Lace Monitor lizard at West Head Lookout
A Lace Monitor lizard was strolling around the West Head Lookout area in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park when we visited this morning. We stood still as soon as we saw the lizard. It came quite close to us, then veered off when it noticed we were there.
Lace Monitors are the second largest lizard species in Australia, being up to 2 metres long. This one was quite small: about a metre long and quite slender.
Lace Monitors are good at climbing trees. They eat birds’ eggs, small birds in their nests, and other small creatures. They lay their eggs in termite hills, and they live about 20 years.
West Head Lookout gives gorgeous views across the Hawkesbury River and Pittwater waterways. In the distance is the Palm Beach peninsula with the Barrenjoey lighthouse on the headland at the end of the long strip of land. Beyond the peninsula is the South Pacific Ocean.
Bird spotting with Aussie Bird Tours
Yesterday my family and I went on a bird-spotting trip with Aussie Bird Tours. Mike Barrow led us on a wonderful half-day tour around the Dee Why Lagoon, Warriewood Wetlands, and Irrawong Reserve. We spotted a large number of birds (40-50 types) and heard others too. Here are the ones that I managed to get a half-decent photo of.
Our tour started at Dee Why Lagoon, where we saw a number of water birds: a darter, cormorants, ducks, a black swan, coots, a Silver Gull, and more. Songbirds were there too. A Magpie-lark strutted over the mud. Welcome Swallows darted across the water. A Willie Wagtail chirped in the distance. An Eastern Whipbird spent many minutes exploring the dense reeds a couple of metres from our feet. We could hear its characteristic chattering, but only saw it when it made a break for the higher foliage.
This male Olive-backed Oriole (Oriolus sagittatus) posed for a profile shot against the blue sky:
On this trip I learned what Olive-backed Orioles sound like (you can hear their call on eBird). I also learned the call of the Darter (hear it on xeno-canto). The latter sounds very like a Dollarbird, and I’ve probably mixed up those two calls in the past.
Our next stop was the Warriewood Wetlands, which is an interesting patch of swampy bushland. A raised path leads you across the reeds and water, with great views of wetlands all round you. The cicadas were out in full force, deafening us while providing food to other creatures. Here, a large spider has caught a cicada in its web and is having a feast:
Discarded cicada husks stuck to tree trunks, shed when the cicada larva emerges from the ground and morphs into the winged insect:
Bell Miners (Manorina melanophrys) have moved into the Warriewood Wetlands in large numbers. The call of these honeyeaters is a clear, single, oft-repeated clink, like the sound of a bell. They’re quite attractive birds, with olive wings and back, and a pale yellow chest:
What with the screeching of the cicadas and the pinging of the Bell Miners, this was a noisy patch of bush!
The noise didn’t seem to bother the Purple Swamphens (Porphyrio porphyrio), who carried out a lively courtship beneath the wooden walkway:
A small water dragon looked on:
A Dusky Moorhen (Gallinula tenebrosa) showed up in bold orange and yellow:
We didn’t see any snakes, though evidently they’re around. We did see a couple of largish skinks, like this one:
Striking dark grass flowers lined the way:
A colony of Flying Foxes (large fruit bats) occupies one corner of the wetlands:
Here’s a close-up of one of these attractive, intriguing mammals. They have a grey face, with a reddish fur collar and back. Their wings are black and leathery, strong enough to support these large bats in their long cross-country flights:
After the Warriewood Wetlands, we visited Irrawong Reserve. A Golden Whistler (Pachycephala pectoralis) carolled in the dense bush. This is the male bird:
As you can see, it’s adept at hiding behind the foliage. Here’s another shot of the same bird, with its tail fanned:
I think the next bird is a female Golden Whistler. They’re harder to identify because of their soft colouring:
The next bird is a first sighting for me: a pretty Rufous Fantail (Rhipidura rufifrons):
This video is rather blurry, but it’s useful because you can hear the characteristic song of the fantail, similar to that of the Grey Fantail and Willie Wagtail:
My last bird of the day is a Brown Gerygone (Gerygone mouki), another first sighting for me:
The photograph of this bird is very similar to the earlier one of the female Golden Whistler. However, the Gerygone has grey markings running from beak to eye. The Gerygone (9-11 cm) is also smaller than the Golden Whistler (16-18 cm), though that’s hard to tell from the photos.
Two Darters for the price of one
Yesterday and again today I saw a Darter in an inlet of Manly Dam. I think they’re two different birds, because yesterday’s bird looks darker in colour. That could be because it’s more mature than the one in the same spot today, or it might be that yesterday’s bird was male while today’s was female.
