Author Archives: Sarah Maddox
Bugs: Yellow, orange, and black stripes
A couple of days ago, I saw a pretty bug on the window of my car. It was long, and striped with yellow, orange, and black. It had long feelers which it waved around, and large feet.
On looking closer, I noticed that it’s not one but two bugs. There’s a small bug on top of the larger one. I’m guessing the smaller one is a male and that they’re mating. Or maybe it’s a baby bug hitching a ride on an adult? Here they are again, from a slightly different angle:
Does anyone know anything about these bugs? I saw them on Sydney’s Northern beaches in late spring.
Update on 30 November 2021: It’s an Imperial Soldier Beetle (Chauliognathus imperialis). Sightings of this beetle seem to be quite rare. Thank you to Hamish Robertson for the identification. And indeed, the smaller beetle is the male, the larger is the female.
Satin Bowerbird has purple eyes
I spent this weekend in the Blue Mountains, a beautiful area to the west of Sydney. On an early morning walk this morning, I heard some interested chattering and calling from a group of birds. I went to investigate, and found this lovely creature:
That purple eye isn’t a trick of the light. This bird really does have purple eyes. It’s a female Satin Bowerbird. My first sighting!
Bowerbirds are so called because of their unique behaviour around breeding time. The male bird (which I didn’t see) builds a large construction on the ground, made up of various bits of vegetation. The shape and size of the construction depends on the type of bowerbird. Satin Bowerbirds use upright-standing dry grass or twigs to form an intriguing tunnel. It’s almost heart-shaped. Then they gather decorations to entice the female to their bower. Satin Bowerbirds love blue. They’ll use blue petals, berries, bits of plastic, even entire spoons and other utensils — provided they’re blue!
Here’s another of the birds that I saw this morning, looking alert as I hove into view, and showing off her spangled front feathers, with a light green blush on the chest:
The next picture shows the back of the bird:
Common name: Satin Bowerbird
Scientific name: Ptilonorhynchus violaceus
Approximate length: 28-34 cm
Date spotted: 22 November 2021 (spring)
Location: Mount Victoria, NSW, Australia: 33°35’11.4″S 150°15’15.8″E
Scarlet Robin in Blue Mountains
I’m spending the weekend in the Blue Mountains, about two hours’ drive west of Sydney. A little Scarlet Robin was fascinated by the shiny surfaces of a row of cars. It kept swooping down to examine the mirrors and paintwork.
This is a male bird, with its scarlet patch on the chest and striking black and white markings on the rest of the body. The female was flitting around too, but didn’t stay in any one place long enough for a picture. She was light brown with a pale orange chest.
This is my first sighting of a Scarlet Robin, though I often see the Eastern Yellow Robin nearer home. Australian robins are not related to European or American robins. When Europeans came to Australia, they named these little birds “robins” because they reminded them of the birds they saw back home. The same applies to Australian magpies, and probably other birds too.
Common name: Scarlet Robin
Scientific name: Petroica boodang
Approximate length: 12 cm
Date spotted: 21 November 2021 (spring)
Location: Rydal Showground, NSW, Australia: 33°28’58.7″S 150°02’11.0″E
The weird case of the bagworm
(Not a bird, but most likely something that a bird would find interesting!)
Bagworms, sometimes called case moths, are interesting creatures. The larvae of the moth surround themselves with a case made of silk for protection. Then they go one step further: they attach leaves and sticks to the case, making a home that looks quite weird. Some of the cases can be large: up to 12 centimetres long.
I came across just such a case recently, when walking through a burnt area of bush. (The cases are hard to spot when the bush is lush and healthy.) I guess this larva was travelling around looking for food, and found itself exposed on a black tree trunk.
This particular case was quite large, at 11 centimetres long. At the top is the patch of silk that the larva uses to attach the case to the tree. When moving around, the larva detaches from the tree, pokes its legs out at the top of the case, and drags the case around with it.
I think is is most likely a Saunders’ case moth, also called the large bagworm (Metura elongatus), which is found in eastern Australia where I live.
Here’s a view from another angle:
In the zoomed-out view, the bagworm is half way up the blackened tree trunk in the middle of the picture:
Spotted at this location in Manly Dam park, on the east coast of Australia. I’ve posted recently about other bagworms that I’ve encountered.
Whipbird takes a dip in a puddle
This is why they put puddles on paths, right? An Eastern Whipbird enjoys a quick dip in a puddle, on the path right in front of me:
The whipbird is so called because of the rather strange noise it makes: a long drawn-out whistle ending in a small explosion, which reminds people of the crack of a whip. Some of my other posts about this bird manage to capture the sound of the call too.
Common name: Eastern Whipbird
Scientific name: Psophodes olivaceus
Approximate length: 30 cm
Date spotted: 6 November 2021 (spring)
Location: Dobroyd Head Track, Balgowlah Heights, NSW, Australia: 33°48’37.6″S 151°16’23.9″E
Common Bronzewing pigeon in Blue Mountains
This weekend I spent a day in the region of Kurrajong in the Blue Mountains area west of Sydney. On an early morning walk, I came across this large, colourful pigeon:
It’s a Common Bronzewing. I’d heard their calls from all round me in the bush: a deep, booming coo that sounds like something from Jurassic Park rather than from a pigeon!
