Friday 24 September 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday 14 September 2010
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.
Thursday 9 September 2010
Last weekend there was a terrific storm and lots of trees were blown down. Several trees fell around the previously mentioned nest. I checked the birds anxiously during and after the worst weather and the male was sitting tight throughout. The eggs are due to hatch any day now and it would have a been a great loss if his efforts failed.
The neighbouring birds also sat tight through the storm and here the male sits hunched down as the rain runs over his back and the branches are soaked. Like all the other nests I know of, they survived, many with adjacent trees coming down. By selecting to nest away from the ends of branches, and on thick ones, Tawny Frogmouths seem to avoid the worst effect of the winds.
Sunday 29 August 2010
A male frogmouth sits tight on his nest, with unusually little cover above him, on a wild wet and windy day.
It has been quite a wet winter in Canberra this year and in response, several tawny frogmouths have began nesting early. Some laid eggs on the 12th August, three weeks earlier than recorded in previous years. However, in the past week or so there have been some very wet and windy days, with snow lying in the nearby hills, and heavy snowfall in the Snowy Mtns, where I have just had a great day out on the snowboard.
Other birds which had built nests did not lay, and they have been sitting nearby, probably waiting for warmer weather to return before laying. I expect things to pick up again this week as there is warmer settled weather coming in.
A female frogmouth sits in a more sheltered spot in the lee of a tree stem while her mate sits on the nest above.
Tuesday 17 August 2010
One of the adult greenshanks which we caught in Sutherland in May has been seen on the tideline of the River Stour at Mistley, south-east England. The bird was spotted and photographed by John Keep.
Here is a photo of the bird being ringed by Ruth Croger.
And a map showing the ringing and sighting areas, where this bird was seen and another which was caught at Montrose last autumn and controlled in Sutherland in May.
Friday 18 June 2010
I spent Monday ringing golden eagle chicks with Ewan who is studying their habitat use. All three nests were in Scots pines and there was only one chick in each, which is unusual for the area they live in. They often rear three chicks as there is abundant prey in the area, mostly mountain hares, red grouse and ptarmigan.
Sunday 13 June 2010
Saturday 12 June 2010
Sunday 6 June 2010
Last weekend I went to Sutherland and met up with several other wader enthusiasts to catch and colour-ring greenshanks. This was a pilot study to test how readily we could catch adult and young birds. This proved to be successful and we marked eighteen birds with individual combinations of colour rings and metal BTO rings. One bird we caught was a control of a bird originally ringed at Montrose last autumn. More details should be posted on the Grampian Ringing Group blog site at http://grampianringing.blogspot.com/.
An adult greenshank with colour rings.
A brood of three greenshank chicks with colour rings.
The greenshank which was ringed at Montrose last autumn and breeding in Sutherland in 2010.
I am in Scotland for a few weeks and one of the first things I did on arrival was go out in the evening with my brother to ring some long-eared owl chicks. These birds nest in old crow nests, set in dense conifers - sitka spruce in this case. Nice and dark under the canopy for the owls to hide in during the day. The chicks have big orange eyes and the beginnings of their ear tufts. At this age they are highly mobile and can easily clamber around the nest tree branches.
Saturday 15 May 2010
Last weekend I was mist-netting birds at Mongo National Park with Anthony Overs. Two of the species we caught struck me as having wonderfully coloured irises. The Eastern Spinebill has a fire-engine red eye and the Lewin's Honeyeater a soft-tone blue eye. These are both forest-living, small passerine species. Their eyes are so tiny, yet these birds must have fine perception to pick out such tiny detail. As birds see a different spectrum from us, what do they see when they look into each others' eye?
Eastern Spinebill
Go to Anthony's blog for more details of banding: http://birdbander.blogspot.com/
Tuesday 27 April 2010
Sunday 11 April 2010
I have just spent a week on Lord Howe Island; birding, walking and snorkeling. The snorkeling was wonderful; easy as there are bays or lagoons on either side of the island so there is always somewhere to go unaffected by the wind.
The Lord Howe Island woodhen which was once restricted to breeding on the summits of the high hills can now be met foraging around the picnic spots on the headlands - a measure of the successful breeding programme.
The summit of Mt Gower is often covered with cloud/mist forest and epiphytes such as these orchids are abundant. Out at sea is the striking rock of Ball's Pyramid.Mt Gower is also the main centre for the breeding providence petrels which breed only on Lord Howe Island. Tens of thousands nest in burrows and they can be called in, landing with fluttering wings at one's feet.