January Moths on Black Mountain


This is a post to continue my partial coverage of the moths surveyed at Black Mountain. It is only a sample of the moths attracted to the lights set last week by Glenn (see previous monthly posts for details and comparisons). The little beauty above, was the first one I saw this time. It is a Pink Arhodia Arhodia lasiocamparia.


In profile, its colouring fitted well, striking, against the black night behind.


Yet on a substrate of peeling bark, its colouring did not seem so bold and in daylight would be difficult to spot. The caterpillars feed on gum eucalyptus leaves, of which Black Mountain has 800 ha, so they must be well fed. Wingspan 6-7 cm.



This was my favourite of the evening as I am always fascinated by how well animals can conceal themselves by shape, colour and posture against their background habitat's colour and form. In this case, leaf and bark litter on the forest floor. This is Antictena punctunculus.


Even the frayed hind edges of its wings blend in with the broken edges of the fallen leaves.
Wingspan 4 cm.


Not all the moths were attracted to land on the white illuminated sheet, many landed on nearby trees, especially the smooth-barked gums, like this specimen of a Cleora sp. This is a species of looper, so named because the caterpillars loop their body into a high arch when crawling. Wingspan 5 cm.


Then there was this late contender for favouritism, an Epicoma sp., possibly the male of the species below, Epicoma contristis. 


This was the Epicoma contristis female, she is silver while the males are darker, hence the reason why I think the former sample might be a male of this species. The caterpillars of this species are of the classic dark grey, bristling, hairy type. Wingspan 3cm.


The Epicoma have fantastic head 'hair' it completely covers their face. I don't know the purpose for this hair, and everything in nature has a purpose - thermoregulation in the cool Canberra nights? It is just so illuminating to discover what lives in the woods and how variable moths are in colour and form.

Another wonderful night on the mountain.

Bird-banding at Charcoal Tank, West Wyalong


Last weekend I was out at Charcoal Tank reserve mist-netting birds with a few other people in a group organised by Mark Clayton. Spring has arrived, there was water lying all around and running down the creek lines, the grass was tall and green and the birds were breeding. The birds above were a group of brown-headed honeyeaters, two adults and a juvenile, recently fledged.

There were also a few painted button-quail about, another sign of fresh growth and spring bird movements. This was a female which we caught.

We caught twenty-two different species. mostly locally breeding birds which were on their breeding territories. These are two spiny-cheeked honeyeaters, an adult on the left and an immature on the right.

The adult spiny-cheeked honeyeaters have white cheeks and the spiny plumes are obvious.

The immature spiny-cheeked honeyeater has yellow cheeks and its spiny plumes are less developed.

There was a pallid cuckoo calling all weekend but we never saw or caught it. We did however catch a fan-tailed cuckoo which we never heard calling.

This bird was surely a sign that bird were breeding well now that the drought has ended. I found further evidence in the form of red-capped robins with young in the nest and another pair with fledged young, a pair of jackie winters with eggs and inland thornbills with young in the nest.

The cuckoo really was a splendid bird and when it opened its bill it showed its typical cuckoo bright red gape.

Autumn Pond

It is autumn now in Canberra - a very fine time to be there. The above photograph received an honourable mention in a recent fun photography competition ran by the local radio station ABC 666 - the judges loved the images, and the stories sent in with many of the pictures. My image is of a sculpture in Commonwealth Park, set in a small pond surrounded by non-native deciduous trees, which add the colour. I inverted the photograph to show what I see when I look beyond the obvious straight image.

Sparrowhawk in the garden


This morning, while sitting reading on the veranda, I heard a chorus of alarm calls from the garden birds. So I went over and straight away found a male collared sparrowhawk sitting in the tree above the drinking pool I have built for the birds. In the photograph below he was right in the centre of the thick green foliage.




He was quite undisturbed by me, simply continuing to scan around with those big yellow eyes, watching the small birds which were still alarm-calling from the nearby bushes.




I never see sparrowhawks in the garden during the breeding season, yet every year they turn up to hunt around the drinking pool, feeding station and the chicken shed where sparrows are always present, scavenging for split corn. The sparrowhawks come into the garden from now, mid-summer, to late winter, and I have seen adult and young birds of both sexes hunting the same area at different times, sometimes in the same day.

The bird shown here is moulting new feathers to his tail. The two outer feathers are still short - less than half the full length and appear here as short dark and grey, not protruding farther than the wing feathers. Two fully-grown new tail feathers lie in the centre of the tail, and appear here fresh and bright with distinct barring and firm bottom edges. The feathers either side of these two are old, as seen by their faded colouring, indistinct barring and frayed bottom edges.

The conventional method of distinguishing collared sparrowhawks from the closely related and similarly plumaged brown goshawk, is to class the tail as rounded or square edged at the tip. If square it is a sparrowhawk, round a goshawk. Here, while the bird is in moult it is not such an obvious plumage characteristic, although the more sharply square edges of the two ingrowing outer feathers hint at a more typical shape soon to form. The species also differ in size, goshawks being the larger - about the size of a Eurasian sparrowhawk. This male was obviously a sparrowhawk by his small size. A large female goshawk would be equally obvious as such by her large size. Most ambiguity occurs between the male goshawk and female sparrowhawk which can be similar in size.


Another feature I like about this male was the way his breast feathers were all ruffled, not neat and tidy as usually portrayed in illustrations. A real bird!