Close Encounters of the Bird Kind: Bird Whisperer part II

Not long ago I wrote about the swallow that found its way into the office at work. Today I had another close encounter after I heard a solid thump on the office window.

Outside on the ground was a very docile little bird that looked slightly like a small silvereye without the white rimmed eye. It willingly stepped onto my hand and I was able to move it to a safer position on the low branch of a tree.

I was so caught up in the moment that I missed the chance of noting the details that would help me make a positive identification. It was one of those times when a camera would have been helpful. Maybe I’m the only one here at work without a camera now that almost every mobile phone comes equipped with one.

Relying on memory I turned to the birds in backyards website and came up with a tentative identification. http://birdsinbackyards.net/species/Eopsaltria-australis

However, for confirmation I went back outside hoping to see the bird still sitting on the branch where I’d left it. It was there, but before I could have a good look, it flew away.
While disappointed that I couldn’t confirm what it was, I was pleased to see it had recovered from its accident, even if it didn’t recognise its rescuer and didn’t fly to my shoulder to express its thanks.

Just call me the bird whisperer!

A bit of excitement in the office this morning, a swallow made its way through a series of doors and entered the office. It flew around for several minutes, avoiding all attempts to guide it back the way it came. Eventually I was able to corner it near a window and use my jacket as a net. I took it outside and released it.

My office is attached to a large workshop building. Swallows nest and roost up near the roof. The workshop is closed up each evening and the creaking of the large roller doors alerts the swallows that its time to return. The closing of the doors is always accompanied by a squadron of returning birds, swooping between the bottom of the door and the floor. Likewise, each morning when the doors are opened, the birds will leave their roosting site and swoop out for the day.

All is not lost if the doors close before they get through. There is a gap at the corner of the door where it doesn’t quite meet the floor. Any late birds land on the ground, scurry through and fly off again.

SUPERB! A tree full of parrots.

I walked out of my office at work and was greeted by a tree full of Superb Parrots, their vivid colours enhanced in full sun.
They aren’t a common bird but my local area is one of their few remaining preferred habitats.

It’s only the second time I’ve seen any in the wild. My first sighting was of a pair visiting the bottom of my garden a couple of years ago.

Unfortunately I didn’t have a camera. I think they would have made an impressive photographic subject. However, since I couldn’t take a photo today, here’s one I prepared earlier.

Garden Habitat Again

My previous post mentioned the various creatures that make their home in or near my garden. I now have some recent photos of some of them.

The blue wrens seem to nest in some dense bushes in my neighbour’s yard but they spend a lot of time in my garden. The male bird tends to be a lot more timid than the female. I guess this is because his bright colouring makes him more noticeable and vulnerable to predators. The female (and her young) think nothing of coming within a couple of metres of me when I’m working outside.

I have seen a book listing 100 birds you must see before you die. The list includes all kinds of exotic birds from around the world. This particular wren is listed among that 100 and it is very satisfying to know we have a family of them that call our backyard home.


Not quite as pleasing to the eye is this creature. I’m not sure whether it is a frog or a toad. It would be a little bigger than my closed fist. It likes the area around my veggie garden because of the regular watering.

I took these photos yesterday. I was picking beans and when I heard something hit the ground I thought I had dropped some, but it was the frog/toad moving around near my feet. Hopefully he is earning his keep by eating some of the less welcome residents of my veggie patch.

Garden as Wildlife Habitat

How many of us recognise that our gardens provide habitat for a variety of critters?

I know mine often gives a home to all manner of bugs, slugs and caterpillars that are hopefully grateful for the feast provided for them in my veggie patch. They must feel more at home than they should – at least until I bring out the white oil, derris dust and other safe means of deterring their presence.

How easy it would be to resort to more lethally effective means of ridding the garden of these pests. But then, an indiscriminate nuking of the garden would also rid the place of those living things I want to encourage, such as bird life, lady beetles and of course the essential bees.

To an extent those pests provide an attraction to some of the life I want in my garden. Where would the ladybirds be without an occasional outbreak of aphids?

Years ago I worked for a man who had created an amazing little ecosystem in his garden – all by providing a seed tray to feed small birds. This is how it worked:

The birds came for the seed and scattered some across the ground below the tray. The fallen seed started to attract mice at night, which in turn managed to attract the attention of a local owl that started perching near by waiting for a nightly snack.

Personally I prefer not to provide things like seed trays. Instead I’m trying to provide native plants to provide a more natural source of food for visiting birds. If I tried my former employer’s approach I suspect it would result in the attraction of snakes rather than owls to take advantage of the mice.

While I have not seen any owls being attracted to my garden, I have a list of almost 30 birds that I’ve seen visiting or flying in close proximity to my home. While I can’t claim that my garden had anything to do with the presence of a pelican flying past, there must have been something to attract most of the other species on my list: from the ducks and hawks that have made rare visits to the more common honey eaters, parrots and the ever present blackbirds.

