Author Archives: Sarah Maddox
So lucky! King Parrots and Eastern Rosellas come to visit
Two days ago, a couple of Eastern Rosellas dropped by. The next day, I was getting ready to write this blog post when two King Parrots came visiting. We’re so lucky, to have such beautiful birds in the area.
Eastern Rosellas
It’s quite odd: we have visits from two of these little parrots at around this time every year. The pattern is always the same: I hear them twittering, and lean out of the window. A male perches on our telephone line, or on a branch near by, and gives a little show for his lady friend. The show consists of some twittering, and bit of feather fluffing and scratching, and some wing shuffling. Then, after a few minutes they fly away.
Eastern Rosellas are medium-sized parrots, measuring about 30cm from head to tail. This is the male:
Here he’s in the middle of a wing shuffle:
The female looks on:
Common name: Eastern Rosella
Scientific name: Platycercus eximius
Approximate length: 30 cm
Date spotted: 19 February 2024 (summer)
Location: Allambie Heights, NSW, Australia
King Parrots
Sitting in the lounge the next afternoon, I heard a soft thunk and then an inquisitive chirp from the veranda. A female King Parrot perched on the window sill, looking in to see what was happening:
The male sat on a branch close by, keeping watch:
At 44cm from head to tail, King Parrots are quite a bit larger than the Eastern Rosellas (30cm). The birds stayed for around 15 minutes. Of course, I talked to them, as you do. The female let me get within a couple of metres.
She was quite happy to turn her back on me and check out the goings on outside:
At the start of this video, the female perches on the window sill, peering in. I then find the male outside the window. The view judders a bit, as I need to kneel down to get the male in view. A cockatoo squawks as it flies past:
In the next video, the female is perched on the window sill looking outwards. If you turn up the volume, you’ll hear her soft chirps at around 6 to 12 seconds into the video. Then I manoeuvred carefully around some obstacles on the veranda, and moved the camera to outside the window. Now you can see the female’s head peering out at the bottom of the view, and the male perched on a branch higher up (and also reflected in the window pane). An Australian Raven wails. The camera pans out to show the view.
It felt like a huge privilege to be able to chat to these quiet, majestic birds.
Eventually, the female flew out onto a branch:
Both birds stuck around for a while. Maybe they were enjoying the view! Then they swooped away to grace another house or tree.
Common name: Australian King Parrot
Scientific name: Alisterus scapularis
Approximate length: 44 cm
Date spotted: 20 February 2024 (summer)
Location: Allambie Heights, New South Wales, Australia
Little Wattlebird on Old Man Banksia
In the early morning light, this Little Wattlebird sits among the sunlit leaves of an Old Man Banksia tree.
Common name: Little Wattlebird
Scientific name: Anthochaera chrysoptera
Approximate length: 30 cm
Date spotted: 17 February 2024 (summer)
Location: Dobroyd Head Track, Balgowlah, New South Wales, Australia: 33°48’33.2″S 151°16’14.1″E
Echidna convinced I’m gone after just a couple of seconds
Walking early one morning at Manly Dam near Sydney, Australia, I came across this Echidna. They are cute, adorable animals that don’t seem to have a care in the world. Whenever I come across one, it quickly buries its nose in a bush (hiding!) But if I wait just a few seconds, the animal is convinced that I’m gone. It comes out of hiding and continues its casual amble.
Echidnas are mammals, about the size of a fat cat. They look like a cross between an anteater, a porcupine, and a small bear. Echidnas and platypuses are the only mammals that lay eggs.
This is a short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus), which is the only living type of echidna found in Australia. There are three other types, which live in New Guinea.
They have long, very tough noses that they stick into the ground in search of ants and termites. If you look carefully at the start of the video, you can see the animal’s eye and the rather strange-looking nose.
Here’s a still picture, taken from the video:
Black Swan grooming
Early in the morning, a Black Swan was grooming.
In the foreground, a Pacific Black Duck still sleeps.
Common name: Black Swan
Scientific name: Cygnus atratus
Approximate length: 120 cm
Date spotted: 4 February 2024 (summer)
Location: Manly Dam Park, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’35.4″S 151°14’49.8″E
Pretty but ew: Snail Parasitic Blowfly
I came across a large, pretty fly yesterday afternoon:
It’s a Snail Parasitic Blowfly (Amenia), found on the east coast of Australia. It has an orange head with large brown eyes outlined in white — almost as if it’s wearing sunglasses. Its body is mostly black, with turquoise, green, and purple patches and white spots. The wings are transparent.
Unlike other blowflies, this one doesn’t lay eggs or maggots in dead flesh. Instead, it lays its live larvae onto the shells of snails. The larvae then feed off the snail. The adult flies feed on nectar, helping to pollinate flowers.
There are many different types of blowfly, not all of them as pretty as this one. Evidently the name “blowfly” comes from Shakespearean times: when flies laid eggs on meat and maggots emerged, the meat was called “fly blown”.
Second sighting of a Noisy Friarbird
This is only the second time I’ve seen a Noisy Friarbird. We’d stopped at a picnic area in the Blue Mountains for a quick snack and a swallow of coffee from our thermos. I noticed this rather unprepossessing bird peering at me from a Banksia tree:
The bird was supping the nectar of the Banksia flowers, while checking for danger from above or below at regular intervals.
Noisy Friarbirds have a weird bump at the top of their beaks. It’s not visible in the photos, but you can see it in the video below, when the bird turns its head. The video shows the bird moving from branch to branch, pushing its beak into the flower heads. It’s probably taking insects from between the sticky tepals that make up the flower head. At one stage, I saw the bird grab a passing insect from the air too.
