthy told AFP. The researchers have turned up many surprising birds and animals over the years.

“No doubt there are many more unexpected species yet to be discovered in this most interesting deposit,” Worthy said.”

Washington Post Article about Heracles inexpectatus.

Kakapo (Strigops habroptila) ©Dept of Conservation-To See Relative Size

Of course, those of us on this blog do not believe in millions of years, but that the Lord created everything, including this humongous Parrot. National Geographic says “The flightless ‘squawkzilla’ stood three feet tall and was twice the weight of the kakapo, the heaviest parrot alive today.”

“Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.” (Genesis 2:19 NKJV)

Other’s with the same basic information:

Kakapo (Strigops habroptila) ©Dept of Conservation

Save The Parrots

Ian’s Bird of the Week – New Zealand Pipit

January 12, 2016 by Ian

Ian’s Bird of the Week – New Zealand Pipit

~ by Ian Montgomery

Newsletter – 1/12/16

There are two ways to acquire photos of additional species to add to the website: one is to go out and photograph something new; the other is to sit at your computer and wait for the taxonomists to provide them via splits. I mentioned, in passing, the Eurasian and Pacific Wrens last week. This week we have the Australian and New Zealand Pipits, a split I discovered a week ago when revising the Pipit and Wagtail family page and switching the sequence from BirdLife International to the IOC. That split stirred vague memories of pipits on Enderby Island in the Auckland Islands group south of New Zealand and I dug out some neglected photos of New Zealand Pipits from my archives and published them on the website.

New Zealand Pipit (Anthus novaeseelandiae) by Ian

Pipits have been completely ignored as subjects for bird of the week because they aren’t, I don’t think, very interesting: they all look much the same – brown and streaked; they don’t behave in particular interesting ways; and they aren’t famous for the quality of their songs. So I was left the problem of finding a way of making them interesting. You could do a spot the difference quiz between the Australian above, and the New Zealand below but even that is a bit limited in extent. The Australian is more buffish, the New Zealand more rufous; the New Zealand has more streaks on the flanks; if you had the birds in the hand you might notice that the Australian has a white belly, the New Zealand has a greyish one. That’s about it.

I could talk about their biology and show this photo of an adult feeding an insatiable fledgling, which was begging raucously for more food in another photo taken less than a second later. Instead, I decided this morning to Google the information contained in the sentence: “I took this photo of a New Zealand pipit (Anthus novaeseelandiae, J. F. Gmelin, 1789, Queen Charlotte Sound, South Island, New Zealand) on Enderby Island in November 2011”. Google led me on never-ending links of interesting information about the history of the Auckland Islands, voyages to Queen Charlotte Sound in the late 18th century, the work and publications of Johann Friedrich Gmelin and even to the novel Moby Dick* while I reminisced about the 2011 trip to the Sub-Antarctic Islands and dug out more photos of what we saw on Enderby Island. My task now is to distill all that stuff into a few sentences.

The Auckland islands are a rugged group of now uninhabited islands about 460km south of the South Island of New Zealand. Traces of Polynesian settlement dating back to the 13th century have been on Enderby Island, a small island about 5km long at the north eastern tip of the main island. They were rediscovered in 1806 by the whaling ship Ocean. Captain Bristow named the Islands after his friend the first Baron Auckland and Enderby Island after his boss Samuel Enderby, whose company owned the ship. The islands became an important sealing and whaling station, though by 1812 most of the New Zealand Sea Lions had been hunted and the focus switched to Campbell Island and Macquarie island farther south. There were several unsuccessful attempts at settlement later in the 19th century.

Most of the human activity on Enderby Island was at a sheltered bay called Sandy Cove on the south side of the island (below). That was where we landed and we hiked from there across to the north coast and then back along the coast in a clockwise direction, a distance of about 10km. Sandy Cove had lots of sea lions and Red-crowned Parakeets, strange to see on such a chilly windswept island.

I remember the last few kilometres along the south coast as being hard work wading through waist-deep tussocky grass but the wildlife along the way was wonderful and well worth the effort. In the tundra on the north coast there were New Zealand Snipe and Double-banded Plovers, while the cliffs on the north coast (below) had nesting Light-mantled Albatrosses. We watched their display flight in the updrafts along the cliffs,a veritable aerial ballet a deux, and could look down on other birds on their nests.

There were flightless Auckland Teal both along the coast and in pools of freshwater and we had to run the gauntlet of assertive male sea lions. We found that if you held your ground, they calmed down quite quickly and the following photo shows me making friends with one.

