Bogey no more!

Today marks a pretty amazing day for me. I've been looking forward to birding this week because the forecasters promised sunshine. I drove home from work this morning, sun shining all the way, only to get home and have it be overcast. Call it what you will, fate, a birder's instinct, perhaps insanity, I went birding anyway. 

Altona CSR Landcare Reserve: 

In some ways, I'm lucky to still be at a point with my birding where visiting local patches still occasionally gives me lifers. My first highlight I came across as my eyes passed over the vegetation on one side of the walking trail. I wasn't looking for anything, in fact I was turning my gaze to see a bird on the other side. But a shape caught my eye, a shape in the dark circle of a hollow. I knew instantly what it was, an Australian Owlet-nightjar, not my bogey, but I was ecstatic. I have often heard these birds, but have never before seen one. Turns out they're a little bigger than I expected. I took my time approaching the hollow, which was just above head height. The bird retreated a little way in but was still visible (likely the hollow didn't go any deeper). I made sure to stay behind the trunk of a small tree, even though it didn't block me from view, it would still be an obvious physical barrier between the bird and I. I had to put the camera on live view mode and lift it above my head to get the image, so I'm pretty pleased with it. 

Australian Owlet-nightjar

After a couple of snaps, I went to leave the bird, I turned around to walk away and as soon as I did so the bird flushed from the hollow. I feel awful about it because I had tried so hard not to flush it, not really knowing if nightjars were prone to flushing from their hollows. It didn't fly far and perched amongst the leaves of a nearby tree, so I left in the opposite direction to ensure I didn't flush it again. 

My next highlight was a Black-shouldered Kite. Common, and frequently seen while driving, but I've never been so close to one (despite the height difference) and one has never sat around for a photo before. I came to realise that this was because it had a mouse in its talons. Even when it was swooped by a Kookaburra, the kite still stuck around for some photos, at a steep angle, against the light, with an overcast sky behind it. Perfect conditions for photographing white birds... 

Black-shouldered Kite with prey

So we come to the star of the show. I had decided on this day to walk every loop trail in the park, often I only walk 1 or 2, but this time I thought bugger it, and walked all three. There's that birder's intuition again. No more than 50 meters along the 3rd and final loop I see movement to my left. A whistler-sized bird with its back to me in the fork of a eucalypt, "cool" I think, haven't got a whistler on today's list yet. A moment later, the bird turned its head and the vibrant white facial markings were an instant give-away. Crested Shrike-tit, my bogey bird. On the inside, I screamed and jumped up and down. On the outside, that behaviour scares away birds so I whispered "oh my gosh" while I fumbled with my camera. I somehow managed to take a photo, only for it to be of the fork of a eucalypt and nothing else. You would need Superman's x-ray vision to be able to see the bird that had moved around to the far side of the branch. 

Fortunately, the bird decided that a tasty meal was to be had below the eucalypt so it re-emerged a moment later. Having never encountered them before, I was unsure of the comfort zone of this species, so I approached cautiously at first. The bird seemed quite at ease so I approached until I was no more than 10m away while he continued to forage in front of me. And I must say, wow, what a spectacular looking bird. He made some of the soft "chucking" calls that I've heard so much about (and listened to online on many occasions) and a second bird responded from nearby. I'm not surprised that I haven't heard these calls up until now, they're quite soft and seem to serve mainly (or only?) as a means of contact with nearby birds. He got to forage, I got to gawk. He posed nicely on some exposed branches of a golden wattle, I took some pictures. While I would have liked to have had some sunlight for my photos, I think I'll take the fact that the bird was at chest height over sunlight, as I'm aware that these are often very much birds of the higher branches and canopy. I didn't manage to see the other bird. The whole experience lasted about 4 minutes, before he dived into a kangaroo thorn and emerged from the other side never to be seen again. How a vibrant bird like that manages to disappear so easily, I'll never know. 

Male Crested Shrike-tit

So it ended up being a very productive day and I snagged 42 species of birds at the reserve with two new lifers in one, which made me pretty pleased. Not to mention catching up with the bird that I've been trying so hard to find for so long. No longer a myth, and now I know where to start my search for them next time I visit.