Common name: Common Bronzewing
Scientific name: Phaps chalcoptera
Approximate length: 30-36cm
Date spotted: 31 October 2021 (spring)
Location: Grose Wold, New South Wales: 33°36’41.7″S 150°39’50.0″E
Majestic Glossy Black-Cockatoo pair
Two Glossy Black-Cockatoos have taken to hanging out at Manly Dam. The Casuarina trees are currently full of seed pods, which are this bird’s favourite food. In fact, Glossies feed almost exclusively on Casuarina seeds.
This video shows the male bird first, its feathers gleaming a soft blue in the early morning light, and the red tail flares standing out nicely. Then the view moves to the female feeding on a nearby tree.
Glossy Black-Cockatoos are large parrots at around 15 cm in length. We’re lucky to see four different types of cockatoos in this area. Glossies are heavier than the white Sulphur-crested Cockatoos and Corellas, and shorter in length than the Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos. Of the four types, Glossies are by far the least common.
This is the male bird, with that blueish gleam lent by the early morning light, and those red tail flares:
The female has yellow markings around her neck, and her tail flares are yellow and a softer shade of orange-red than the male’s:
With their large heads and that mane of feathers, Glossies sometimes remind me of a bear. Here’s a close up of the male bird, taken a few days before the above shots:
Here are both birds, sharing a tree this time:
Common name: Glossy Black-Cockatoo
Scientific name: Calyptorhynchus lathami
Approximate length: 50cm
Date spotted: 5 October and 15 October 2021 (spring)
Location: Manly Dam Park, near Sydney: 33°46’56.5″S 151°15’10.3″E
Channel-billed Cuckoo laying egg in Currawong nest
This little episode happened in my garden today. It was interesting and exciting to watch!
A cacophany of Noisy Miners and Currawongs drew me out into the garden to see what was up. High in a gum tree were two Channel-billed Cuckoos, being harassed as usual by the other birds. I only managed to get one of the cuckoos into my camera sights. Luckily, it turned out to be the female bird.
Here’s the Channel-billed Cuckoo on the right, with a little Noisy Miner by its side:
In this short video, you can hear the Noisy Miners peeping incessantly. The cuckoo emits a loud, harsh caw and cedes ground:
Next, the local Currawongs join the attack. The musical, bell-like tones are the Currawongs. The cuckoo flinches and utters its harsh croak. Then I noticed that there’s a Currawong nest just below where the cuckoo is sitting!
Like most cuckoos, Channel-billed Cuckoos are parasitic. They don’t build nests of their own. Instead, they look for a likely host (a Currawong does very nicely, thank you) and lay an egg in the chosen host’s nest. The Currawongs take over all parental duties, looking after the egg along with those of their own, then feeding the baby bird.
Channel-billed Cuckoo chicks don’t turf the other chicks out of the nest (many types of cuckoo chicks do) but they do eat a lot, and grow significantly bigger than the Currawong chicks.
Having decided that the neighbourhood is reasonably quiet and safe for a bit, the cuckoo eyes the nest and starts its approach:
Quick as a flash, it hops up into the nest and lays its egg:
Below is a still picture of the Currawong’s nest. I’ll keep an eye on it, in case I can spot the Currawong and cuckoo chicks when they arrive:
Channel-billed Cuckoo | Scythrops novaehollandiae | Approximate length: 58-65 cm
Noisy Miner, also called Australian Miner | Manorina melanocephala | Approximate length: 26 cm
Pied Currawong | Strepera graculina | Approximate length: 45 cm
Date spotted: 10 October 2021 (spring)
Location: Allambie Heights, New South Wales, Australia
Noisy Miner babies
For a couple of weeks, we had the pleasure of hosting a nest of Noisy Miners in our garden. The adults built the nest in a tree fern, right in the hollow where the new fern leaves sprout. This picture shows the tree fern, with the nest and one of the adult birds in attendance:
It’s a good thing that little Noisy Miners grow so fast. A few years ago, some Red Wattle Birds attempted the same thing, and were forced to abandon the nest when the fern leaves pushed it out of place!
This video shows an adult bird feeding the babies:
With Noisy Miners, feeding the little ones is a communal responsibility. You can’t tell which are the parents. We sometimes saw three birds waiting in line with a goody for the growing babies.
In the above video, the adult is regurgitating nectar or other food. Its long, thin tongue flicks out occasionally. In the next video, a bird brings a large green bug and passes it to the babies. I’m not sure if the bug is a mantid or something else. It’s too early in the season for cicadas:
Here’s a still picture of the little ones begging for food:
After a couple of weeks of feeding and fast growing babies, the nest became pretty full. Then one day, the little ones left the nest. I wasn’t there to see this exciting event, alas. I took this video the day before the nest was suddenly empty:
The little ones are now all round the garden, peeping constantly to get the adults’ attention. For the most part, they’re tucked away safely in the foliage, hard to find from my vantage point on the ground. This picture is of one of the little ones, a few days after leaving the nest:
Here’s the empty nest, with a clothes peg for scale:
Common name: Noisy Miner, also called Australian Miner
Scientific name: Manorina melanocephala
Approximate length of adult bird: 26 cm
Date spotted: September 2021 (spring)
Location: Near Sydney, NSW, Australia
Magpies carolling with a view of Sydney Harbour
This morning I walked along a path overlooking Sydney Harbour and the headlands that act as a gateway to the ocean. A treeful of Australian Magpies provided musical accompaniment.
Common name: Australian Magpie
Scientific name: Gymnorhina tibicen
Approximate length: 40 cm
Date spotted: 3 October 2021 (spring)
Location: Dobroyd Head, Sydney Harbour: 33°48’36.7″S 151°16’03.4″E
Sydney Birder 