Eastern Spinebills like Agapanthus

I posted recently on my main blog about the different Honeyeaters feeding on the red-hot pokers in our sunroom garden bed.  An earlier post included some shots of Eastern Spinebills using this food source.  The spinebills have also been feeding on the Agapanthus flowers in another bed.  While I have yet to get a shot of one doing a hummingbird impersonation  the following are quite pleasant images.

Such acceptance of alien blossom must really annoy the People for Botonical Purity!

January 2013

The swamp on Hoskinstown Plain has again added exciting new species to the district list.  Up to 4 Painted Snipe were seen early in January, 2 Freckled Duck a week or so later, and 2 Glossy Ibis mid-month (rising to 10 Ibis late in the month)..  All of these species are uncommon on the Monaro.  More common in the area – but not here – at least in the past were the Pink-eared ducks added to the list after a sighting on Foxlow Lagoon.

A juvenile Pallid Cuckoo appeared in our garden and in response to the begging calls a White-eared Honeyeater fed it.  The next day two honeyeaters were on feeding duty.  Other good breeding records - White-winged Triller and Dusky Woodswallow - were in a mixed flock seen on 25 January.

The big storm of Australia Day seems to have swept some White-throated Needletails into the area, with reports from Widgiewa and Hoskinstown on the 27th.  Also around that day a flock of 10 Black-faced Cuckoo-shrikes were seen on Widgiewa Rd, hanging upside down to bathe and generally imitating galahs!

Thanks to all who have reported information to me with observations coming in from Wanna Wanna Rd, Radcliffe, Widgiewa Rd, the Molonglo Valley, Hoskinstown Plain and Hoskinstown Village.  As always comments and observations welcome: my address is martinflab <at> gmail <dot> com.

In total for the month we recorded 125 species: the most ever by a long way!  This was 9 more than the number of species recorded in December 2012 and 31 (!!!) species more than January 2012.  While a lot of this extra action reflected the number of unusual birds seen on the Plain it also reflects just about all the usual suspects being spotted.

11 species were reported breeding and are marked in red in the listing below.

1  Waterbirds:   Freckled Duck;  Black Swan;  Australian Shelduck; Australian Wood Duck; Pink-eared Duck; Australian Shoveler; Grey Teal; Chestnut Teal; Pacific Black Duck; Hardhead; Australasian Grebe; Hoary-headed Grebe; Darter; Little Black Cormorant; Little Pied Cormorant; Great Cormorant;  White‑necked Heron; Intermediate Egret; White‑faced Heron;  Glossy Ibis; Australian White Ibis; Straw-necked Ibis; Purple Swamphen;  Dusky Moorhen;  EurasianCoot;  Black‑fronted Dotterel; Masked Lapwing; Banded Lapwing; Painted Snipe; 

2 Birds of Prey:  Black-shouldered Kite; Brown Goshawk; Collared Sparrowhawk; Spotted Harrier; Swamp Harrier; Wedge-tailed Eagle; Little Eagle; Nankeen Kestrel; Brown Falcon; Australian Hobby; Peregrine Falcon.

3 Parrots and Relatives:  Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoo; Gang‑gang Cockatoo; Galah;   Sulphur‑crested Cockatoo;  Crimson Rosella; Eastern Rosella; Red-rumped parrot

4 Kingfishers and other non-songbirds: Stubble Quail; Brown quail; Rock Dove; Common Bronzewing; Crested Pigeon;  Tawny Frogmouth; Australian Owlet-nightjar; White-throated Needletail;  Horsfield's Bronze‑Cuckoo;  Shining Bronze‑cuckoo; Pallid Cuckoo; Fan‑tailed Cuckoo; Brush Cuckoo; Southern Boobook; Laughing Kookaburra; Sacred Kingfisher; Rainbow Bee‑eater; Dollarbird.