See? I’ve hardly mentioned pipits and, given the competition, it is surprising that I actually took any photos of them. Because various pipits all look much the same their taxonomy has long been, well, a mess. There are – at the moment based on DNA studies – five similar species in Eurasian, Africa and Australasia that have in the past been treated as a single species. The other three are Richard’s pipit (central Asia), the African Pipit and the Paddyfield Pipit (south and southeast Asia). The first one to be named was a New Zealand specimen in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin, below, so according to the rules of taxonomic precedent that single species should have been novaeseelandiae.

Gmelin, 1748-1804, is best known for continuing to update and publish new volumes of the Systema Naturae after the death in 1778 of Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy. Here is the cover of the 1788 edition of Gmelin’s Volume I. Note that the classification is of the three natural kingdoms (Regna Tria Naturae) of animals, plants and minerals. This was in the days before anyone had to worry about evolution, and was all about managing the complexity of specimens of everything that were accumulating in vast numbers in museums, herbaria and other collections in Europe.

There were four levels of generalisation: classes, orders, genera and species. So the New Zealand Lark (as it was called then) belongs to the class Aves (birds), the order Passeres (sparrow-like), genus Alauda (larks) and species novae Zeelandiae (of Nova Seelandia). The system has proved remarkably robust. Class ‘Aves’ is still used for birds; ‘formes’ has been added to avian order names so Passeres survives as Passeriformes, Alauda is still used for true larks. The New Zealand Lark is now recognised as a pipit and has been moved to the Pipit genus Anthus. The main change to the classification structure is the addition of the Family level between order and genus. Pipits and Old World Wagtails are in the family Motacillidae and I was interested to find that the name Motacilla, the Wagtail genus, is to be found later in the same volume.

The volume makes interesting reading just at the level of habitats which hints at the enormity of the task faced by Linnaeus and Gmelin. The species above the New Zealand Lark is the ‘Cape Lark’ Alauda capensis from a specimen collected at the Cape of Good Hope (caput bonae spei). On just these two pages are species from Portugal, Argentina, Mongolia and Siberia and this on pages 798-799 of the volume on birds. I found another whole volume on worms and another on a subset of plants. Gmelin was primarily a botanist was published various books on plant and chemical poisons. On the zoological side he specialised in amphibians, reptiles and molluscs, so his publication of bird species was fairly incidental. Such was the all-encompassing nature of scholarship in those times.

Meanwhile, back at the website, progress continues. I’ve finished updating all the family pages and I’m now working through the 1,500 species and updating their pages to make them mobile-friendly. On a good day, I can do about 20 species. On the way, I’m adding new photos of previously prepared but not included photos and you can track this progress on the new Recent Additions page – the most recent photos are at the top of this page. This used to be a section on the Home Page which had become unmanageably large for mobiles and needed to be broken up. The Home Page now serves as a gateway to the rest of the website and to advise of updates. such as recent additions and the latest bird of the week.

I started by listing the two ways of getting new species for the website. I’m planning to do the other way next week, take a break from the website and go up to the Daintree River in search of nesting Black Bitterns. This is one of my bogey birds. I’ve seen them only flying away since the single occasion on which I saw one stationary at Chittaway Point on the Central Coast of New South Wales in the year 2000 before I took up serious bird photography with serious equipment. So this (scanned from film) is what I’m trying to improve on:

As usual I ask for your moral and spiritual support!

Greetings

Ian

*PS. In Moby Dick the fictitious ship Pequod of Nantucket met a whaling ship from London called the Samuel Enderby which had also encountered the white whale. The Samuel Enderby was a real ship belonging to the Enderby company and was one of three that arrived at Auckland Island in 1849 to attempt a new settlement with 150 settlers.

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

Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows. (or Pipits) (Luke 12:6-7 KJV) (emphasis mine)

All work and no play is hard for anyone. We will be praying that you find that elusive Black Bittern. Then you can tell us all about them next.

Here are a few articles that tell about Carolus Linnaeus:

Carolus Linnaeus: Founder of Modern Taxonomy by Jerry Bergman, Ph.D.
On the Changing Definition of the Term “Species” by Kenneth B. Cumming, Ph.D.
Bible-Believing Scientists of the Past by Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.
Linnaeus was a creationist – Creation Wiki

Ian’s Bird of the Week
Ian’s Birdway Website
Motacillidae – Wagtails, Pipits– Pipit Family here
Wordless Birds

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Crimson Rosella

November 21, 2015 by Ian

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Crimson Rosella ~ by Ian Montgomery

Newsletter – 11/20/15

Some birds are very obvious choices for bird of the week because they are beautiful and popular. Ironically, I can overlook them for exactly that reason as I assume they’ve featured previously. Here is one such, the Crimson Rosella, an iconic and popular bird of the forests of eastern and southeastern Australia.

