Observing alulae.
A usful starting point is a simple diagram. This is
from a book on African birds, and is of a hornbill, a bird which if it appeared
in the ACT of its own accord would probably be a vagrant.
A splendid place for alula-watching is the kiosk at ANBG,
where a Red Wattlebird is likely to appear between your face and the friand on
your plate. (Coincidentally, ‘friand’, a useful word which I
would expect in one of Suzanne Edgar’s poems, appears in the Macquarie
Dictionary only 2 places from ‘friarbird’.) In relative
perspective, the RWB alula is likely to be larger than your friand.
Being generally at little more than friand-distance, the LWB
is not much of a challenge for the experienced alula-watcher, but its general
plumage contains, to me anyway, several points of interest:
(I confess to taking a couple of stills
yesterday. With acknowledgments to Richard Allen, who has been an AO for
many years.)