Beautiful Boolcoomatta

Over the Easter long weekend this year, I had the fortunate opportunity to travel to Boolcoomatta with the Field Naturalists Society of SA. 100km West of Broken Hill, it's a beautiful undulating landscape with mallee, broad red-gum lined creek lines, sand dunes and vast chenopod plains. The place was absolutely stunning, having been de-stocked for 6 years and after receiving some good rains. Needless to say, it's beautiful and I love it.

Aside from the mammals and reptiles that I hoped to glimpse from our trapping efforts, I was there for the birds. Raptors were abundant, which speaks wonders for the health of the system if there's enough food to go around. My priorities were Major Mitchell's Cockatoo, Cinnamon Quail-thrush, any Chat species, Cockatiels, and Budgies. Mammal-wise, I was hoping to see a red kangaroo or two.

As it turns out, kangaroos of several varieties were abundant. We saw reds every day, multiple times a day, western greys, and even a few euros. The reds looked majestic against the landscape with their ochre and grey coats, and we saw a magnificent male on the second to last day that was by far the biggest roo I have ever seen in my life.

Red Kangaroos 

Big male and a female barely half his size

Over the course of the 6 days, I was repeatedly alerted to birds by my friend calling out "Look, budgies!" Time and time again, I failed to see them, or only saw a flock of tiny blurs flying away that were too quick for me to make a definite call on. At long last, on the 5th day, I saw them... well, one of them. A lone budgie flew by and perched in a nearby tree where we were able to get a closer look. I was ecstatic. It made my trip seem more complete after having seen Cockatiels the day before.

Male Cockatiel

My first and only Budgerigar

In regards to other bird species that I wanted to see, I dipped out on Major Mitchell's Cockatoo and Cinnamon Quail-thrush. However, I saw several others instead. I managed to see Blue Bonnets, which I was alerted to by their call, and Rufous Fieldwren, which my friend and I spent a long time stalking just to locate from call so that we could get some distant glimpses. Little Crow, White-winged Fairy-wren and abundant Chirruping Wedgebills made up some more new species for me.

Chirruping Wedgebills

After many glimpses of possible birds, I finally added Orange Chat to the list in the form of a female bird. I thought I glimpsed White-fronted Chat at one point, but was hesitant to call it. A close encounter with a Mulga Snake occured on Day 4, much to the dismay of the herpetologists as it was the only snake encountered for the whole trip. But they got their own back at us when they saw a Plains Wanderer.

While Diamond Doves, Black-tailed Native Hen, and Pallid Cuckoo rounded off a nice set of 11 new birds for me for the trip, I couldn't go past a close encounter that my friend and I had with a Wedge-tailed Eagle. We'd driven out to the Western end of the property and climbed a rocky hill to admire the view where we were looking at a Bearded Dragon that was sunning itself. My friend pointed to the sky and I looked up to see a golden brown Wedge-tailed Eagle soaring in towards us. The eagle just got closer and closer until it was right above our heads, we could see the light in its eyes, the fluttering and detail of every feather yet there was no sound and it was simply an amazing moment.

After being satisfied with whatever it found out about us, the eagle soared back the way it had come to join two others. A moment later, one of the eagles split off from the group in a dive towards the ground and we saw a female red kangaroo and her joey racing away. The eagle took a pass at the joey but nothing came of it.

All up, we saw seven raptor species; Wedge-tailed Eagle, Nankeen Kestrel, Black-shouldered Kite, Whistling Kite, Black Kite, Brown Falcon and Spotted Harrier. We also heard Southern Boobook and Spotted Nightjar (a call that I have been wanting to hear for years). Emus were abundant almost to excess, as were Little Corellas and Galahs. The homestead was a flurry of bird activity with ducks and grebes on the dam, Yellow-throated miners nesting and families of Apostlebirds, and we saw Zebra Finches and fairy-wrens almost everywhere we went. We also saw rabbits, cats and fox tracks everywhere we went too. My friend even captured an image of a feral cat peering into a pitfall bucket, twice.

In total, 58 birds species, 11 newbies for me, and an abundance of enjoyment and "wow" moments. I love the arid zone, it seems harsh, but it's teaming with life and I can't wait to go back.