Normally rather shy in its natural habitat and can become quite tame in parks and gardens. It’s popularity is reflected in the fact that it has been introduced to New Zealand and Norfolk Island and (unsuccessfully) to Lord Howe Island. It nests in tree hollows and is regarded by conservationists as a pest on Norfolk Island as it competes with the smaller, endangered Norfolk Parakeet for nest sites.

It feeds mainly on the seeds and fruit of trees and will forage on the ground for the grass seed, like the bird in the third photo. It’s a very vocal species and its ringing calls are a characteristic sound of forests in eastern Australia. Out of the breeding season, it is found in small flocks but it is territorial when breeding and the pair bond is though to persist for several years or longer.

Juvenile birds of the eastern nominate race are mainly olive green with blue cheeks and patches of red on the head, breast and undertail-coverts. The nominate race extends from Cooroy in Southeastern Queensland to about Kingston in eastern South Australia.

Farther north, an isolated population of the race nigrescens (‘blackish’) occurs from Eungella near Mackay north to the Atherton Tableland. This is smaller and darker than the nominate race, fifth photo, and is mainly a bird of highland rainforest.

Juveniles of this northern race are much more like the adults than their southern relatives and have brownish-black feathers on the back instead of green (sixth photo).

Crimson Rosella (Platycercus elegans) by Ian

In southeastern Australia the populations of blue-cheeked Rosellas look very different and were for a long time treated as two different species, the Yellow Rosella, seventh photo, of the river systems of southern New South Wales and northern Victoria, and the orange-plumaged Adelaide Rosella of South Australia from the Flinders Ranges in the north to the Fleurieu Peninsula south of Adelaide (no photo). Yellow and Adelaide Rosellas interbreed where their ranges meet along the Murray River in South Australia. The two are now treated as races of the Crimson Rosella, flaveolus and adelaidae respectively.

Yellow Rosella (Platycercus elegans flaveolus) by Ian 4

The Yellow Rosella looks very like the other blue-cheeked Rosella, the Green Rosella of Tasmania. It is, however, retained as a separate species. I included this photo of the Yellow Rosella when the Green Rosella was bird of the week in March 2013.

Christmas is looming ever closer, so this wouldn’t be complete without the obligatory commercial. What do you give to the digitally-competent birder or nature-lover who has everything? An electronic book of course and both Apple and Kobo have facilities in their ebook stores for giving gifts. I’ve included a Giving Gifts section on the Publications page with help on how these stores let you give gifts. Google has facilities only for giving the equivalent of a gift token and not specific items. These book images are linked to the corresponding web pages:

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 iTunes; Google Play Kobo Books

Lee’s Addition:

For the LORD God is a sun and shield; The LORD will give grace and glory; No good thing will He withhold From those who walk uprightly. (Psalms 84:11 NKJV)

Thanks again, Ian, for sharing some more avian wonders. I especially like the second photos. That little guy looks like he is walking with an attitude. :)

Cause me to hear Your lovingkindness in the morning, For in You do I trust; Cause me to know the way in which I should walk, For I lift up my soul to You. (Psalms 143:8 NKJV)

More Ian’s Bird of the Week

Ian’s Psittacidae – Parrots Family

Pale-headed Rosella ~ 8-24-14

Psittaculidae – Old World Parrots (Here)

Wordless Birds – Hummers

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Tomtit

October 30, 2015 by Ian

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

Newsletter – 10/30/15

Last week we had the Snares Penguin and I made a passing reference to the locally endemic race of the Tomtit, so here is it and two of the other four New Zealand races of the Tomtit as this week’s choice. It’s called a Tit after the European Tits family Paridae which includes the North American Chicadees) but it’s not one of these but an Australasian Robin (Petroicidae), which in turn were named after the European Robin but don’t belong to its family either (Muscicapidae). The Tomtit’s closest relative is the Pacific Robin (Petroica multicolor) which in turn is very close related the Scarlet Robin of Australia.

A friend of mine who is a member of the bird of the week club but not a birdwatcher as such expressed confusion over subspecies (or races) and species, so I Googled a couple of references which might be useful: 1. a simple explanation; 2. Wikipedia and 3. a more scholarly one. I talk about them a lot as I’m interested in the classification of birds (taxonomy) and their evolution and biogeography (how they got to where they are) so here is a brief description.

A (biological) species is the fundamental unit (‘taxon’) of the classification of organisms, both plants and animals. It’s fundamental in the sense that it is considered reproductively isolated (genetic differences are supposed to be such that interbreeding across species boundaries isn’t possible or at least doesn’t produce fertile offspring). From a bird-watching point of view, a species is what you add to lists, whether your life list, your national list, your annual list, your yard list, or your annual bird list… The possibilities are endless but in the competitive world of ‘twitching’, a species is as important as a referees decision about a goal or score in football or tennis.

