birds

Doves for Christmas

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I knew I was blessed with many bird species here that are new to me, but I’d forgotten how exciting it is to meet them!

This pair were poking about amongst the palm litter.

They are Bar-shouldered Doves and they solve the mystery of the repetitive calls I keep hearing.

My book reckons they say ‘cook-a wook, cook-a-wook’, but Ive been hearing ‘potgorok potgorok’.

Don’t ask me why; local dialect?

My book says the Manning Valley, where I now am, is roughly their southern distribution limit, and they stretch north all round the top to the Kimberleys.

Now I truly feel like I’m in a different climatic zone.

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Then they moved into the sunlight, no doubt to show off those lairy pink legs.

Not turtle doves or partridges, but they’ll do me for a Christmas treat.

Stay safe, all.

Of birds… and an elephant

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I’m not allowed on my front verandah at present. Two sets of protective parents say so.

The Welcome Swallows have hatched a second set of babies in the original nest. I have spotted three sets of panting baby beaks so far.

Perhaps being second time parents on my verandah in one season has made them more relaxed around me.

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But the Willy Wagtails frantically circle and flit above me, chittering incessantly, even when I keep my distance or stand inside at my bedroom window to watch the babies. I wish they’d accept my assurances and spend more time feeding and watering the babies.

So I don’t go as close to take the photo as the Swallows permit.

I am feeling anxious myself for all the nestlings as the days heat up; 38 degrees on that verandah yesterday, and their parents have built the nests right up under the tin roof, which is lined but not insulated.

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Conversely, I have just spent a week in icy airconditioning. I’ve been in way-too-crowded Sydney with four bush and bird loving ladies: L to R, Sheena Gillman, Patricia Julien, me, Paola Cassoni and Lee Curtis. We were on the Bimblebox/Protect the Bush Alliance stand at the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) World Parks Congress.

This Congress has been 10 years in the planning. People have whispered to us that the IUCN would never have chosen Australia as the venue for this Congress had they known what our government would be like in 2014: anti-environment and anti-action on climate change. And stupidly pro-coal. There are about 2000 people here but apparently others had opted out in disgust. Everyone knew about the Reef. 

People were actually commiserating with us for having such an embarrassingly regressive prime minister. I offered to swap him several times but there were no takers.

For my part, I have been apologising to all for our coal fuelling their climate chaos pain. 

Unfortunately the IUCN did not acknowledge the current and threatened impacts from coal to our ‘protected’ places like the Reef and Bimblebox. We know Bimblebox is home to 154 bird species… and counting. Worth far more than a coal mine for Clive Palmer.

As the only stand that mentioned mining, we did our best to arouse the very large elephant in the Dome. We made sure overseas delegates knew that our governments put Coal before Conservation every time.

Greg Hunt gave a backpatting closing ceremony talk that made me want to throw up. Conservation starts at home, Mr Hunt.

Later a young Indigenous man dared to let the elephant roar in his speech: extractive industries must not be allowed to harm the Reef any further, any longer.

Melaleuca magic

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On my new place, in typical farm fashion, trees have mostly only been left around the edges, but in the middle of the bare creekflat there are three big trees.

The kookaburras like them as good vantage points from which to spot their lunch. I like them because I can watch them from my verandah — and hence all the drama that attends bird life, such as Willy Wagtails divebombing Kookas to stop them coming any closer to their nest.

But also because I just like trees.

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Now the two large and arching Melaleucas (stypheloides, I think) are a mass of blossoms: tiny white bottle brushes held in place with little green stars.

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Bees like them too.

I hope this means they will set many seeds to raise many more Melaleucas to plant. Imagine a creekflat of these beauties!

Our place

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I was used to sharing my old home with the wildlife. Here I am discovering that I mainly share with birds.

First there were the swallows nesting on the verandah.

Their babies left the nest soon after I came here but the whole family comes back to roost near it … and of course to decorate the decking below as well as verandah rafters.

The most noticeable bird here is the Willy Wagtail; a noisy exhibitionist who delights me with sashaying and twirling that seems irrepressible.

They flit everywhere, from rail to gutter, pecking the magpies on the head if they dare to walk across the grass in front of the verandah.

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Then I noticed a fresh patch of ‘decoration’ further along the verandah. No wonder they are so territorial; they are making a nest up there.

