Secure, secured and a snake

An echidna resting between logs

Today began with a bit of frost and the animals were a bit slow to get going. I took part in a local university woodland bird survey soon after dawn and was finished by about nine. After that I went and checked on a couple of Tawny Frogmouth sites.

I always keep my ears as well as my eyes tuned, to the sounds of the bush, and while walking quietly through the woods I heard the distinctive scuffling of an echidna. It was about fifty metres away and I watched as it walked over to a log and promptly burrowed into the litter. And that was that, off for a nap. If I hadn't heard it I doubt if I would have seen it, so well hidden between the logs and leaf litter.

They really tuck tight into corners or hollows

I wonder if any predators would find it in such a secure hiding place, or if any would bother to try and open those spines for a meal?

Who would want to tackle these spines

Then just a hundred metres on, I heard a commotion at an old fence which runs through the wood. Eastern Grey Kangaroos are common - abundant - in many of the Canberra woodlands, and a joey had managed to twist a leg through the wires of the fence. Its mother was standing right over it as it tried again and again to free itself. But it was firmly secured. So, over I went to try and free it, at the likely cost of a few hefty kicks for my trouble. Then no, I was safe. As I approached from its front, the direction the joey had been travelling in and persisted in trying to get away from the fence, it quickly turned to flee from me. And as it did so it twisted itself free, bouncing through the trees non the worse.   

A mother Eastern Grey Kangaroo stands over her joey - stuck in a fence

It was quite a large joey and I really didn't fancy a kick from those hind legs, with claws on the end.

The joey's hind leg was trapped through wires of the old fence

My walk wasn't over though and I carried on looking for frogmouths. That involves lots of time spent looking up trees, trying to pick out the birds from the branches they resemble so well. Fortunately, I always keep an eye on the ground too, as that can save one's neck. By watching the ground I find droppings or feathers which indicate that any otherwise non-noticed frogmouth is up above. Then oops, after spying up a tree I turned and took a few steps, and just noticed an Eastern Brown Snake exactly where I was about to drop my left foot. The snake must have been slow to warm up after the cold night, for I don't usually first see them so close, but luckily I didn't hurt it. Although it didn't like me about to tread on it, so it shot away down its burrow about a body and a half's length away - not quite two metres.

An Eastern Brown Snake - not the one I found today, that one was too quick off the mark to photograph

Brood of three

The male Tawny Frogmouth covers the chicks during the day

The pair of  Tawny Frogmouths which nested earliest in my study area in Canberra now have three well-grown chicks, about three weeks old.

I recorded their activity remotely last night on a Bushnell trap-camera set on an adjacent branch, and they seem to be bringing in moths to the chicks. Certainly small wingless tubular bodies and one very small frog. There are lots of Bogong moths Agrostis infusa in Canberra at the moment as they migrate from their breeding grounds to the hills south of the area. So there is plenty food for all five birds.

Click on this link if you would like to see footage of the three chicks jiggling for space on the nest.

A local speciality

Black Mountain Leopard Orchid Diuris nigromontana 

The orchid flowering season is now well on the way with several local species in bloom. There are over sixty varieties in the dry schlerophyl forest on Black Mountain, in the centre of Canberra, and this one is special. For it grows nowhere else in the world but in the area around Black Mountain. It stands about twenty centimetres tall, growing between tufts of grass and shrubs, and I have seen several little colonies in the past few days. The rich yolky yellow is quite obvious among the dull grey grass stems.

Butcherbirds

Adult male Pied Butcherbird - there is a reason for the glove, see below

Last weekend I was on a bird-banding trip to the Weddin Mountains, run by Richard Allen. There were seven of us altogether to set up and maintain vigilance over the numerous mist nets we had placed throughout a patch of wooded, partially-cleared pastureland adjacent to the nature reserve. Most of the birds in the area seemed to be local breeders, which was reflected by the catch of adult birds of a wide variety of species, but no high numbers of any one species other than White-plumed Honeyeater, which were abundant and breeding. One pair had a nest in the tree branches above the banding station. And we also found nests Spotted Pardalote, Speckled Warbler, White-winged Chough and Pied Currawong. 

The glossy black hood and wide white collar indicate that this is an adult male bird,
some of the bird's black feathers have faded to brown under almost
 a year of sunlight since it probably moulted and grew that set  

Butcherbirds are never abundant in any area as the pairs guard their territories well, excluding all others. So it was doubly opportunistic for us to catch two species, Pied Butcherbird Cracticus nigrogularis and Grey Butcherbird Cracticus torquatus. And as they were breeding, we had a chance to compare and note features of the two species' full adult plumage. The Pied Butcherbird illustrated here is an adult male, the distinguishing features for an adult being: the blue-grey bill with a black tip, juvenile and  immature birds have grey/brown bills through to dull blue, each with a dark grey tip; his hood is black rather than brown/grey of an immature bird. Adult females have less white on the outer wing coverts, less glossy black in the hood and grey on the back. 

Butcherbirds have a well defined hook on their bill tip

The Grey Butcherbird is very like the Pied and could perhaps be most quickly described as a similar bird, but of of duller plumage. As its name describes, it is grey overall. The adult male has a black hood, but white throat unlike the Pied's black bib. As with the Pieds, these adults also have blue bills with black tips, while the young birds have grey-brown ones with darker tips. The bird illustrated here is an adult female as she has a grey-brown hood and a distinct patch of off-white feathers in the lores, complete between the eye and bill; the male has a distinct white spot on the lores which does not extend to the eye.  

Adult female Grey Butcherbird

Great care should be taken when handling butcherbirds of any species as they can bite...

The hook on the tip of a butcherbird's bill is well adapted for gripping

Orchids

A cluster of Green-comb Spider Orchids

While mist-netting birds at the weekend, out at the Weddin Mountains, NSW, we found ourselves walking through  woodland understorey grassland, with numerous orchids in the sward. The first species I noticed was the Green-comb Spider Orchid Caladenia tentaculata which was growing in small groups of several flower spikes in several locations. All the flowers looked fresh and newly opened.  

A jewel in the grass

Other species which were frequent if not quite abundant included Purplish Bearded Orchid Calochilus robertsonii (Below), Blue Fingers Cyanicula caerulea, a species of greenhood and one or two species of sun orchid Thelymitra. I was too busy catching and banding birds to take enough photographs of all the species, so I grabbed what images I could on passing and sent them to Denis Wilson who kindly helped to identify them. He has some great illustrations on his own blog at  http://www.peonyden.blogspot.com.au/ .

A spectacular little flower