June 2007

During the month of June 2007 I have recorded the following birds in a 3 hectare area around our house on Whiskers Creek Road (or, for those in brackets, other parts of the area).  This totals to 51 species! 

Water birds:  Little pied cormorant, Australian wood duck, Pacific black duck, (Masked Lapwing (White-faced heron, Australasian grebe, Grey teal, Australasian Shelduck,)

Birds of prey: Wedge-tailed eagle, (Nankeen kestrel)

Parrots and relatives: Yellow-tailed black-cockatoo, Sulphur-crested cockatoo, Galah, Crimson rosella, Eastern rosella (Gang-gang cockatoo).

Kingfishers and other non-songbirds: Laughing kookaburra, Common bronzewing (Crested pigeon, Superb lyrebird)

Honeyeaters: Eastern spinebill, White-eared honeyeater, Red wattlebird, Noisy Miner Flycatchers and similar species: Golden whistler (Welcome swallow, Willie wagtail, Flame robin, Magpie-lark)

Other, smaller, birds: Weebill, Striated thornbill, Brown thornbill, Buff-rumped thornbill, Yellow-rumped thornbill, White-browed scrubwren, Superb fairy-wren, White-throated treecreeper, Spotted pardalote, Striated pardalote, Varied sittella, Common starling, (Skylark, European goldfinch, House sparrow)

Other, larger, birds: White-winged chough, Pied Currawong, Grey currawong, Grey butcherbird, Australian Magpie, Australian Raven, Little Raven

Following the heavy rain in mid-June waterbirds, including up to 25 Australian Shelduck, appeared in good numbers on Hoskintown Plain.   The rains must also have forced worms or insect larvae to the surface, as something attracted, for several days, a flock of over 100 Australian magpies to the corner of Plains Road and Briars-Sharrow Road.

Having mentioned magpies provides a nice segue into the first “Bird of the Month” feature, covering that species.  While this section will include comments by this author (usually in brackets) it will be based upon the material in the very good book “bringing birds back” published by GreeningAustralia, who are to be praised for producing the book and to be thanked for giving permission to quote from it.

Australian Magpie: Gymnorhina tibicen

Appearance: Conspicuous, black and white with a strong pointed bill.  Males are glossy black with white on the back and wings.  Females are similar but the white areas are greyish.  Immatures are duller and mottled.

Voice: Rich carolling song (and rather harsh squawks when defending a territory).

Habits: Pairs, families or large flocks (see above) particularly in autumn-winter.  Spends much time feeding on the ground.  Flight strong and direct.  (This is evident especially when the birds area defending a territory.  Many areas in Canberra become posted with warnings of swooping magpies in Spring: it will be interesting to see how the local birds behave in the more rural environment.  The birds at our place are very assertive in

controlling the white-winged choughs in our garden, but pretty much ignore us!)

Food: Insects and larvae; other invertebrates (worms are popular); small reptiles, small birds, eggs and young.

Nest: Bowl shaped; of twigs and sticks lined with soft grass hair or wool, in a fork 5 – 16 metres above the ground. (In the COG Garden Bird Survey most reports of nest building are in mid-July to mid-August, and of birds on the nest August to early October.)

Occurrence in Revegation: Found in 75% of the Greening Australia survey sites at least once.  (A ‘gang of three” patrol our lawn at least once each day.)