Black Kites

To welcome Black Kite to the list of Carwoola birds I thought I'd put up a few details.  I'll begin with some images I took in Bourke in July.

This is what I consider to be the typical view of a Black Kite, showing the forked tail.  No other raptor in Australia has this feature.

 This one is perched .  Did I mention the forked tail?

The flock in Bourke was at least 40 birds.  25 of them were soaring over the centre of town while others, including this lot, were perched over the Darling beside Bourke wharf.

To illustrate the range of the species here are three maps derived from eBird.  The darker the mauve colour the higher the reporting rate.

'X' marks the location of the Plain: and shows this observation was pretty close to the SE limit of the range.

October 2014

The big news this month is the addition of Black Kite to the overall list for the area.  We don't have a photo of this bird, but I have compiled an ad-hoc post covering the species.

In terms of overall count we did pretty well with 102 species recorded for the month.  This is 12 up on September 2014; 5 down on October 2013 and 1.6 below the average for the last 5 years.

The migrants are nearly all here now, with the late ones seeming to be missing or late in the Canberra area generally.

Breeding has been booming this month with 22 species observed undertaking some part of the procreative process.  The most exciting has been a Little Eagle nest found on a property on the Hoskinstown Plain.  After an initial visit in which an adult bird was seen in the nest the weather got a tad unpleasant and they have hopefully been well hunkered down.  (As the nest is several metres up a Brittle Gum it isn't easy to see into.)  Breeding birds are marked in red below.

This seems a good place to insert a photo of Welcome Swallows from the Plain.  Note the yellow on the chick's bill: this stimulates the adult to insert some second hand insects therein.

For September I thank observers in Widgiewa Rd, Knox Close, the Plain, Pony Place, Captains Flat Rd and Wanna Wanna Rd.for their efforts in reporting.   I'm always happy to hear of other sightings of interest to you, in the current season especially of breeding actvities or first sightings of migrants, by email to martinflab@gmail.com.  

1  Waterbirds:  Musk Duck; Black Swan;  Australian Shelduck; Australian Wood Duck; Grey Teal;  Pacific Black Duck; Hardhead; Australasian Grebe; Little Black Cormorant; Little Pied Cormorant; Great Cormorant;   White‑necked Heron; White‑faced Heron; Straw-necked Ibis;  Eurasian Coot; Masked Lapwing;

2 Birds of Prey:  Black-shouldered Kite; Black Kite, Brown Goshawk; Wedge-tailed Eagle; Little Eagle; Nankeen Kestrel; Brown Falcon;.

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

4 Kingfishers and other non-songbirds:  Stubble Quail; Common Bronzewing; Crested Pigeon;  Tawny Frogmouth; Shining Bronze‑cuckoo; Pallid Cuckoo; Fan‑tailed Cuckoo;  Southern Boobook; Laughing Kookaburra; Sacred Kingfisher; 

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

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

7 Thornbills, Finches and similar species:  Superb Fairy-wren; White-browed Scrubwren; Speckled warbler; Weebill; 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;  Skylark; Golden-headed Cisticola; Australian Reed-warbler; Rufous Songlark; Brown Songlark; Common Blackbird;  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

Birds 2 Reptiles 0

Warning:  as you may gather from the title, some reptiles were (severely) harmed in the events depicted herein.  If you don't like seeing dead things, I suggest exit now.

I posted on my main blog about an incident in which a Kookaburra dined on some form of skink.  Here is the main image from that event.

In the same walk there was an altercation between a fair sized Lace Monitor (aka Goanna) representing reptiledom, and a pair of Pied Currawongs and a Superb Lyrebird holding the flag of avifauna.  As everyone got away from that with no mortal injuries I don't count that in the scoring.

Returning home I saw a Pied Currawong fly into their nest tree carrying a decidely used-looking Jacky Lizard. That doesn't enter the scoring as I didn't get an image.

However on the evening of 25 October a Currawong again flew into the nest tree with "something" in its beak.  It parked the prey on a small branch and started to carve it up.

 In this second image the serrated shape of the tail suggests that this is also a Jacky Lizard.

The bird seemed happy to leave the corpse in situ for later dining.

September 2014

As we are now fully into the breeding season I thought I'd start with a couple of nest photographs.

The first is the Terror of the Lawn (aka Pied Curawong) in a Yellow Box (Eucalyptus meliodora) in our garden.

 Further up our block White-winged Choughs have refurbished their nest in a Brittle Gum (E. mannifera)

The least common bird reported this month was a pair of Pink-eared Duck on a small dam near Foxlow Bridge,  A White-bellied Sea-Eagle seen overflying Widgiewa Rd.and a flock of 30 Little Corellas at Whiskers Creek Rd were also very unusual!  Other birds which have been uncommon in the past but have recently become regular, were Red-capped Robin and Crescent Honeyeater.  The most surprising (to the observer) bird was a Superb Lyrebird which visited a garden on Wanna Wanna Rd.

Flocks of Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoos are regular visitors to pine shelter belts around the area, but a flock of 76 reported from Wanna Wanna Rd was exceptionally large.

Overall, we recorded 90 species in the month, This is an increase of 10 species on August 2014 and 3 more than reported in September 2013.

Migrants continue to return.

So far this season we have had 9 species return on schedule, 3 arrive a month early and 3 that are still 'no-shows'.  IMHO that means that things are pretty much on track.

With respect to breeding activity 16 species have been reported undertaking activities across the range of events from display to dependent young.  They are marked in red in the detailed list below.

For September I thank observers in Widgiewa Rd, Knox Close, the Plain, Pony Place, Captains Flat Rd and Wanna Wanna Rd.for their efforts in reporting.   I'm always happy to hear of other sightings of interest to you, in the current season especially of breeding actvities or first sightings of migrants, by email to martinflab@gmail.com.  

1  Waterbirds:  Musk Duck; Black Swan;  Australian Shelduck; Australian Wood Duck;Pink-eared Duck; Australian Shoveler; Grey Teal; Pacific Black Duck; Hardhead;Australasian Grebe; Little Pied Cormorant;  White‑necked Heron;  White‑faced Heron; EurasianCoot;; Masked Lapwing; 

2 Birds of Prey:  White-bellied Sea-eagle; Brown Goshawk; Wedge-tailed Eagle; Little Eagle; Nankeen Kestrel; Brown Falcon;.

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

4 Kingfishers and other non-songbirds: Common Bronzewing; Crested Pigeon; Tawny Frogmouth;  Shining Bronze‑cuckoo; Pallid Cuckoo; Fan‑tailed Cuckoo; Laughing Kookaburra; Superb lyrebird

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

6 Flycatchers and similar species: Rufous Whistler; Grey Shrike-thrush; Grey Fantail; WillieWagtail;Magpie-lark; Jacky Winter; Scarlet Robin; Red‑capped 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; White-throated Gerygone; Striated Thornbill; Yellow‑rumped Thornbill; Buff‑rumped Thornbill; Brown Thornbill; Spotted Pardalote; Striated Pardalote; Silvereye; Double‑barred Finch; Red‑browed Finch;  House Sparrow; European Goldfinch

8 Other, smaller birds:  White-throated Treecreeper; Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike; Olive‑backed Oriole;  Dusky Woodswallow; Skylark; Brown Songlark; Common Blackbird; Common Starling; Australasian  Pipit;

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