Visitors other than the bugs and birds have been less noticeable. Apart from an occasional neighbours pet we have mainly seen small lizards of various kinds, several frogs huddling in unlikely damp spots and twice I’ve come across a larger frog-like creature that may have a been a toad.

The Elusive Kookaburra

As I drove away from work yesterday I noticed a Kookaburra sitting on the perimeter fence. Its presence reminded me that I have not yet added a Kookaburra to the list of birds I’ve seen at home. It’s not that they are particularly rare. It’s not that there are none around – they can be heard quite often – but they are always somewhere else and not in plain sight.

Anyone who has heard this bird will not forget its laugh. It’s perhaps one of the western world’s most familiar bird calls, made famous by its inappropriate presence in almost every Tarzan or “African jungle” movie made by Hollywood. Inappropriate because it is native only to Australia.

The Kookaburra has a significant place in my family’s memory. Several years go when we still lived in Sydney, we took my parents to Lane Cove National Park for a picnic. As we sat eating we noticed a Kookaburra sitting in a nearby tree. After commenting on its presence we turned our attention to other matters. Almost immediately we were shaken by the sudden assault of flapping wings as the bird snatched my dad’s sandwich from between his hand and mouth, leaving a small cut on his lip.

Apart from providing a memorable incident, the bird had shown us its ability to swoop swiftly and silently upon its prey. By the time it applied the brakes (with the sudden flap of wings) the small targeted critter (or in our case the sandwich) would have no time to escape the bird’s claws.

The photo illustrating this post is one I took in Sydney at the Cumberland State Forest. They are not timid birds, as can be seen from how close I was able to get to take the picture. People who have Kookaburras regularly visiting their homes can often hand feed them with scraps of meat. But considering how elusive they seem to be near to my house I doubt I’ll every have that experience while we’re living here.

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more information on the Kookaburra can be found here:
Kookaburra

New Bird in Town

I don’t remember when I last added a new bird to my “garden list”. It may be more than a year. But this morning a new addition came along and stayed long enough to be identified.
My “garden list” is a record of the different types of birds that I have seen from my house and garden. They don’t need to be ON my property, as long as I see them FROM my property. The new bird was perched in my neighbour’s tortured willow.

It was a similar size to the regularly seen Red Wattle birds, but its colour seemed different. It was too far away to see detail so I picked up my camera and zoomed in. Unfortunately I still couldn’t see enough detail and in holding the camera close to the glass of the window my breath was fogging up the glass. I took a few photos, hoping that I’d get enough detail to help me identify the bird, but I wasn’t confident of getting a good enough shot.
Finally I did the sensible thing and swapped the camera for my binoculars, and that made the difference. It was definitely something new. The most dominant feature was its long, black curved beak which had a noticeable bump on the top – revealing it to be a noisy friarbird.

As my own attempts to photograph the bird failed so the photo featured below was found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noisy_Friarbird

Some may wonder why I initially opted for the camera rather than the more effective binoculars. In the past I have found that a good view of a bird doesn’t always guarantee that I will remember enough of its distinctive features to give me a positive identification. And when I’ve referred to my field guides there have been two or more similar birds all of which could have been the one I’d been observing. Having a photo, even one of poor quality, has often helped me to identify the bird I have seen.


more information about the bird can be found here:
http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/bird/112

Birds in the Garden & in the Bush

Quick quiz.
Which of the following photos was NOT taken in my backyard?




















It's quite obvious that the photo of the emu is the one not taken in my back yard. There wouldn't be many bird baths in the bush to attract so many Pied Currawong's to one place to drink/bathe.

I saw the emu alongside the road somehwere between Narrandera and Hay about a week ago. It was the first time I've had my camera nearby when I've seen an emu - and I was also lucky to see it in one of the few places where there was room to pull off the road.
There were a few more further along but they were too far away to get a decent photo and the road was too narrow to stop.

It's been a good week for close encounters with wildlife. On the trip home from Hay we almost ran over a fox, then yesterday on the way home from work there was a mob of Kangaroos in the roadside paddock just outside of the work's security gate.

Close Encounters of the Bird Kind

Since moving to the country over two years ago I’ve kept a record of the identifiable birds that I’ve seen from our house and garden. I’m quite impressed with the variety and surprised by some the visitors we’ve had.



In no particular order:

Pacific Black Duck – The dam at the nearby retirement village seems to be the attraction for ducks, and they are quite commonly seen flying overhead in pairs but it was a bit surprising to see them walking around our garden. I saw one pair in the back garden possibly a year ago; I’ve since seen another pair walking across the front.


Brown Goshawk – I caught a glimpse of a suspected small bird of prey emerging from the wonga wonga vine growing above our side fence. Several months later a group of birds chased a similar bird across the garden only a metre away from where I was standing. After checking the guidebook it seemed there were only two possibilities – a sparrowhawk or a brown goshawk. They were the only birds matching the size and the markings across the breast. The goshawk seemed to be the most likely candidate considering it seems more common in my area than the Sparrowhawk.