Nothing in biology is ever quite so simple, so the differences between various taxonomic levels (species, genus, family, order … going up and species, subspecies going down) are really part of a continuum. At the lower levels – genus, species and sub-species – the degree of genetic separation and therefore reproductive isolation varies a lot. Some groups are particularly troublesome as apparently quite different ‘species’ have a taxonomically irritating tendency to hybridise. Among birds, the diving ducks of the genus Aythya come to mind and among plants the orchids are notorious for spreading their genes around. Subspecies or races (using the terms interchangeably) are usually geographically isolated so they don’t get the chance to interbreed and are usually sufficiently different to be identifiable in the field. That means if you’re a birdwatcher, you can make lists of them too…

The eighteen century Swedish scientist and physician Carl Linnaeus is regarded as the father of modern taxonomy as he invented the binomial – double-name – system that is still in use today. This was a century before Darwin, so Linnaeus was concerned, lucky man, with only degree of similarity. He classified types of organisms as belonging to a genus (‘family’ in Latin) represented by the first name, e.g. Anas (Latin for ‘duck’) and a species, e.g. platyrhychos (Greek for ‘broad-billed’) to name the Mallard and distinguish it from say the similar Gadwall, Anas strepera, where ‘strepera’ is derived from the Latin for ‘noisy’. There is no linguistic rule to prevent mixing of languages but adjectival species names usually agree in gender with the genus, something of a challenge when one name comes from Greek and the other from Latin.

Needless to say, taxonomists have added many levels since, but orders, families, genera and species are the most important. To accommodate races or subspecies a third name was added the binomial system making it trinomial. The first race of a species to be named is called the nominate race, and the name of the race, if any, must be the same as the name of the species. So the nominate race of the Tomtit Petroica macrocephala is Petroica macrocephala macrocephala(Petroica is Greek for ‘rock-dwelling’ and macrocephala is Greek for ‘big-headed’). Any additional subspecies described later will be called Petroica macrocephala somethingelse.

Sorry, that was supposed to be a brief description so let’s get back to Tomtits. The first two photos show the nominate race which occurs on the South Island of New Zealand. The male is black and white with a yellow breast; the female is grey-brown with a white belly. This pair was in an Antarctic Beech forest – quite Lord of the Rings – near Cascade Creek in Fiordland and both birds were busy feeding nestlings. The male has a juicy green caterpillar and a large mosquito in his bill.

The third and fourth photos are male and female examples of the Auckland Islands race marrineri on Enderby Island one of the Auckland Islands group. Both males are females are mainly black and white, the male being glossier with only a trace of yellow on the breast. The race is named after New Zealand biologist George Marriner who took part in the 1907 Sub-Antarctic Islands Scientific Expedition.

The Snares race dannefaerdi is the most distinctive, photos 5 and 6, with both sexes being completely black, the male again being glossier than the female. It is named after Sigvard Dannefaerd who was a Danish collector and photographer based in New Zealand and the original specimen was from his collection but ended up with the second Baron Rothschild who described it.

Back at the Birdway website, I’m continuing to redevelop it for mobile devices and the latest changes include the Bird of the Week page and I am gradually working my way through the various families in taxonomic sequence (that word again!): Megapodes, Chachalacas and Guans, Guineafowl, New World Quails and, in progress, the Ducks, Geese and Swans.

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 little birds (sparrows) have places for themselves, where they may put their young, even your altars, O Lord of armies, my King and my God. (Psalms 84:3 BBE)

What cute little birds. I am glad the Lord saw fit to create birds in so many different sizes. Looks like Ian has been busy working on his website. I am sure he would appreciate you looking around again for his improvements.

Ian’s Bird of the Week

Ian’s Petroicidae Family

Petroicidae – Australasian Robins Family

Gideon

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Snares Penguin

October 23, 2015 by Ian

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Snares Penguin ~ by Ian Montgomery

Newsletter – 10/23/15

Before we get on to this week’s bird – the Snares Penguin – here is a postscript on last week’s discussion on the boundary between Fuscous and Yellow-tinted Honeyeaters on the Atherton Tableland west of Cairns. Keith Fisher sent me this photo of a bird taken at Springvale Road in the Kaban area between Herberton and Ravenshoe in the western drier part of the Tableland (Chapter 14 in Where to Find Birds in Northern Queensland, hint, hint). He also sent me information from Lloyd Nielsen who has been studying these birds. It would be a brave person who would identify this bird on appearance alone and it seems that the matter will remain unresolved until someone does some DNA analysis. Thank you Keith.

