Category Archives: Birds
Grey Butcherbird on blue sky
A Grey Butcherbird posed on a dead tree branch against an autumn-clear sky:
Butcherbirds are one of the types of black-and-white birds that frequent our area. They’re smaller than magpies and currawongs. When you manage to get a close-up view of a butcherbird’s beak, you notice the hook on the end. Magpies and currawongs have straight beaks without a hook:
Butcherbirds eat lizards, mice, small birds, insects, and other small creatures. The next photo shows the bird spotting some small creature in the scrub below. After I captured this shot, the bird swooped down then returned to its perch without its prey.
Common name: Grey Butcherbird
Scientific name: Cracticus torquatus
Approximate length: 30 cm
Date spotted: 8 May 2020 (autumn)
Location: Manly Dam National Park, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’33.1″S 151°14’47.9″E
Willie Wagtail
Each time I walk around a particular area of the Manly Dam national park, there’s a little Willie Wagtail darting from branch to branch. I don’t know if it’s the same bird each time. It’s cute and cheeky. In this shot, I caught the bird in a rare contemplative mood:
In a previous post, I published a couple of videos of a Willie Wagtail in Pyrmont, near the Sydney city centre. In particular, the first video shows the bird carolling its song to all passers-by, with the Sydney harbour in the background. It’s worth a look: Willie Wagtail sings to beauty at dawn.
Common name: Willie Wagtail
Scientific name: Rhipidura leucophrys
Approximate length: 20 cm
Date spotted: 6 May 2020 (autumn)
Location: Manly Dam National Park, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’34.3″S 151°14’47.4″E
Collared Sparrowhawk
This sparrowhawk was sitting quietly on a branch above a scrubby patch of bush, on the edge of Manly Dam.
I think it’s a sparrowhawk, but it could be a Brown Goshawk. They’re very similar in appearance. Collared Sparrowhawks have a very long middle toe. This was the only photo I managed to take before the bird flew away, and the photo doesn’t show the toes too well. Brown Goshawks are larger than Collared Sparrowhawks, but it’s hard to judge the size of a bird.
Common name: Collared Sparrowhawk
Scientific name: Accipiter cirrhocephalus
Approximate length: 30-40 cm, wing span 55-80cm
Date spotted: 6 May 2020 (autumn)
Location: Manly Dam National Park, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’31.8″S 151°14’46.8″E
Kookaburras at dawn
In my previous post about birdsong at dawn, I mentioned that dawn is a calm but not quiet time around here. One bird that was remarkable for its absence in yesterday’s video was the kookaburra. This morning the laughing cacklers made up for that!
Birdsong at dawn
Dawn is a calm time of day in early autumn in this part of the world. Calm, but not quiet. I shot this video from my lounge window two days ago. You can hear a cockatoo coughing and lorikeets chirruping. About half way through, a couple of magpies join in with their warbling:
Olive-backed Oriole looking a bit fierce
Olive-backed Orioles are lovely, with their smooth olive-green backs and mottled chests. I caught this one facing directly into the camera, and noticed how fierce those eyes look.
The fierceness fits the bill, if you’re a worm or some other prey for this bird. The oriole was bashing a worm around, softening it up before swallowing it, just before I took the above picture.
The next picture shows the bird with the worm in its beak. But, as is so often the case with bird photography, a branch got in the way!
Not fierce, just inquisitive:
Common name: Olive-backed Oriole
Scientific name: Oriolus sagittatus
Approximate length: 25-28 cm
Date spotted: 18 April 2020 (autumn)
Location: Manly Dam National Park, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’39.5″S 151°14’57.9″E
Here’s a picture of the bird’s surrounds. In the background is the water of Manly Dam:
Fluffy Australasian Grebe, not a duckling
Update on 19 April: The bird is actually an Australasian Grebe, not a duckling as I originally thought. Thanks to Pamela and Carol for helping to identify the bird (see comments on this post).
This tiny ball of fluff was zooming around an inlet of Manly Dam. I thought it was a Mallard duckling, because it seemed to spend most time close to an adult Mallard. Despite its size, the little thing was independent of spirit and a fast paddler.
Common name: Australasian Grebe
Scientific name: Tachybaptus novaehollandiae
Approximate length: 23-25 cm
Date spotted: 6 April 2020 (autumn)
Location: Manly Dam National Reserve, near Sydney: 33°46’34.8″S 151°14’49.6″E
This is the Mallard that the little one seemed to home in on:
Mallards are an introduced species in Australia. Their original home is the northern hemisphere, but they’re quite common in south eastern Australia now too.
Common name: Mallard
Scientific name: Anas Platyrhynchos
Approximate length: 50-70 cm
Date spotted: 6 April 2020 (autumn)
Location: Manly Dam National Reserve, near Sydney: 33°46’34.8″S 151°14’49.6″E
Red-browed Finch
A Red-browed Finch in the sunlight, pausing on the way between here and there.
Common name: Red-browed Finch
Scientific name: Neochmia temporalis
Approximate length: 12 cm
Date spotted: 31 March 2020 (late summer)
Location: Manly Dam National Reserve, near Sydney: 33°46’54.5″S 151°15’08.7″E
Echidna at Manly North Head
Echidnas are not birds, but I decided to blog about this one anyway because it’s such a cute animal. An Echidna is a mammal, about the size of a fat cat. It has a long, very tough nose that it sticks into the ground in search of ants and termites.
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 have longer snouts and live in New Guinea.
Echidnas and platypuses are the only mammals that lay eggs. Echidnas look like a cross between an anteater, a porcupine, and a bear. I saw this one at North Head in Manly, near Sydney. As you can hear on the video, the animal attracted a few interested people. It was entirely unfazed by its audience.
The echidna pottered about on the border between the bush and the walking track. We humans kept our distance from each other, due to the social distancing rules currently in place, and we kept our distance from the echidna out of respect for its wildness. It was a pleasure to see this creature going about its everyday life while we’re entangled in a situation of unprecedented weirdness.
Baby Noisy Miners doing well
Here’s an update on the nest of Australian Miners, also known as Noisy Miners, across the road from our house. The babies are getting bigger!
In this video, you see one of the chicks perched on the edge of the nest, making the incessant chirping that’s surely designed to drive a parent mad. One of the adults drops in with a quick morsel of food, and you can see both babies. I’m pretty sure there are only two chicks in the nest:
It’s quite a change since my previous post about the baby birds, just five days ago. This chick looks ready to take its first steps out of the nest:
Common name: Noisy Miner, also called Australian Miner
Scientific name: Manorina melanocephala
Approximate length: 26 cm
Date spotted: 30 March 2020 (late summer)
Location: Near Sydney, NSW, Australia
Sydney Birder 