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There seem to be a few Willy Wagtails but no one bird is still for long. Then I was given a treat: the sight of a pair sitting together for at least two minutes!

The prospective parents?

I am happy sharing with little nesting birds instead of little marsupials who want to move inside closer than the verandah.  Willy Wagtails and Blue Wrens and certain honeyeaters are beautifully numerous, but so far no rosellas or other parrots.

Yet from afar I have seen waterbirds down in the creek: too far to properly identify, but I think a pair of Black Ducks, and some sort of long-legged wader, a heron? And I was surprised to catch a glimpse of lavish purply blue as a large-ish bird scuttled up into the shrubbery behind the house tank: a Swamp Hen!

I can’t wait to see what waterbirds come for longer stays when I have my billabong put in.

Creekside beauties

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There are many small birds here but they do NOT stay still for photos for me to share them with you. Swallows, Willy Wagtails, honeyeaters, finches… I will have to take to sitting outside and waiting, with camera poised. I think that’s called birdwatching.

Thankfully the flora here is slower moving.

Alongside the small creek is a narrow strip of beautiful remnant rainforest. Yes, there are too many weeds and invasive trees like Camphor Laurel, but looking up to admire one large indigenous tree, just look what I saw.

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When I returned to show friends, the orchid’s flowers had disappeared. So the flora may be slower than the birds, but I’ll have to be fast to catch their stages.

I’ve tried to identify this orchid, but I’m lost amongst the Dendrobiums; could it be Dendrobium monophyllum, also known as ‘Lily of the Valley’? The little finger petals seemed distinctive to me and closer to the drawings of this one than any other.

I have so much to learn about this new place and its inhabitants.

Winter birds

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A yellow Robin has appeared, flicking itself from one bush or tree or tree guard to another, more like a wind-blown leaf than a bird in flight.

It stays still in any one place for such a short time that it’s hard to get a photo of it. When it lands on the ground you only see its grey back. Usually I see one on its own but I have now spotted two at the same time, although you wouldn’t say they were together.

It appears not to have the grey throat of the illustration in my book, so although on its past seasonal visits I’ve called it a Southern Yellow Robin, now I’m not sure. Could it be a Pale Yellow Robin?

Then one time I heard it make a sound it sat on a small bare tree and went ’ ding, ding, ding, ding,ding, ding…’, non-stop, unvarying, sounding like my Thai temple bell in a stiff breeze.

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The magpies and the kookaburras are still about in abundance, although, like this kooka, they get in a huff at all the windy weather we’ve been having. I love the way to kookas go all punk and fluffily fat to keep warm.

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Of course the most envied critters here on cold wintry days are the pouched babies…

Rosey roosts

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The Crimson Rosellas are the main parrot here, but they aren’t always in as much evidence as they’ve been lately.

A group of five has been hanging about together, perching close by each other, if not all in the same tree. 

Three were quite enough for this young Red Cedar, especially as the recent shower was still weighing down its leaves. The others had to make do with the floppy vegie garden fence top.

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A few grey days later I spotted a group of birds silhouetted in the leafless Nashi tree. Hard to see just what sort of birds, but there were five…

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From a different aspect, with less contrasting backlighting, they were indeed the Rosella gang. I wonder where they’ll turn up next…

Taking turns

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As I rarely put bird seed in my makeshift feeder, the Crimson Rosellas just keep their eye on it.  As the weather gets colder, I notice the wallabies are eating plants they’d previously left alone when the growth of grass and preferred plants was lush. Feed is getting scarce.

This morning one Rosey landed on the empty feeder and looked at me — or so I thought — through the window in front of my desk. ‘OK, OK!’ I agreed, ‘It has been about a month’. So out I went to drop a handful of seed in.

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The Rosey had flown off to a very near bush as I did so, and then returned once I’d gone back in and shut the door. In a flash — or two flashes — it and a mate were tucking in. They were like two little clockwork birds, alternating the ducking down and the straightening up.

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But then a third Rosey arrived; great flurries and a re-arrangement. It seemed only two birds were allowed to feed at one time, and those two kept changing. 

One feeding bird would rush at the interloper, return to feed, while the outsider edged closer and closer until it was deemed a threat again.

The process would start again, but it seems there is a fair play system at work, and after a time the newcomer was permitted to feed.