Now for something completely different and for no other reason than I like penguins and so do most people. We saw various penguin species on the Sub-Antarctic Islands trip that we did in 2011 and here is one of two that hasn’t featured as bird of the week. The first island group that we reached after leaving Dunedin on the South Island of New Zealand was the Snares, an isolated group of islands with a total area of 340ha/840acres about 200km/125miles south of the South Island.

The Snares are of particular scientific and conservation value as, unlike other similar islands in the Southern Pacific they were left largely untouched by sealing and whaling and survive, vegetation intact in a fairly pristine state and have no mammalian predators. The Snares Penguin and the Snares Snipe are endemic species and there is an endemic race of the Fernbird and an all black-race of the Tomtit. The islands are of huge importance for nesting seabirds with 2 million pairs of Sooty Shearwaters and large numbers of Common Diving Petrels. Because of its conservation status – ‘minimum impact’ – we weren’t allowed to land but we cruised close by in Zodiacs in ideal weather conditions and saw all the bird species of interest except the Snipe.

There are about 25,000 pairs of Snares Penguins. The species is closely related to the Fiordland Penguin of the South Island of New Zealand and the Erect-crested of Bounty and Antipodes Islands, but has a much heavier bill (hence the name robustus) and pink skin between the bill and the cheek and throat so it usual now to treat all three as full species. Like all penguins, they are delightful to watch and be watched by and they are quite curious and popped up beside the Zodiac to have a good look.

They nest in colonies of up to 1,000 pairs mainly usually under trees or bushes, but sometimes in the open. There is continual traffic between the ocean and colonies which scours away any vegetation.

At the colony we visited, there was a favoured spot for launching into the water and all the seaweed had been worn away. The penguins would wait for a calm period between ocean swells and then dash after the most intrepid into the water.

Landing seemed to be done on a hope and a prayer and the birds would get washed up on the rocks and then scramble to safety. There were several landing spots and these still had seaweed, which presumably cushioned the birds from hard landings.

Snares Penguins lay a clutch of 2 eggs, and breeding success is about 40%. The population is thought to be increasing, though the species is classified as Vulnerable because it depends on a single location. After breeding the bird disperse in the ocean and are recorded as vagrants in mainland New Zealand and Tasmania. The birds take about 4 years to mature and live for about 20 years.

This bird of the week is a bit late as I’ve been busy this week finishing reformatting the ebook Diary of a Bird Photographer. I’ve made each bird of the week section start on a new page to prevent the separation of caption and content. The new version has now been uploaded to the Apple, Google and Kobo bookstores and is recognisable by a re-designed cover. If you have already purchased it, you should be able to upload the latest version from the store. The following cover image links to the Diary page on the Birdway website.

I’ve also been redesigning the website templates to make them more suitable for viewing on smart phones or tablets. The original design was for monitors a width of 1200 pixels, but we live in a more fluid world now. I’ve applied the new design to two families, and I’d be grateful if you could check them your devices and see if they behave: Stilts and Avocets and Barn Owls. I’ve tested them on iPhone and iPad using the browsers Safari and Chrome.

Greetings
Ian

Lee’s Addition:

In the fear of the LORD there is strong confidence, And His children will have a place of refuge. The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, To turn one away from the snares of death. (Proverbs 14:26-27 NKJV)

Sounds like Ian has been quite busy, but I am thankful he took time to share those Snares Penguins with us. I didn’t pick up how they got their name, but this from Wikipedia explains it further.

“The Snares penguin (Eudyptes robustus), also known as the Snares crested penguin and the Snares Islands penguin, is a penguin from New Zealand. The species breeds on The Snares, a group of islands off the southern coast of the South Island.”

Ian’s Bird of the Week

Snares Penguin – Ian’s Birdway

Snare Penguin – Wikipedia

Spheniscidae – Penguin Family

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Fuscous Honeyeater

Story of the Wordless Book

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

March 10, 2014 by Lee

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.

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.

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.

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

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).

Laridae – Tribe: Sternini & Rynchopini (Terns and Noddies)
Laridae – Tribe: Larini (Gulls and Kittywakes
Laridae – Gulls, Terns & Skimmers Family
Birds of the Bible – Sea Gulls

Bird of the Week – New Zealand Pigeon

December 26, 2013 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.

I 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.

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.

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.

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

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

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Swamp Harrier

September 2, 2013 by Ian

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Swamp Harrier ~ by Ian Montgomery

Newsletter – 9-2-13

Recently I was having trouble finding a reasonable photo of a Swamp Harrier for Where to Find Birds in Northeastern Queensland, when I remembered an encounter that I had with this one on a beach on Bruny Island in Southeastern Tasmania in late 2011. At the time, I was on the return leg of the trip to the Sub-Antarctic Islands via New Zealand and the Harrier photos got neglected in the excitement of posting penguin, petrel, prion and parakeet photos (not to mention albatrosses but they spoil the alliteration).

