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16 April - 3 May
Weather:- Cooling down; occasional showers.
highlights, SEQ, 500m
EASTERN YELLOW ROBINS are again appearing regularly on our place!
Who can tell why they were away for so long... But here they are, back
again, & especially visible after rain. The other day I even saw
one bird foraging & bathing with a family of WHITE-BROWED
SCRUB-WRENS.
Since
my last report, we've sadly seen no more Glossy Black-Cockatoos. Maybe
they cleaned up that stand of trees quite quickly, & have now
moved on. We keep looking, though. And meanwhile, the YELLOW-TAILED
BLACK-COCKATOOS seem to be steadily increasing in either numbers or
appearances in our area.
I see
I've noted several times in the past few months, 'NO Boobooks calling'
-- but then I heard a single BOOBOOK, just the other night, calling
from away in the distance.
We had
great pleasure on 18 April, when a STRIATED PARDALOTE spent an entire
day perching & moving in an old stone-fruit tree immediately
outside the kitchen window & glass backdoor. Beautiful close-up
views were had all day long, & the bird seemed to be eyeing the
wall/eave... so I had hopes that it might be looking for a hole. But
-- whether it was the beautiful close-up view it had of us, or the
inadequacy of holes provided by our house, I don't know -- we've not
seen the bird since that day. It did have all the lovely markings of
the guidebooks, except the little red mark near the bend-of-wing,
which I was puzzled not to be able to see...
Then --
another puzzle for a while -- on 25 April, while spending a day
dragging tons of prunings along a hundred-yard hedge, I was
'surrounded' for ten minutes or so by a mixed flock of small birds:
one RED-BROWED FIRETAIL, a WHITE-BROWED SCRUB-WREN, and a crowd of
'brown' FAIRY-WRENS. It was these last that charmed & mystified --
though they were all brown, most had a lovely blue ring around their
eye. Not one of my guidebooks mentioned this eye-ring as a
moult/phase/seasonal feature. Of the three Fairy-Wrens likely on our
place, the Variegated seemed most likely, and I resorted to Richard
Schodde's exquisite Monograph, where he writes this of the VARIEGATED
FAIRY-WREN:
'...young males usually don their first nuptual plumage in
their first breeding season, when they are barely a year old. Chestnut
turns to black on the lores, light blue appears around the
eyes, rich chestnut starts to suffuse the scapulars, and spots of
black break out on the breast... Whether males attain full nuptual
dress in their first season depends on locality as well as social
position.' And so on. (The underlining is mine. Nowhere else in his
book can I find reference to any of the other fairy-wrens having this
blue eye-ring.) Two to four weeks seems to be the time taken for a
moult of this kind -- so I count myself very lucky to have come upon
the birds at just the right moment in the process to see this
affect.
I fear
that our ravening population of BRUSH TURKEYS might be putting off M1,
our bower-building SATIN BOWERBIRD. The garden bed which is 'his' has,
like many others recently mulched in our garden, been attracting
megapode-ish attentions, which would certainly put me off. However,
M1's delay in rebuilding (after his first bower of the year came down,
as always) could also have something to do with the oddity of our dry
Wet season being unseasonally following by a kind-of Indian Wet:
It's now showering every couple of days, & though we expect the
Dry to hit momentarily, the unexpected welcome showers could be making
it hard for him to build. The platform, though in serious disrepair,
still has blue ornaments on it, & the bird himself is still
present.
Indeed,
Mayday was terrifically exciting on our place -- This marks the return
of the flock/community of bowerbirds into our garden. Now this next
bit is not at all scientific -- but somehow I understood all the birds
that exploded into our sight to be males. I don't know if these years
of watching these bowerbirds has finally given me some perception that
I don't understand... But anyway, all of a sudden, there they were!
More than 5 'green' birds, and, for the first time ever, more than 2
mature males -- at least 4, in fact. This will surely make for
interesting territory observations for the rest of the year!
The
arrival of the group was preceded by a small storm with wind
overnight, which may have shaken loose some of the ripening Moreton
Bay figs from the tree under which they like to eat. But we also saw
them, for the first time, leaping up to take the gorgeous orange-red
flowers of the pomegranate, & trying for the similarly coloured
fruit, too. There were several other behaviours I'd not seen before:
The family of MAGPIES that feed on the grass just there were chased
off at least twice by one lone blue-black male! And -- a
heavier-looking 'senior' male repeatedly tutored another, 'slimmer'
black male. I've only ever seen black males tutoring green birds
before.
The
green birds almost all had dark beaks. One was seen with the pale
beak. All birds have the bright blue eye. All green birds seem to have
speckled, dark chests, not scalloped & yellowish like older
females. There seemed to be generalised tail-up display hopping,
including among the green birds, & there was hissing &
whirring going on everywhere!
All
this was happening on a generally 'good birding day': There were
more BAR-SHOULDERED DOVES than we've seen for a while, many RED-BROWED
FIRETAILS at the feeder, & a strong presence of PALE-HEADED
ROSELLAS. The next day was good for bowerbirds too, but on both days
the early afternoon suddenly & unexpectedly darkened & it got
wintry cold -- & the birds vanished.
No
further sightings of last month's two Wedge-tailed Eagles, at this
time. (Last year's notes have a sighting this weekend.) Still hoping
for that nest-site!
Till next time.
--
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Judith L-A
S-E Qld
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