5 Honeyeaters: Eastern Spinebill; Yellow-faced Honeyeater; White-eared Honeyeater; Noisy Miner; Red Wattlebird; New Holland Honeyeater; Brown‑headed Honeyeater; White-naped Honeyeater; Noisy Friarbird

6 Flycatchers and similar species: Golden Whistler;Rufous Whistler; Grey Shrike-thrush; Grey Fantail; WillieWagtail; Leaden Flycatcher;  Magpie-lark; Scarlet Robin; Flame Robin; Eastern Yellow Robin; Welcome Swallow; Fairy Martin; Tree Martin

7 Thornbills, Finches and similar species:  Superb Fairy-wren; White-browed Scrubwren; Weebill; Western Gerygone; White-throated Gerygone; Striated Thornbill; Yellow‑rumped Thornbill; Buff‑rumped Thornbill; Brown Thornbill; Southern Whiteface; Spotted Pardalote; Striated Pardalote; Silvereye; Double‑barred Finch; Red‑browed Finch; Diamond Firetail; House Sparrow; European Goldfinch

8 Other, smaller birds:  White-throated Treecreeper; Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike; White‑-winged Triller; Olive‑backed Oriole; Dusky Woodswallow; Horsefields Bushlark, Skylark; Australian Reed-warbler; Rufous Songlark; Brown Songlark; Common Blackbird; Common Myna; Common Starling; Mistletoebird; Australasian  Pipit;

9  Other, larger birds: Satin Bowerbird; Grey Butcherbird; Australian Magpie; Pied Currawong; Grey Currawong; Australian Raven; Little Raven; White-winged Chough

Other posts:
Readers might also be interested in the Annual report; a post on pallid cuckoo breeding; the glossy ibis; a couple on honeyeaters on exotic plants; and from my core blog, a mixed feeding flock.

Much of the bird life is influenced by the weather, so people might also be interested in my monthly review of the month's weather at Whiskers Creek Rd.  From my view the most interesting issue is the direction of the wind:  I have always thought the prevailing wind to come from the NW: however it appears for January at least that most of the wind has come from the arc NE - SE -SW.  (I have checked the registration of the wether station  - ie the recorded direction agrees with what I can see and feel - and it is kosher.)

Glossy Ibis on the Plain

This afternoon I got a call to say that 2 Glossy ibis were in a damp bit of the Plain.  They were with a bunch of other waterbirds (see below) but by getting out into the (rapidly becoming less) soggy area I was able to get a photograph of this first sighting for the District.

I will point out that I was following protocol and definitely not thinking about tiger snakes while taking this shot.

Shortly thereafter the birds took off and I was - on the point-the-camera-in-the-general-direction-and-fire-away principle - able to get a semi-reasonable aerial shot.

At times we were both impressed by the speed and aerial agility of these birds.  They performed side slips and 180 turns at high speed, such that if we didn't know what they were a quick glance might have said "falcon"!

The most obvious other birds were 20 - yes, 20!! - White-necked Herons.  Here are 5 of them:

I think it would be tough being a frog in the bog now.  As well as the species already mentioned there were also 7 Straw-necked Ibis and about 5 White-faced Herons.  Here are a couple of aerial shots of elements of the flock in the air.

 The noticeable smaller birds are the Glossies:the others in this shot are Straw-necked Ibis.

Some of the Herons have entered this image.

I was most amused by this image, which I found lurking in a corner of one of my several shots of the flock in the air.

Also present were 2 Banded Lapwings, some Grey Teal, a lot of Eurasian Coots several Fairy Martins and Welcome Swallows.  Just as we were leaving a Swamp Harrier flew over, causing everyone else to take off.  It landed in the swamp and seemed to be feeding. The prey could not be seen but they do eat reptiles, so we can only hope there is one less of them around!

Pallid Cuckoo breeding

Early on 10 January 2013 a juvenile Pallid Cuckoo appeared in our garden making a plaintive and somewhat annoying whistling squeak.  This continued on and off all day.  Eventually about 4pm I saw a White-eared Honeyeater fly up to the cuckoo and feed it twice.  I was not quick enough to capture an image of the feeding at this point but here is the cuckoo.

A nearby female Rufous Whistler also appeared to react to the calls of the cuckoo, but didn't go to the extent of handing over some food.  According to HANZAB this attraction of innocent bystanders is not unusual.