The encounter was the enactment of a minor natural tragedy that was sad to observe, and that may be a subconscious reason for the neglect. I’d actually photographed the bird first photo two minutes earlier struggling to fly into the teeth of a southerly gale and carrying an item of prey, that I couldn’t identify. The Harrier dropped it, back off to leeward and made another unsuccessful attempt to fly up-wind by flying low over the sea on the other side of me.

This attempt failed too, and the bird came back for another try flying more or less overhead. At that point, it was attacked by a very distraught-looking Pied Oystercatcher looking for all the world as if it was on a retaliatory bombing raid. The Oystercatcher made a couple of passes at the Harrier, which eventually gave up the struggle and flew inland across the prevailing wind. I could only assume that the item of prey was the Oystercatcher’s chick and the field guide confirmed that these look like plover chicks, camouflaged speckled brown with white bellies. Predation is a natural part of life, but it was sad that the chick died for no purpose.

I’ve found Harriers difficult to photograph as they’re shy and normally keep their distance in flight. They are also terrestrial in their lifestyle, inhabiting tree-less plains and wetlands, hunting close to the ground and nesting and perching on the ground, usually invisible or nearly so in grass or reeds. They hunt by flying low over the land or water – quartering – and dropping suddenly to seize surprised prey (sorry, I’ve done it again) such as birds, small mammals and frogs in their long-legged talons. When quartering, they alternate between flapping their wings and gliding with the wings held in a characteristic V, like the bird in the fourth photo in an otherwise tranquil pastoral scene in New Zealand.

Adult Swamp Harriers are brownish and streaked, with white rumps. Older males have greyish wings and grey tails, unmarked except for a sub-terminal band. Females are more rufous and have barred tails and both the Bruny Island and New Zealand birds are, I think, males. Juvenile Swamp Harriers look quite different and are rufous brown overall with pale rufous rather than white rumps, like the one in the fifth photo.

In Australia, Swamp Harriers nest mainly in the south, including Tasmania and migrate north in winter – in North Queensland, we see them only in the winter months. In New Zealand they make local movements across Cook Strait and they turn up on various islands including Lord Howe and Norfolk. Raptors are poorly represented in New Zealand and the Swamp Harrier is the large bird of the prey, being the only breeding member of the Accipiter family (hawks, eagles, etc.), with the rarer New Zealand Falcon being the only breeding falcon. Swamp Harriers also breed in Melanesia and Polynesia as far east as Tonga. It has close relatives in Eurasia comprising the Eastern, Western, African and Madagascar Marsh Harriers.

Best wishes
Ian

Lee’s Addition:

And when the birds of prey swooped down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away. (Genesis 15:11 AMP)

In this case, the Oystercatcher “drove them away.” You have to admit, that Oystercatcher looks right angry.

The Swamp Harrier is a member of the Accipitridae – Kites, Hawks & Eagles Family. There are 256 species, of which, 17 are Harriers or Harrier-hawks.

Ian already gave quite a bit of information about this beautiful bird. The diet of the Swamp Harrier is mainly ground birds and waterbirds, rabbits and other small mammals, reptiles, frogs and fish. During the Winter months harriers feed to a large extent on carrion, including roadkill.

This species nests on the ground, often in swamps, on a mound in reeds or other dense vegetation. The clutch size may range from 2 to 7, but is usually 3 or 4. The incubation period is about 33 days, with chicks fledging about 45 days after hatching. (Wikipedia)

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Yellow-crowned Parakeet

March 8, 2012 by Ian

Yellow-crowned Parakeet (Cyanoramphus auriceps) by Ian 1

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Yellow-crowned Parakeet ~ by Ian Montgomery

Newsletter ~ 3/8/12

Last December, the Red-crowned Parakeet was the bird of the week http://www.birdway.com.au/psittacidae/red_crowned_parakeet/index.htm . That was photographed on Enderby Island in the Auckland Islands one of the New Zealand Sub-Antarctic islands. Here is a close relative the Yellow-crowned Parakeet photographed on the same trip in Fiordland on the South Island. I’ve chosen it for this week’s bird, as I’m going to Norfolk Island tomorrow and I need your moral and spiritual support to help me photograph the endangered Norfolk Island or Tasman Parakeet.

In Fiordland, I camped at Cascade Creek camping site because it’s within striking distance of Milford Sound for the Fiordland Penguin and also because it’s right beside a nature trail through Antarctic Beech forest to Lake Gunn. This particular trail had been recommended as a good site for various native birds including the Yellow-crowned Parakeet. I found the Parakeets with relative ease as they chatter away when feeding or in flight. In the first photo, the bird is perched in a beech tree, and you can see its lovely, serrated, spoon-shaped leaves.