Common name: Noisy Friarbird
Scientific name: Philemon corniculatus
Approximate length: 30-35 cm
Date spotted: 20 January 2024 (summer)
Location: Pierces Pass Picnic Area, Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia: 33°34’13.2″S 150°20’17.0″E
Currawong youngsters with Avian Pox (plus a bonus cicada story)
A couple of young Pied Currawongs have been making quite a racket in our neighbourhood recently. I was puzzled and concerned when I noticed that one of them had red swellings around its eyes and an unhealthy-looking bump on top of its beak.
Aside from being unsightly, though, the swellings don’t seem to bother the youngster much. For wont of a better name, let’s call this one Youngster 1. The bird is quite lively and curious, and feeding well.
Here’s Youngster 1 hiding in the shade, awaiting its next feed:
The other young Currawong, Youngster 2, now also has similar swellings, though to a lesser extent:
Here’s Youngster 2 sitting on the same fence as its sibling:
After some research and image comparison, I’ve discovered that these two little ones are most likely suffering from Avian Pox. This condition is caused by a virus that infects many bird species around the world, including currawongs and other Australian birds. It’s usually not too serious, and the birds recover within three to four weeks.
That’s good to know!
Here’s a glimpse of one of the hard-working adult currawongs, taking a breather between feeding runs:
Common name: Pied Currawong
Scientific name: Strepera graculina
Approximate length: 45 cm
Date spotted: 19 January 2024 (summer)
Location: Allambie Heights, north of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
A bonus cicada story
A couple of weeks ago, I was filming one of the baby currawongs being fed:
As I was filming a bit of drama occurred. Alas, I didn’t capture any of it on film, as the action took up the whole sky and went down very fast.
Picture this:
A cicada flies past. Two little Noisy Miners give chase. One of them grabs the cicada and lands on our roof, the other Noisy Miner in close pursuit. A currawong parent thinks, “Ah, perfect for the little one.” It swoops on the Noisy Miners, who both fly away, abandoning the cicada to buzz around on the roof. The currawong grabs the cicada.
Not taking this lightly, the Noisy Miners swoop on the baby currawong, which is minding its own business deep in the foliage. There’s a sudden flurry of activity as the adult currawongs and Noisy Miners swoop noisily around the tree. The baby takes deeper cover under a thick leafy branch. The fuss dies down and everyone goes about their business.
I don’t know what happened to the cicada.
Koel cuckoo wearing the midnight
The Koel cuckoos are back! They migrate to our region of eastern Australia in spring, and go back up north in autumn. You know they’re there because of their loud call: coo-eee, coo-ee. It’s less often that you manage to see one, as they tend to stay high up in the trees and make use of the foliage to hide from other birds.
This male Koel spent a few minutes in a relatively exposed position on the street where I live:
The males are entirely black, with bright red eyes and a pale beak. Like other cuckoos, the females lay their eggs in the nests of other birds (mostly wattle birds and friar birds). The cuckoo then abandons the egg and leaves it up to the foster parents to bring up the chick.
My earlier posts name this bird as a Common Koel (Eudynamys scolopacea). I’ve discovered recently that Koel cuckoos were recently reclassified as Pacific Koels (Eudynamys orientalis).
Common name: Pacific Koel or Eastern Koel
Scientific name: Eudynamys orientalis (was scolopacea)
Approximate length: 45 cm
Date spotted: 19 January 2024 (summer)
Location: Allambie Heights (north of Sydney) New South Wales, Australia
Water Dragon lurking under water (mostly)
Australian Water Dragons (Intellagama lesueurii) are large dragon lizards, reaching a length of more than two metres. You’ll often spot them close to creeks and other bodies of water (hence the name, Water Dragon). Sometimes, you’ll see them actually in the water:
They can stay under water for an hour before coming up to breathe! From a distance, their heads are easy to mistake for a piece of log sticking up. As you draw closer, the rest of the body becomes clearer. This is a different dragon in a nearby spot:
They’re completely at home on the land too. When you approach them, they tend to stay still, pretending to be a tree stump, until you get too close.
Water Dragons eat insects, fruit, and flowers.
A few days ago, I came across a Water Dragon that had spotted a piece of litter (a wet tissue or picnic wipe) and was nosing it when I came along. The video shows the dragon’s characteristic side-to-side gait as it moves away from the litter. (I picked up the litter and took it away.)
Magpie-lark nest with chicks
A couple of days ago, I spotted a Magpie-lark having a quick cicada snack. Today, back in the same area of Manly Dam, there was more activity in the Magpie-lark community. It turns out that the birds have a nest nearby, and the adults are busily feeding the chicks.
In this video, the chicks’ heads pop up when the adult arrives to feed them. When the adult leaves, the babies stretch the necks, begging for more.
As you can tell, the nest was quite far away from my vantage point, and my camera’s zooming powers are stretched to the utmost. Still, you can see what’s happening.
Here’s a still shot of the nest with an adult Magpie-lark peering down into it. The adult is a female, as it has a white throat. You can see the white underbelly of the bird towards the left, the black wings above, and then, on the right of the branch, the black-and-white head with the bird’s eye just above the rim of the nest:
Gathering food and feeding babies is hard work. The adults often take a breather within sight of the nest, but out of sight of the babies, so that the babies don’t squawk for food. Here’s a male adult (black throat) at top right of the photo, with the nest near the bottom left:
Here’s a closeup of the adult taking a breather:
Common name: Magpie-lark, also called a Peewee or a Mudlark
Scientific name: Grallina cyanoleuca
Approximate length: 30 cm
Date spotted: 7 January 2024 (summer)
Location: Manly Dam National Park, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’35.5″S 151°14’50.3″E
Sydney Birder 