Echidnas

While out looking for frogmouths today, I came across three echidnas, two males and one female. She was having a siesta with her head tucked under a log, the males were sniffing around, following her scent trail - its the mating season.

Echidnas are quite furry animals really, with a layer of fine hairs beneath those sharp spines.

And now fire
Two days ago I noticed smoke rising from a patch of bush where I new there was a frogmouth nest. The park rangers were burning ground litter in the wood to reduce fire danger to the nearby suburbs. They did well, and the ground cover was only lightly burnt when I went in the day after. And no trees were damaged or canopy burnt. However, there must have been intense smoke during the burning and a bit of heat and flame - enough for an incubating frogmouth to desert his nest. This might not have been too much of a problem if they could safely leave their eggs during the day, but only fifty metres away was a pied currawong nest with young. They are predators of frogmouths eggs and young. The exposed white eggs of a frogmouth, left unguarded would have been an easy meal for the currawongs.


A few flames still licked on the day after. The frogmouth nest is up below the canopy.


This was the male sitting on the nest before the fire.

Now the nest is empty and abandoned. The currawongs were feeding their young in their nest while I was visiting the site. There was no sign of the frogmouths.

Mixed findings

Spring is rolling on and yesterday I saw a fledgling Horsefield's bronze cuckoo being fed by a pair of buff-rumped thornbills. And today I found a grey fantail incubating one egg.


Fantail nests are delicate eggcups of cobwebs balanced on a thin branch. They always have a tail hanging down which seems to break up their outline and reduces the risk of predators seeing them.

Meanwhile, predators seem to be finding the frogmouth nests. In the past few years, only a few nests have been predated, but this year eight have been lost so far. Currawongs or possums might have taken some eggs or young, but some nests have eggshells and young lying below them, so they hadn't been eaten by them. I have seen brown goshawks most days when I have out in the bush, and one pair which have abandoned their nest have a goshawk nest only 25m away. And I found the plucked remains of a chick on a branch not far from another nest which had been raided.

A dead frogmouth chick of less than a week old lies below its nest.

More signs of Spring

Today I flushed a hare from her form where she had two small young. They were lying in tall weedy patch directly below a white-winged chough nest, and about 250m from a wedge-tailed eagle eyrie. I wished them luck and moved on.


The leverets as they were concealed under the weeds.

I opened the cover briefly to take a photograph then replaced the herbage.

Farther on I came across a party of three Kookaburras lined up on a branch where they calling in chorus.

Warming up

The weather is warming up now and the wildlife are responding. I have seen a couple of shingleback lizards in the past few days and I came across this bearded dragon sun-basking on a log yesterday.

I have been doing the rounds of tawny frogmouth nest sites and after the cold but wet winter, they are at all stages of breeding. Some have hatched young, some are only laying now and others have failed. I suspect goshawks have taken one adult and a chick from one nest, and have either killed or frightened off another pair from a partially built nest. The goshawks built a new nest only fifty metres from the frogmouth nest last year and I think they ate the fledglings. The site is now empty of frogmouths.

Goshawks and sparrowhawks are very noticeable at the moment as they display over their nest sites and the males are hunting to provide the females with extra food. The male goshawk below was being mobbed by a group of noisy miners yesterday while it sat over a dam watching a group of wood ducks. Unfortunately he was about twenty-five metres from and in between a male frogmouth on a nest and his mate in a roost.

Near another goshawk nest site, I found a dead common bronzewing - killed by a gos? I couldn't tell, but I photographed the wing plumage as it showed the range of metallic colours which give the bird its name; orange, yellow, green and purple.