A little later the whingeing was still going on and this time I was able to capture a badly out-of-focus record shot of the honeyeater and cuckoo just after food had been transferred.

This does show the great difference in size between the host and the cuckoo!

On 11 January the situation was ongoing.  The cuckoo now has 2 White-eared Honeyeaters dancing attendance on it.  I couldn't catch a photo of feeding but here is a front-on shot.

This activity greatly displeased a Pied Currawong which was feeding its own young nearby.  It chased the cuckoo quite vigorously.

Annual report 2012: overall picture

This is an overall report on birds observed in Carwoola in 2012.  I use the term Carwoola to cover the catchment area of the Stoney Creek Gazette,  As well as Carwoola itself it includes a bunch of localities (including Primrose Valley and, importantly, Hoskinstown) to the SE of Queanbeyan.  It is illustrated in this sketch map:

The database I maintain is pretty well restricted to that area to provide some consistency.  However if very interesting birds are reported in a some what wider area:

• where people might like to go and view the birds (eg sightings of Banded Lapwings just outside  Bungendore and Plumed Whistling Ducks on dams close thereto); or
• the sighting suggests we should keep an eye in case they also turn up here

I will also include them on this blog but not the database nor - other than mentions like this - in my reports.

While I largely followed the model used for the Annual Report for 2011, in particular the decision to adopt a multi-post approach, what follows has to some extent evolved during writing.  .  (For those that think the result is still too long, the Canberra Ornithologists Group Annual Bird Report is 80 A5 pages - and 2Mb to download!)

This report will be a bit heavy on numbers but I will attempt to explain them in terms of their meaning rather than simply a barrage of percentages!  For those who wish to skip the statistics I have tried to highlight the main points in bold blue.

By the end of 2012 we had recorded, over a 6 year period, 176 species in the catchment area of the Gazette.  89 (50.6%) of these had been recorded undertaking some form of breeding activity. 11 species were observed for the first time in 2012 and as for last year 19 have been recorded in every month.

It is interesting that over a 30 year period the Garden Bird Survey, run by the Canberra Ornithologists Group has recorded 239 species with 108 of these (46.2%) recorded as breeding.  Given the much shorter time span and far fewer observers I think we have, to quote Young Mister Grace, "...all done very well."

In 2012, 150 species were recorded in the study area.  This is 84% of those ever recorded in the area.  This graph shows the number of species recorded per year.

Some analysis of the growth in species recorded has already been posted on this blog.  For the last three years the reporting effort has been broadly comparable and the drop between 2010 and 2011 is, as yet, unexplained.  The increase between 2011 and 2012 is in part:

• a recovery to "normal" increase in diversity; but mainly
• the astonishing variety of birds seen in and near an ephemeral swamp in the Hoskinstown Plain

In 2012 34.7% of the species recorded were observed undertaking some form of breeding activity.  This value is slightly lower than in other years in this area and it is tempting to ascribe this to some attribute of the year (eg the very high rainfall in January - March).  Another possible cause is the inflation of the denominator of this average by a relatively high number of vagrant species

Links to other sections of this report

2012 cf other 5 years, 2012 cf 2011, Breeding

Annual Report 2012: Breeding Activity

It can be argued that recording breeding events is the most important aspect of bird observation since if the birds do not breed they will soon be extinct!  It is however a more difficult task than simple observation as: 

• many birds go to some lengths to conceal their nests; and
• it is necessary to be very cautious with most species to avoid frightening the birds away from the nest.

To ameliorate these problems a wide definition of breeding is employed with the core events of "nest with eggs" and "nest with young" supported by a range of other, indirect, measures of breeding activity ranging from breeding display to dependent young. (I sometimes feel that a new code is needed for "indolent young" when the Magpie chicks are clearly able to fend for themselves but would rather bludge off their parents.) To be rated as dependent young the fledglings must be

• out of the nest and generally be seen being fed by the parents or, 
• in the case of waterbirds, be incapable of flight.  

