Another cover shot

I received a copy of this book through the post a few days ago and it features another of my images on the front cover. The book has been written mostly by Adam Watson who has used his old notes on birds in his native north-east of Scotland from as far back as the 1940's for comparison with bird numbers in the same area today.

One of the largest differences has been the deep and widespread decline of the Capercailie, featured here on the cover: a magnificent bird, the largest grouse, one of those species which exudes character, and is indeed part of the character of the pinewoods.

The book is full of details on species, which give an insight to how different species have reacted to changes in the landscape, mostly man-made. Not all have declined, some have increased, and possible reasons are dicsussed in the book. Above all, these notes come from a time when there were very few ornithologists recording such data. There is no substitute for original notes made at the time

Cheese-plant   Monsteria deliciosa

The cheese-plant in the garden is flowering with several blooms. Hopefully they will develop into fruit and I can have a taste of the delicious custard apple /pineapple type flesh. The plant has thrived since we cast it out of the veranda when it became too big. Now it lives happily in its frost-free rain-forest under an evergreen canopy by the pond.

By-catch

The stick insect climbs onto Terry's hat

When mist-netting birds last weekend I came across this little beauty in one of the nets:

A Pink-winged Phasma Podacanthus typhon.

After I safely took her out of the net and we took a look at her, she instinctively climbed up whatever was near, in this case it was Terry. Then once she had explored around his hat and could not climb any farther, and had not found any green foliage to hide in, she opened her wings and flew off. And what marvelous wings she had - bright pink, wow!

It looked like she was a female as her abdomen was swollen, perhaps gravid. She can lay eggs without mating, by parthenogenesis, and if she does so, the offspring wold be all female. If she did mate the sexes would be mixed.

For further information on stick insects have a look at the following link:
http://www.ozanimals.com/Insect/Pink-winged-Phasma/Podacanthus/typhon.html

She opens her wings to fly off

She merged well with eucalypt leaves

Birds are returning after the drought

Adult female Turquoise Parrot

Last weekend was spent mist-netting birds out at the Weddin Mountains. John Rawsthorne organised the banding and we caught about three-hundred birds, an indication that birds are coming back in numbers a couple of breeding seasons after the drought. We caught several Turquoise parrots, in a mix of adult females and young birds of the year. So they have had a successful breeding season.

Chestnut-rumped Heathwren

We also caught four Chestnut-rumped Heathwrens, which I haven't seen in the area for several years. Two birds were adult and two were young of the year - the one illustrated is a young bird as it has buff tips to its coverts and its tail is all new in uniform length. Adults have no buff tips and they were moulting their tails, the outer feathers being shorter than the central ones.
 

Yellow-tufted Honeyeater

Most of the birds caught were honeyeaters; about a hundred each of White-eared and Yellow-faced, a few Yellow-tufted, Brown-headed and White-plumed, and single Fuscous, Black and Black-chinned. The Black Honeyeater is a bird of the farther west, drier country which had bred in the area earlier in the season but had now moved on. The Yellow-tufted and Black-chinned were evidence that the species were now breeding in the area after being absent for several years. Their food plants have probably been flowering well in surrounding places which have held numbers in refuge during the drought.

Yellow-faced Honeyeater

The flocks of Yellow-faced and White-eared Honeyeaters were largely composed of young birds. Some of these were in early stages of their first post-juvenile plumage moult and others were further on, signifying that there were probably two cohorts of young birds; one from nests initiated early in the breeding season and the other of birds from second broods. So there has been a very successful breeding season in the area in 2012.

Black-chinned Honeyeater

The netting site at the Weddin Mountains is a long-term study site, so it will interesting to see what birds are recruited into the breeding population in 2013.

Happy New year.

10,000 UP

Yeh, the 10,000th visitor has just read this blog. Thank you everyone of you who has checked in for a look. That makes it all worthwhile. It is good to share experiences and news, and it's good fun.

Meanwhile, the other day while sitting on the veranda  I was thinking that I hadn't seen any sparrowhawks, or evidence of their kills, in the garden yet this post-breeding season. And what happened yesterday while I was out talking to the chickens, a beautiful hen Collared Sparrowhawk came swinging in through the shrubbery, over the chickens' heads and grabbed a House Sparrow. She then flipped over and into the neighbours' garden where she mantled her prey.

She stood there for a few minutes with the sparrow in her grasp, ensuring that it was definitely dead before she began to pluck it. Never releasing her grip all that time, she clearly held it tight in a constricting hold, so that it died of suffocation.

She was a stunning full adult, with a slate-blue back and head, rich red collar and belly stripes. The females usually take larger prey  such as Starlings or Common Mynas, and the smaller males take the sparrows and wrens. But, now she knows the sparrows are around the chicken house, where there are always food scraps, she will be back. And others will pass through too I'm sure.