 Part of the homestead (airstrip in background)

Little Corella

Highlights from the USA

Since I'm a bit behind here, it's time to play catch-up! I thought I would just post some images from the remaining time I spent in Florida. Most are shore birds as they were pretty easy to photograph on Captiva Island, as opposed to warblers and other birds which I constantly struggled with.

Big pluses were definitely the Hooded Mergansers, which I managed to see many of on several different occasions, and getting to see and photograph Black Skimmers, which although very unusual looking are quite an incredible bird. Getting a decent photo of the Black-bellied Whistling Duck was also an achievement as I'd been hoping for quite some time to find them in a location were I could photograph them.

By far the most exciting though was the Burrowing Owls, I have wanted to see these birds for years and I finally got the chance to see them. We checked out the recommended spots for them on our way to Captiva, but without any luck. We checked the same haunts again on the way home, the first yielded no birds but the second site gave us a few sightings, and despite little to no light and crappy photos, I'm pleased as punch about having seen those delightful little owls.

Onto the images:

Hooded Merganser (male)

Black-bellied Whistling Duck

Red-shouldered Hawk

Bottlenose Dolphin taken from a cruise

Royal Tern

Great Blue Heron

Bald Eagle (3rd year bird)

Interestingly I saw a 4th year bird use the same small copse of trees on a following day.

Sanderling (The Red-necked Stint of Florida)

Ring-billed Gull

Ring-billed Gull

Brown Pelican preparing to dive for fish

Black Skimmer

Sandwich Tern

Willet

Burrowing Owls (a terrible photo but still burrowing owls!)

Big bird, small feeder...

In October and into early November, we have had frequent visits from two seperate groups of Sandhill Cranes, a pair and a group of three. The first pair were obviously old pros at bird feeders and soon found the ones in the garden. It took only two visits from these magnificent birds for them to clean out the small feeder you see in the photo.

My apologies for the poor image quality, it was taken through a dirty window. Any time I would go outside to photograph them eating from the feeder, they would walk away from it. I however did find it somewhat hysterical to see a bird of their sheer size eating from a feeder designed for small songbirds etc.

Birding in the U.S.A

Well it's about time that I got around to writing up something here for people to read. I've been meaning to, I'm just so far behind that it's hard to get the motivation or know where to begin. So this is more just an overview of what I've been seeing since I arrived at the end of July.

Northern Cardinal (male)

Since I got to the states, I've seen 34 new species of birds. Which seems like a big acheivement, but it's mostly because I really haven't seen that many different birds yet. Most of what I see is the regulars around the woods and lakes that I commonly walk by once or twice a week from the house (if I'm motivated enough to get out of bed early). Many of these common species are quite challenging such as the Belted Kingfisher which is very shy and will fly away at the first hint of your approach, so there's been no close encounters with them. I'm still trying to get decent images of all the woodpecker species, though I have managed a decent image of a female Downy Woodpecker.

Downy Woodpecker (female)

In the past couple of weeks, we have been having frequent visits to the house by two small groups of Sandhill Cranes, at first it was the same pair visiting every day, and they would stand and eat the seed from the bird feeder which is conveniently located at head height for them. It's quite a sight to see such a large bird feeding from a feeder designed to accomodate small passerines.

Sandhill Crane

We often see Osprey soaring above the lake behind the house, and I have on one occasion seen an immature Bald Eagle circling in the distance. Most often you see Black, or Turkey Vultures or the resident Red-shouldered Hawks. I see the hawks often, once an adult feeding on a snake, and another time, two immature birds which I would hazard a guess belong to the resident adult pair.

Red-shouldered Hawk (immature)

Red-shouldered Hawk (adult)

I've seen quite a few new beach and wading birds as we've been on day trips to Sanibel Island and Anna-Maria Island so I saw some new terns, wading birds and several Magnificent Frigatebirds. A recent walk with a local 'bird man' who runs monthly bird watching trips enabled me to see some more species as well, including Wood Duck and Black-crowned Night Heron which were spotted by other people on the walk and I was able to confirm the ID from what I saw. There is another walk this month at a coastal reserve, so that should certainly yeild some more birds.

Willet

Since it's autumn and the weather is cooling down, there are also a lot of migrating birds passing through Florida, so I've seen a few warblers and other birds that are seasonal residents or just passing through. It makes it interesting because warblers often have a lot of different plumage stages and can be tricky to ID, along with being small and quick. So everything is a learning curve.