Yellow-crowned Parakeet (Cyanoramphus auriceps) by Ian 2

With a length of 23-25cm/9-10in, they’re smaller than the Red-crowned but otherwise very similar, apart from the colour of the crown and the lack of red behind the eye. In sunlight, the colours stand out well, as in the second photo, but in the shady areas of the forest they are well camouflaged and the presence of faded yellow leaves in both photos show well how the patches of colour in the plumage help to break up the outline of the bird.

Yellow-crowned Parakeet (Cyanoramphus auriceps) by Ian 3

The third photo shows another bird in a patch of sunlight on a very mossy tree stump. It’s a delightful forest, very Lord of the Rings, and it was easy to imagine encountering Treebeard along the way. It’s no wonder that the movie was filmed in New Zealand, and Tevora Lakes – not too far from here – was the location for Fangorn Forest, and you will, of course, remember that ‘Fangorn’ was the Sindarin for Treebeard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treebeard .

Yellow-crowned Parakeet (Cyanoramphus auriceps) by Ian Middle Earth

http://www.virtualoceania.net/newzealand/culture/lotr/Anyway, I’m wandering. The Norfolk Island trip is being organised by the same birders from Victoria that were my companions on the Sub-Antarctic trip. I’d originally turned down the invitation to join them on the grounds of extravagance so shortly after the other trip. We had such fun together, however, that I changed my mind, particular when their flights were re-routed through Brisbane, an easy, if horribly early, connection away from Townsville.

The Tasman/Norfolk Island Parakeet looks similar to the Red-crowned but yet smaller (21-26cm/8.3-10.2in). Like all the 10 members of this South Pacific genus (Cyanorhamphus – ‘blue bill’) it has suffered from the introduction of mammalian predators by Europeans, is classified as endangered and is restricted in distribution to the Norfolk Island National Park. Its numbers have increased recently from a dangerous low as a result of conservation efforts. There is talk of reintroducing it to Phillip Island, a small predator-freed island off Norfolk, and to Lord Howe, where a similar parakeet became extinct. It is thought to belong to the same species, hence the name Tasman Parakeet. So, wish me luck, keep your fingers crossed and transmit the same spiritual energy that is has been so successful before, and I’ll try to bring you the Tasman Parakeet as a future bird of the week.

Best wishes

Ian

—
Ian Montgomery, Birdway Pty Ltd,
454 Forestry Road, Bluewater, Qld 4818
Preferred Email: ian@birdway.com.au
Website: http://www.birdway.com.au/index.php

Lee’s Addition:

Our prayers will go with you for safety and that you might find your next “Bird of the Week.” We like following your adventures into the wilds. Must be nice to have so many parakeets and parrots around.

Check out Ian’s many members of the Parrots and Allies – Psittacidae Family photos. He has quite a collection of them. He has almost 50 species there. There are 350 total members in the Parrot family. Ian has a few more trips to take. When he mentioned “in the shady areas of the forest they are well camouflaged and the presence of faded yellow leaves,” it reminds me of how well their creator provided for their protection.

There will be a shelter to give shade from the heat by day, and refuge and protection from the storm and the rain. (Isaiah 4:6 NASB)

More – Bird of the Week articles

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Kea

January 26, 2012 by Ian

Kea (Nestor notabilis) by Ian #1

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

Newsletter ~ 1/26/12

If you park near the entrance to the Homer Tunnel on the way to Milford Sound in Fiordland on the South Island of New Zealand, you are likely to be approached by one of these interesting-looking parrots.

‘Friendly-looking chap’, you might think, ‘I wonder what he’s after? Just saying Hello? Some food maybe?’. Wrong. This one, the Kea, has a one-track mind, and is only interested in destruction, or more specifically dismantling your vehicle.

Kea (Nestor notabilis) by Ian #2

Quick as a flash, it and his pals will check it out for weak spots and set to work – this one with yellow cere, lower mandible and eye-ring is a juvenile delinquent (yes, that’s snow in the background, these are tough birds). Let’s see if we can rip the roof off.

Kea (Nestor notabilis) by Ian #3

Oh well, the roof was stronger than it looked. How about the braking light above the back door, this has some promising cracks.

Kea (Nestor notabilis) by Ian #4

Meanwhile, this hardened criminal (this is an adult bird) has learnt that the rubber is more vulnerable and attacks the lining of the front door.

Kea (Nestor notabilis) by Ian #5

And don’t think you can get rid of us by just driving off. We’ll hang on grimly until we get blown off by the breeze.