Masked Lapwing – I saw and identified these birds in the grounds of the nearby hospital as I was driving past. I quickly returned home and viewed them from the edge of my front garden to make them eligible for this list.

Crested Pigeon – These are some of our most common visitors and they’ve nested in a couple of our trees. Their “nest” is a small and flimsy looking platform built from small twigs and grasses. Its amazing how their eggs and young remain secure for long enough to hatch and reach maturity.
They are often heard flying around with their distinctive whirring sound and their courtship dance is quite entertaining as is their clumsiness on landing.

Galah – These often roost in trees near the retirement village. Clouds of them swoop overhead throughout the day. They bring to mind the flocks of seagulls that were common when I lived near the coast.

Sulphur Crested Cockatoo – Usually heard before they are seen. Most of the time a solitary bird will fly over head and I can’t recall seeing any large groups.

Superb Parrot – We’ve had only one visit of these parrots. A group of three landed in our neighbours wattle and stayed long enough to have their photos taken.














Eastern Rosella – A pair are occasional/regular visitors.(see top of article)

Red Rumped Parrot – a small flock visited for a few days, inspecting the front and back lawns. But after those few days we haven’t seen them again.














Superb Fairy Wren – a constant visitor. So far this year we have one pair that appears to be nesting in bushes across the back fence. They spend a lot of time around our compost bins and in the veggie patch. The hen is particularly bold and often hops around within a metre or two of where I’m working. The male has also been seen investigating its own reflection in the back windows of our house.















Red Wattle Bird – one of my favourites that I grew familiar with in Sydney. I can recognise these from a distance now by the way they glide around and also by their raucous cry. They are regular visitors to our grevillea bushes.

White Plumed Honey Eater – This is the first new bird I saw from our property. I was lucky enough to get a clear enough photo to allow me to identify it from a guidebook. They have a very loud song for their size. Not long after we first moved in I found a baby on the ground and tried to pick it up and move it to the safety of some bushes. Its parents aggressively swooped at me trying to protect it. Unfortunately it struggled from my hands and slipped behind the fence. The parents and the chick were calling to each other for hours afterwards.
Just a few days ago I found another young one huddled against our front window. I picked it up and it was able to fly the short distance to a nearby melaleuca. Later I heard some adult birds calling from across the road. I suspect they are nesting in trees over there – and the young bird made an early attempt to fly, only managing a downhill journey to our place. It had only recently been fed because its crop was quite full.














European Goldfinch – only seen in the early days when the garden was still a bit neglected.

Australian Pelican – perhaps one of the biggest surprises considering there are no sizeable bodies of water around – but the continuing drought has sent many bird species out looking for more promising habitat as their natural homes dry up. Probably this bird was merely passing through and investigating the retirement village dam on the way. The dam at that time was well depleted and would have been no incentive for the pelican to stay.

Common Black Bird – Common IS the word. They are ever-present throughout our garden; scattering mulch everywhere and excavating the garden beds in search of worms. At times they almost uproot well-established roses as they dig all around. They are very annoying pests in the garden – but they try to compensate with their singing.

Silvereye - my first encounter with these birds was unexpected. I was watering the roses when a group of silvereyes swooped across and started darting from bush to bush less than a metre away from me. They showed no concern at all about my presence.


The list continues with the following:
Magpie Lark
Willie Wagtail
Blackfaced Cuckoo Shrike
Australian Magpie
Pied Currawong
House Sparrow
Welcome Swallow
Common Starling
White Ibis
Feral Pigeon
And an unidentified Heron

THE OBSERVATIONS OF A LAZY BIRDWATCHER

I'm now a little over halfway through Sean Dooley's book, "The Big Twitch"; his account of the year in which he set a new birdwatching record in Australia, by observing over 700 different bird species in a calendar year.

Inspired by his effort, yet feeling little of the obsession that saw him travel extensively around the nation, spending his inheritance in the process, I made an effort to note as many bird species as possible during my drive to work.

Firstly I was hindered by the weather. Wet.
Then the road was quite busy, and travelling along a narrow three lane, busy main highway doesn't leave much attention left over for bird watching. This is the quite disappointing tally:

1) Two adult and one juvenile Currawongs on the front lawn of Concord Hospital
2) Two Kookaburras sitting on electric wires (resist temptation to include childish rhyme about their pants being on fire)
3) Two more adult Currawongs in someone's front yard


Others not included in official tally due to poor viewing conditions.
1) A small group of flying parrots seen only in silhouette, but probably rainbow lorikeets
2) possible pigeon under the Victoria Road bridge.
3) Suspected Indian Mynah also under Victoria Rd bridge.
4) Several unidentified doves (or maybe one taking a short cut to keep ahead of me on the road - also sitting on power lines).

Maybe the drive home will be more productive.