Palm Warbler (winter plumage)

Other wildlife that I've seen includes frogs, turtles (including a slider that we saved from being run over because it was too slow crossing the road!), alligators, wild pigs, snakes, marsh rabbits and as usual, a plethora of squirrels. Here's hoping to many more.

Florida Marsh Rabbit

Laratinga Wetlands

On the 20th of Feb (I know, I'm a bit behind) I made my way down to Laratinga Wetlands at Mt Barker, it was a bit of a trip, and perhaps not the best timing for it, arriving a day after decent rains, but it was still worth the trip. I think because it's been a wetter summer, that there was perhaps less species than what I would have seen if there had been less water elsewhere, but that could all just be in my head too.

Mt Barker city council has a nice website for the wetlands if you're interested. The site is located here. The most interesting aspect of the site, if only from a birding perspective is the link to a birdpedia article by Bob Snell regarding the occurance of bird species at the wetlands between 2000 and 2006. You can find that article here.

Needless to say, after looking at the frequently occuring species, I had my hopes set pretty high for some lifers. I was most dissapointed by the ducks, I was hoping to see Hardhead, Australasian shoveler and then the Hoary-headed grebe (not a duck, I know :P) yet didn't see any of them. As I said earlier, something I put down to having a wetter summer than usual. Still, I was pretty pleased to have such good views of plenty of Australasian grebes, a bird which although I've seen before, I've never seen in such close proximaity. Their colours, though subtle are

stunning. Though for some reason, I didn't stop to try and take a decent photo of them, I think the abundance of walkers was slightly off-putting. I'm not used to seeing people around when I'm walking and photographing birds.

The most noticeable bird when I arrived was a small flock of some large mallard-esque ducks which seemed intent on swimming around the edge of one of the ponds, following a lady walking on the path. I stopped and had a chat to her when the ducks finally climbed out of the water and walked up to her. Turns out she feeds them on a regular basis and they recognise her. I'm not sure what the hyrbid was, but they were certainly an imposing group of birds as they waddled heavily by me. This female paused long enough for a photo.

The abundance of Superb fairy-wrens was the next thing I noticed, they were very people-friendly, as far as wild fairy-wrens go, but I still struggled to get decent photos. A male chose a nice perch for preening, but the angle was a bit steep for any typical perched pose. Further up the track, 2 males in full plumage dashed out in front of me, before having a standoff in the leaf litter, hopping to and fro and calling. I tried to find a position that would make a good photo, but true to form they ducked behind twigs and kept moving to avoid the stare of my lens. I didn't thank them! =P

Wandering around the wetlands, there were plentiful Pacific black ducks, dusky moorhens, and purple swamphens (which surprised me as they were another species that I had never seen before). I was at first confused by some large, dark birds swimming through the water, they didn't seem to really fit, but it soon became obvious that they were immature purple swamphens. The purple swamphens themselves were absolutely beautiful birds, larger than I expected and with vibrant blue-purple feathers and a brilliant bright red cap and beak. They were numerous and quite confiding and I was able to spend a good deal of time photographing a number of them.

Throughout my walk a kept hearing a sweet bell-like call repeated, which was really hard to pinpoint the location of. It turned out to be the call of the little grassbird. I was frustrated because I heard the call numerous times but never managed to see one. It wasn't until the end of my walk, that I noticed two birds fluffed up in the reeds and displaying to each other, I took numerous blurry photos through the reeds, but it was enough to identify them as little grassbirds, which was fantastic, as they had been one of my target species at the wetlands. The other species I was intent on seeing was the Australian reed-warbler. Sure enough, I saw them, however they were elusive, swift moving and wouldn't perch on a nice open spot for a photo (I can dream). Still, I saw them and it was certainly interesting, they were curious towards me but also shy to not have something between themselves and me. At one point I was standing on a boardwalk watching one bird when I noticed movement closer down. Right on the edge of the boardwalk between a dark gap in the reeds I could see a little face peering through the gap at me, very inquisitive but hesitant to be any more in the open.