I have made an exception for the Tawny Frogmouths where the fledglings are fed at night and it isn't possible to determine how this is achieved.  In that case the young are considered dependent until they move away from the parents some 10 weeks or so after leaving the nest.

(In other countries such as Canada studies are undertaken which assume all birds seen or heard  during the breeding season are in fact breeding.)

The number of records of each type over the 6 years of the project is in the table below.

Type of breeding activity	Number of Records
not coded	110
carry food	6
copulate	3
display	19
dependent young	159
Inspect hollow	2
nest building	29
nest with eggs	5
nest with young	55
bird on nest	47

Since this project commenced 439 breeding records have been noted. The decision to use the COG Breeding codes was made in late 2009 and thus approximately 1/4th of the records are not coded to type of activity.  Such is life!  With respect to the analysis of the months where codes are available, the high proportion of records of dependent young is typical: note that this may not mean that the nest site was in the area.

7 species have been recorded breeding in 10 or more periods (year/month combination) accounting for 95 records (31.3% of all records) in total.  At the other extreme 23 species have a single breeding record and 12 species have been recorded twice as showing breeding activity.

A difficulty with analysis of breeding records is that the peak breeding period in the Southern Hemisphere is split by the change of year.  This is illustrated in the following chart.

To overcome this I commenced, in mid 2009, recording the 'financial year" in which observations were made and it is possible from that point on to re-categorise observations to a "breeding year" (running from July to June).  It might be noted that 78% of the records after December are coded as dependent young.  The incidence of type of event x month is illustrated by this chart.

Following from this, the next section mostly covers 3 breeding seasons ending on 30 June 2012 the 2012-13 season will, inshallah, be reported on next year, but at this stage appears similar to history.

The records for 2009-10 show 58 breeding records, 2010 -11 123 breeding events and for 2011-12 137 breeding events have been recorded.  The increase in the number of events recorded since 2009-10 reflects extra effort by myself in recording information from 2010 onwards rather than an increase in amorousness of the birds. I shall not consider the 2009-10 season further in this analysis.  

In terms of number of events, I don't consider the increase between the last two years significant.

In 2010-11 51 species were recorded as breeding while an almost identical 52 species were recorded in 2011-12.  These have been indicated as such in the monthly reports.  

The number of reports received by species is summarised in the following table.

# reports	# species
1	17
2	13
3-5	17
6-9	11
10+	4

As expected most species have only been reported undertaking breeding activity once or twice.  The four species with 10 or more breeding records are:

• Striated Pardalote (10 reports): a common species which often nests in hollows around buildings and frequently calls when in the nest. 
• Australasian Grebe (11 reports): commonly seen on farm dams with nests in the open.  The young birds are both noisy and distinctive,  
• Willie Wagtail (13 reports): The records for this species cover a wide range of types of "nest-centred" events, possibly reflecting the energetic distraction displays, having the unintended outcome of lading keen observers to the nest (rather than away from it).
• Australian Magpie (19 reports): the swooping of defending adults and the whingeing of the dependent young are hard to ignore, however much one tries.

I would note that the Tawny Frogmouths just fail to make the 10 record category since one nest site has been recorded as active for 4 and 5 months respectively over the 2 seasons covered.  A second site has been reported for the 2012-13 season so these excellent birds should crack the big league next year!

Links to Other sections of this report.

Overview; 2011 cf other 5 years; 2012 cf 2011

Annual report: 2012 compared to 2011

While analysing the results of this project over the full 6 years I found that the analysis was hampered by the differing numbers of observers in the various periods.   Was a difference due to a real change in the birds' behaviour or simply an artefact of observer 'X' not being active at a point in time?  An earlier post discusses the issues of observer effort.  To overcome this problem I have decided to compile this post contrasting 2012 with 2011 where the level of observer effort was broadly similar.

Of the  177 species recorded in this project 162 species were reported in one or both of the years covered by this analysis.  Of these 162 species:

• 12 were reported in 2011 but not in 2012;
• 20 were reported in 2012 but not in 2011 (of which 11 were reported for the first time in 2012); and 
• 130 species were reported in both years.