Kea (Nestor notabilis) by Ian #6

Keas have the reputation of being playful, but the intensity and obsessiveness of their attacks looked anything like a game to me and more like a compulsion. In fact, their attacks did no noticeable damage even though I parked the camper there for some time so that I could look for the Rock Wrens (Bird of the Week #438). According to my field guide ‘the worst offending birds are caught and transferred to distant sites or taken into captivity’. Sounds familiar.

At one time, Keas were supposed to kill sheep, and the resulting bounty led to their persecution and decline. They have been fully protected since 1986 and the population is recovering.

Keas are quite large birds, 46cm/18in in length and weighting up to 1Kg/2.2lbs. They and their relatives the Kaka and the Kakapo comprise a taxonomically distinct lineage of New Zealand parrots not closely related to any others and usually placed either in their own family (IOC) or sub-family (Birdlife International). While the flightless Kakapo is critically endangered and the subject of an intensive rescue mission http://www.kakaporecovery.org.nz/ , the Kea is quite common in Alpine areas of the South Island and the Kaka occurs in the forests of both islands, though I failed to find it on this trip. It’s good to leave something for the next visit.

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
Website: http://birdway.com.au

Lee’s Addition:

Sounds like you might want to keep an eye on your personal property around those birds! It is amazing how much the birds vary in their habits and diets. Every time Ian writes about his encounters with the various birds, it’s always different and interesting. Keep up the great birding, Ian, we enjoy your encounters with our avian friends around the world.

I know all the birds of the mountains, And the wild beasts of the field are Mine. (Psalms 50:11 NKJV)

See Ian’s Cockatoos & Allies and his Parrots & Allies, which are part of the Strigopidae Family. Those parrots along with the Cockatoos – Cacatuidae and Parrots – Psittacidae Families make up the Psittaciformes Order.

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Paradise Shelduck

January 18, 2012 by Ian

Paradise Shelduck (Tadorna variegata) by Ian 1

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Paradise Shelduck ~ by Ian Montgomery

Newsletter – 1/16/12

Shelducks are all rather splendid, so this one has to be particularly fine to earn the moniker ‘Paradise’. Interestingly, it is the white-headed female that is, I think, the more striking as in the first photo of a female having a drink (of salt water!) at Milford Sound.

Paradise Shelduck (Tadorna variegata) by Ian 2

The second photo shows the same bird stretching her wing to show us the gorgeous emerald green secondary flight feathers. Like all Shelducks, these are large ducks, averaging 63cm/25in in length and the males, averaging 1,700g/3.7lbs, are larger than the females, 1,400g/3.1lbs.

Paradise Shelduck (Tadorna variegata) by Ian 3

Meanwhile her mate, who has a dark brown head and finely patterned wing coverts, decides it’s time to go for a swim.

The males have the same black, emerald green and white wing pattern as the female as shown by this male flying along a river in the Waitaki Valley.

Paradise Shelduck (Tadorna variegata) by Ian 4

Unlike most other avian species where the female is more colourful, such as Buttonquails and Cassowaries, here there is no switching of gender roles: the female incubates the eggs while the male vigorously defends the territory from predators. Paradise Shelducks maintain pair bonds from one year to the next returning to the same territory. They are partial to both high country riverbeds and farmland and the population has benefitted from the clearing of land for pasture since European settlement.

The Paradise Shelduck is a New Zealand endemic, though a flock of 5 spent arrived on Lord Howe Island in March 1950 and remained for over a month so it is included in the official Australian list.

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
Website: http://birdway.com.au

Lee’s Addition:

What a neat looking bird. Both the male and the female have such a clean look about them. Shelducks are part of the Anatidae – Ducks, Geese, and Swans Family. They are all in the Tadorna Genus which includes 6 Shelducks. We do not have Shelducks established here in the U.S.

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 ESV)

See Ian’s Shelducks on his Birdway website.

Lee's Birdwatching Adventures Plus

Birdwatching from a Christian Perspective

Tag Archives: New Zealand

Truly Strange Bird – Creation Moments

A Truly Strange Bird

Now That’s A Parrot – Squawkzilla

Meet ‘Squawkzilla,’ the massive prehistoric parrot scientists say terrorized other birds

Save The Parrots

Ian’s Bird of the Week – New Zealand Pipit

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Crimson Rosella

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Tomtit

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Snares Penguin

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

Bird of the Week – New Zealand Pigeon

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Swamp Harrier

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Yellow-crowned Parakeet

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Kea

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Paradise Shelduck

A Truly Strange Bird

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Meet ‘Squawkzilla,’ the massive prehistoric parrot scientists say terrorized other birds

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