Lyrebirds

Yesterday, I was surveying lyrebirds up in the Brindabella Mountains behind Canberra. This was done by listening for and mapping singing males. I have been doing this since 2000, before the big fire which burnt out most of their habitat of leaflitter-rich ground cover beneath tall forest canopy. And as an aside I check a few places where I have known the birds to build their nests in the past. One such site is on rocks at the head of a gully, and I soon found a new nest from this year, set a few metres up on a cliff.

Their nests are large stick-built affairs about a metre in height and width, within which there is a tight spherical cavity lined with roots. And in the base of that the female lays her single egg in a bed of down and feathers.I expected to find an egg hidden in the down (the female was nowhere near the nest as they habitually leave eggs and young for long periods of the day) but was surprised to find a chick. In previous years I have found recently laid eggs at this date. So this was an early breeding attempt. 

The chick was lying quietly in the warm nest and would be easily overlooked by a predator. It was only as I looked closely that it raised its head and squawked at me with a very shrill call, which I am sure would deter many a predator to poke its head into the nest.

Magazine article

Leopard magazine have published an article in their August issue based on pieces lifted from the Eagle Days book. This is a general interest, and the best-selling magazine in north east Scotland. So it is good that some of what I have described in the book will now reach people who do not usually read wildlife books or magazines. 

New photographs uploaded to the website

 Lichens on a gravestone, Braemar, Scotland

I have uploaded three new albums to my photographic portfolio on my website; Scottish Wildlife 2012, Sutherland 2012 and Norway 2012. Just a small selection from the hundreds which I took when in Scotland and Norway recently.

 click here to go to website

Sandwich Tern

Willow Grouse

Male willow grouse

While in Norway I saw several willow grouse, always close to willow or birch scrub where they were feeding on the opening leaf buds and catkins. The male, above, has a redder colouring to his head and neck, and much more white on his body and wing feathers. Both sexes moult into almost pure white plumage in the winter, then back into a rusty brown feather colour in spring, the female doing so more quickly than the male as she has to be concealed on the nest and white feathers would betray her camouflage.

 Female willow grouse

The females were incubating eggs while we were there in late June, and they only come off to feed perhaps once a day. This bird, above, was feeding on the opening leaf buds of herbs and moss capsules. One nest I saw held twelve eggs, another held nine. These are both quite large clutches, typical of the species when their population is on a rise which these seemed to be as few birds have been seen in recent years. 

 Female on nest

The females incubate for more than three weeks, lying still and quiet under the cover of as in this case, dwarf birch, Betula nana. And they do so in all weather, such as rain when I took the photographs. The rain beading on her head and bill, and her breast feathers were matting with water. But underneath she would have been warm and dry, her plumage shedding the water as long as she was undisturbed -which she was when I left her.

Nordic Waders

Wood sandpiper

I am just returned from northern Norway where I was helping my brother, Skitts, with his long-term study of breeding waders. However, as in Scotland this spring, there have been almost incessant northerly winds there. This has led to a late thaw and emergence of plants and insects, and very few birds were breeding compared with the amount in years of more usual weather. 

Wood sandpiper, which was caught and ringed

In one mire where there would normally have been twenty-forty pairs of wood sandpipers breeding there was only one pair with chicks. In some mires there were none. And it was similar story with spotted redshank and reeve. Red-necked phalaropes were particularly scarce, probably because they are surface feeders and as there were very few mosquitoes emerging they had no food supply.

Ringing a wood sandpiper chick.

Of the two main study species, jack snipe did not seem to be breeding at all, although several birds were seen displaying. And less than a quarter of the expected number of  broad-billed sandpiper were breeding.

Adult, (1st year) broad-billed sandpiper caught and colour-ringed for identification in the field in subsequent years of study.

Unfortunately, a high proportion of clutches from the few that were laid were eaten by predators. This was probably mostly by hooded crows which were walking over the mies, in large flocks of twenty or more birds, feeding on emerging cranefly. They would have welcomed any eggs they came across in the process. We also saw several red foxes roaming the area, and they would have been likely predators too.