Well, that was Australia Day. To the long-time observer it is getting excruciatingly more Australian each year, in fact you’d wonder just how Australian it can get. To the bird observer, the afternoon was enlivened by the commentary at the Australian open tennis about the ‘starlings’ swooping so low over the court that they were in danger from the swishing racquets. Chasing moths, we were told. Oh well, no worse on bird ID than the golf commentators.
With friends from Merimbula in town for the bridge competition we were able to have the White-headed Pigeon discussion again. This begins with the assertion that the females can be told by their mottled greyish breasts. This rumour can be traced to the field guides which, again, are guilty of excusable oversimplification. The HANZAB illustration supports the theory. However according to the HANZAB text females are just slower to move from the juvenile plumage, older females being indistinguishable from adult males. Accordingly, in the below, the left bird is probably a young female, the middle bird is only probably a male but could be an old female, and the right hand bird is a non-old female.