Looking at the entire 162 species there is a very strong correlation (correlation coefficient 0.878) between the number of months each species was reported in the two years.  Thus it can be concluded that the two data sets are reasonably consistent.

Of the species recorded in 2011 but not 2012, 9 were sighted in a single month and 3 were   seen in 2 months. 

For those seen in 2012 but not reported in 2011:

•  8 species (5 of these being additions to the area list) were seen in a single month
• 3 species (all additions) were seen in 2 months in 2012;
• 4 species (1 addition) were seen in 3 months in 2012;  and 
• 5 species (2 additions - surely reflecting a change in observer behaviour?) were seen in 4 months.

In the final category special mention could be made of the White-winged Triller,  which was reasonably common in this area and the urban area of Canberra prior to 2010-11 but reported very sparsely in that year but now seems to have re-established itself.

 36 species were reported every month in both years.

The following table shows the aggregate number of months in which members of the broad groups of species were seen in the two years.

Category	2011	2012	difference
1  Waterbirds	146	200	54
2 Birds of Prey	72	101	29
3 Parrots and Relatives	89	91	2
4 Kingfishers and other non-songbirds	131	124	-7
5 Honeyeaters	90	101	11
6 Flycatchers and similar species	128	126	-2
7 Thornbills, Finches and smiilar species	198	202	4
8 Other, smaller birds	114	116	2
9 Other, larger birds	94	91	-3
Total	1062	1152

The similarity of results between the two is readily apparent except for Waterbirds, Birds of Prey and to a lesser extent Honeyeaters .

The situation for Waterbirds is summarised in the following chart.  I realise it is cheating to include 2010 in a post titled "2012 compared to 2011" but 

• it is my post; and
• I prefer to explain the situation rather than

• leave it obscure; or
• change the title and do a lot of work to include 3 years in everything!

It appears that the number of species reported per month is quite stable from January 2010 until June 2011 (which covers the very wet period of 2010 with many waterbirds absent, breeding in the revitalised the inland) when the number kicks up - presumably as the Inland begins to dry out.  Another period of stability follows until mid 2012 by which time a dry period has resumed and the waterbirds have discovered the swamp on the Plain.

With respect to Raptors (ie diurnal Birds of Prey) the position is summarised in this table of months reported x year x species:

species	2010	2011	2012
Australian Hobby	2	5	3
Black Falcon		1	5
Black-shouldered kite		6	11
Brown Falcon	9	11	12
Brown Goshawk	9	7	11
Collared Sparrowhawk	4	3	6
Little eagle	6	9	9
Nankeen kestrel	12	12	12
Peregrine falcon	5	4	8
Spotted Harrier	1	1	10
Swamp Harrier			2
Wedge-tailed Eagle	12	12	12
Whistling Kite	1	1
White-bellied Sea-eagle	1

Of the 14 species covered by the table, 2 were not reported in 2012 and 1 (Swamp Harrier - finally) was added.  5 species - highlit in yellow- are regular residents throughout the period.   Peregrine Falcon is a localised resident and Black-shouldered Kite and Spotted Harrier have become regular in the past year: the former returning after having moved out of the area during the drought and the latter possibly reflecting greater effort on the Plain.  The impact of these last two species largely explain the increased reporting for this group.

The other "large mover" is the Honeyeater group becomes easier to understand at the species level.  6 species (Brown-headed honeyeater,Eastern spinebill, Noisy Miner, Red Wattlebird; White-eared Honeyeater and Yellow-faced honeyeater) are reported nearly every month in all years.  Scarlet and Crescent Honeyeaters have not been reported since a single sighting of each in 2010.  A few other species do the migrant 'thing' consistently each year.  This leaves relatively high 2012 rates for Yellow-tufted Honeyeater (in Yanununbeyan SCA) and New Holland Honeyeater (mainly a site in Widgiewa Rd) as explaining the increase since 2011.

Links to other parts of the Annual Report

Overview; 2012 cf other 5 years, Breeding