There weren't too many other photo ops to be had, as it grew later, a large flock of welcome swallows was hawking over and in the water for food and would perch on the reeds in the middle of one of the ponds to rest. I saw black-faced cuckoo shrike, common bronzewing, grey-shrike thrush, striated pardalote, white ibis,

white-faced heron, magpie, magpie-lark and new holland honeyeaters just to name a few. So all in all, it was quite a successful walk and I enjoyed it. It was a little strange having so many people walking around while I was photographing birds, but no-one seemed to care too much, they're probably used to it there. I think there was a jogger who passed me 4 times before I'd walked 100m at one point, haha. But still, a great water bird location and I must head back there sometime.

Mt Crawford Forest Reserve

After much frustration, trial and error, success followed by failure, I've finally figured out the text wrap for around the images on this blog! =P Blogging will be much quicker from now on. Onto the good stuff...

I began my walk just before 9 this morning and stepping out of the car I was greeted with the sounds of white-throated treecreepers, sulphur crested cockatoos, grey fantails and crescent honeyeaters. A lovely mix ;)

The walk was perhaps not the best choice of location, as the first section of trail had me walking into the morning sun, so there wasn't much photography to be had and it was hard to see the birds. But there were plenty around and mistletoebirds, buff-rumped thornbills and striated pardalotes were all joining in the chorus. I spied a female golden whistler, silent and perched in the shadows, but I took her picture anyway. =)

 There was plenty of insect life about, with dragonflies hovering all over the place. Moving on, in a nice stand of eucalypts were a small flock of striated thornbills, and a pair of eastern spinebills, nectaring on the mistletoe which was on the tree. The cresecent honeyeaters had their work cut out for them, chasing away the eastern spinebill pair whenever they invaded too much onto their favourite patch.

The sound of a group of laughing kookaburras cut through the air as I continued my walk, and I paused to listen to them, wondering what it was that would have set them off, a pesky currawong perhaps? A white-throated treecreeper then took it upon itself to fly down close to me to have a peek, it chose the shadiest branch on the tree, but nevermind, I still managed a dark image which I can still share as a record. I have a fondness for the species as it was the first species of treecreeper that I ever saw.

A little up the track I was hearing superb fairy-wrens, but not seeing any. I came across a fantastic yellow dragonfly, probably an Austrogomphus with the species maybe being guerini, but I'm no expert =P It was a great looking dragonfly though.

I spent quite some time snapping away, to get a good focus on the little guy and what you see is what I ended up with. There were also plenty of butterflies around, which was great to see, most of them were common browns: Heteronympha merope, maybe common, but they're still beautiful.

The next species to grace me with its presence was a female crescent honeyeater, I was watching her for some time perching on a broken off branch of a eucalypt and and hovering to pluck insects from the bark. She then came down into a small shrub in front of me, which was (as seemed to be the theme of the day) deep in shadows. Still, I tried with what settings I had to grab a couple of shots, which didn't turn out great, but make a nice record. I do wonder why however, that it's always the females that approach me, and I hardly ever get near the males whose colours are more striking.

Shortly afterwards, I came across a small family of scarlet robins, both mum and dad were on feeding duty, but I couldn't quite determine if there was more than one youngster, it kept flying all around the place and I kept losing it in the scrub, but I think there was only one, only one appeared when the dad caught a nice tasty snack ;) I managed to snap a couple of photos of the youngster and dad together, but missed the action when he actually fed his youngin'. I then had a chance for a

great set up, dad was using a few obvious perches and I took my time and set myself up for a decent shot from a couple of them. I thought I had the settings right, dad landed and I fired off a series of shots. I overexposed quite a lot and ended up with hot whites on the branch and on his frons, but I managed to recover the image somewhat and you can see it below. It came out alright, but I'm mad at myself for having missed something easy that I was supposed to be ready for. But I guess that's all part of the learning curve.

That about sums up the walk I think, after my encounter with the robins I headed back for home, the only new things I encountered on my way back being a flock of white-winged choughs, but they spooked easily and a pair of emus, just going about their buisness. I also spied a male mistletoe bird that I heard on the way in for my walk but hadn't seen. He didn't stick around long though. So all up, not a hugely succesful day photography-wise, but always a lot of fun with plenty of birds to appreciate, and that's what it's all about.

Till next time, happy birding.