Wildlife snapshot

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Arriving home in a rainshower, I of course took the opportunity to go outside when the sun reappeared for a brief spell and I heard some high ‘peep’ calls.

King Parrots in the Pittosporum. As soon as I got close, they took off into the Lemon Ti-Tree.

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Their tomato-red heads and fronts are almost unbelievably vivid, but when the young and the females turn their green backs and/or heads they can disappear.

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While I was photographing the Kingies, one of a group of lazing kangaroos was interested enough to prop and watch, so I snapped them too.

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Just then a bird flew overhead. It took a second for me to register a different shape … fat-bellied … then another flew over. The White-headed Pigeons were visiting again, and as I hadn’t seen them for some time, I was inordinately pleased!

There were five altogether, preening and cleaning, posing and perusing, in the branches of a grey gum near the house.

Soon the rain clouds drifted over again and sent me indoors. The sun had been out for perhaps just fifteen minutes, yet look what I’d seen!

Of Kings and Kookas

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Although there is no fruit left on my trees, the King Parrots are still hanging around, always startlingly bright amongst grey gums and stringybarks. They haven’t been very vocal, but in any case they’d be outdone by the Kookaburra Kids, who have been driving me nuts!

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I finally tracked down one of these sources of endless unmusicality. Just sitting, emitting…

As I bemoaned in The Woman on the Mountain, about all the whinging kids here in summer, although I no longer have a fence for them to sit on:

But without doubt the slowest developers are the kookaburra kids. My place has many older trees and good nesting holes — I have lots of kookaburras. In the breeding season, there are dozens of young ones about, sitting in groups from three to six, turning every raised object in the garden into totem poles, and all muttering. They have a totally flat delivery and are hopeless at learning the words, as all they have is a creaky ‘Hah, hah, hah, hah …’ ad nauseam.

Listening to their progress is more painful to the ear than violin practice, for they saw away relentlessly throughout the next trainee stage, ‘Oo-wah, oo-wah, oo-wah! Oo-wah, oo-wah, oo-wah!’ It seems to last a month, despite plentiful demonstrations from parents and relatives of how to get all the rises and falls of the proper song right.

Pigeon swiftie

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I’ve posted before about the times I’ve seen the White-headed Pigeons visit me from the rainforest. They’re classed as fruit pigeons.

Last week, from the breakfast table I saw two plump grey birds, waddling up the track in that distinctively nervous way that pigeons have.

They didn’t have white heads or chests, but did have clear chevron-stripes on their chests.

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The pair came up the track to the house, separated, did a little foray up the bank, then turned and sashayed back down the track and out of my life again just as I reached the track with the camera.

The bird book tells me they are ground-dwelling Wonga Pigeons, and what’s more I had noted that on 10/6/03 I had seen three down in the spring gully, probably when I was planting my rainforest tree seedlings.

I’d visited their place, and now a decade later they were dropping in to mine.

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These are very sleek and handsome, their dark grey blue-tinged (to my eye). The book describes them as having a white necklace, but as they were constantly moving and wouldn’t face the front for a photo, it’s hard to show you that. Maybe this rather fuzzy one gives the idea, as the top stripes meet mid-chest. You can also see the pinkish legs and feet in this one.

The speckles below add to the crisp nattiness of their plumage, while the large eyes in the pale shaded head makes them look gentle.

They were seriously shy, so their one swift visit is all the more to be treasured. You certainly have to be on the alert here; you never can guess who will drop by or for how short a time.

Wary and wise

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The wallabies often sit up suddenly, on the alert — although for what I usually can’t see.  Unless, that is, it’s me.

Mum sitting up is far more comfortable for the pouched joey than Mum doubled over, feeding her way across the yard.

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The older joeys tend to be somewhat scrunched, and it must be far worse in the forest beyond, with tall tussocks and bladey grass and fallen sticks to be negotiated.

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This day was one of clear skies and sunshine, so the behaviour of a troop of yellow-tailed black cockatoos was baffling. About eight of them landed in the tall trees that edge the yard, and kept up their raucous warning cries for hours.

Supposedly wise harbingers of rain, they got it wrong this time.  If they are going to hang about often for this long, rain or not, I really wish I could oil their rusty-sounding voiceboxes.