Today’s Darter was perched in full sunlight on a dead tree. At the start of the video, the bird has stretched its wings out to dry, in the pose that’s characteristic of Darters and Cormorants. The bird is doing a bit of preening. The camera zooms out to show the surrounds: an inlet of Manly Dam near Sydney, Australia. Then a couple of joggers approach. The camera zooms back in to see the Darter’s slight unease at the sound of approaching people. The bird turns and stretches its long neck to check for danger. The joggers pass by underneath the bird, and all goes back to normal after a bit of a shuffle to get the feathers back in order:
Darters are often called snakebirds, due to their long, snake-like necks. It’s good to see the neck in action! They eat fish, which they catch by spearing them with that long sharp beak.
Here’s a still photo of the bird, showing a leery eye:
Yesterday’s bird was lower down, closer to the water and in shade. Its head, neck, and body look much darker in colour, and its wings more silvery:
Back in June this year, a cream-coloured Darter roosted in the same spot. The colouring of that bird surprised me, as I’d only seen dark brown or black ones up to that point.
Common name: Darter
Scientific name: Anhinga melanogaster
Approximate length: 90 cm; wing span: 1.2 m
Date spotted: 25 and 26 December 2023 (summer)
Location: Manly Dam Reserve, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’34.7″S 151°14’48.9″E
Neon Cuckoo Bee perched on its face
A cuckoo bee visited our garden today. I’ve only seen these bees a few times, and posted once before about them on this blog. That was way back in 2020, and the bee that came to visit on that day was black and white, a Domino Cuckoo Bee.
Today’s bee had blue markings, which I think makes it a Neon Cuckoo Bee (Thyreus nitidulus):
It looks as if the bee is resting on its face. In fact, it’s holding on to the twig with its mandibles — those are the strong jaw parts that it uses to chew its way out of its egg, shape wax into a honeycomb, feed its larvae, and more.
Cuckoo bees are native to Australia. They’re called “cuckoo bees” because they lay their eggs in other bees’ nests. In particular, Neon Cuckoo Bees target another Australian bee, the Blue-banded Bee. The Neon Cuckoo Bees’ eggs hatch more quickly than the host bee’s eggs, and the larva eats up all the nectar that the Blue-banded Bee parent has stored for its offspring!
Pacific Black Duck with blue and green wing patches
The lighting this morning was perfect for catching the beauty of this Pacific Black Duck making her morning ablutions. I think this bird is a female, because the crown of the head and the feathers on the back are brown rather than black.
She spent many minutes preening, immersing herself in the water, then preening again.
It was fascinating to see how the colour of her wing patches changed, depending on the lighting and the angle. In the first photo above, the patch is green. Here it’s purple:
In this wing stretch, it’s as if she has different colours on each wing, one green and one blue:
Common name: Pacific Black Duck
Scientific name: Anas superciliosa
Approximate length: 45-60 cm
Date spotted: 25 December 2023 (summer)
Location: Manly Dam park, near Sydney: 33°46’35.0″S 151°14’50.2″E
Red-browed Finch builds nest in lichen-covered tree
A little Red-browed Finch wrangles a long supple twig into its nest. The nest is in a lichen-covered tree, making a pretty scene with the red flashes on the bird against the green of the lichen.
The nest is barrel-shaped, bigger than I’d expect for such a small bird, with a small hole at one end:
The tree is in a swampy area of Manly Dam. When the weather is wet and humid, the lichen flourishes, as now:
In the dry summer heat yet to come, the lichen will die away, but it always seems to come back.
Common name: Red-browed Finch
Scientific name: Neochmia temporalis
Approximate length: 12 cm
Date spotted: 22 December 2023 (summer)
Location: Manly Dam park, near Sydney: 33°46’23.1″S 151°14’35.9″E
Young Shufflewing being fed
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrikes are often called Shufflewings, because they flip their wings up and down a little each time they land. I hear the birds calling often while walking in the bush, and see them sometimes too. Usually, though, they’re high in the treetops and difficult to spot. It’s been a long-time ambition of mine to catch a video of one doing the wing-shuffle.
Today was my lucky day. Not only did I film the wing-shuffle of an adult Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike, but I also saw a juvenile being fed by adults. The birds were quite low down in a Casuarina tree, probably because that’s where the youngster landed after emerging from its nest.
In the first video, an adult bird lands next to the youngster and feeds it a parcel of food before flying off to a higher branch. The adult sits up high for a while, holding another tasty morsel in its beak. Adult and child trill softly to each other. The adult then drops down and feeds the little one again. When it lands on another branch, it does one of its characteristic wing-shuffles.
The second video starts with an adult bird carrying some food in its beak. The bird visits the youngster, passes over the food and hangs around for a short time, then flies off. The youngster takes some time to swallow the food, while gazing around and calling for the next morsel.
Here’s a still picture of the young bird:
The youngster again, from a different angle:
Here’s the adult, posed neatly against a blue sky:
Despite their name, Black-faced Cuckoo-shrikes aren’t shrikes, nor even cuckoos. Evidently they acquired the name because their beaks have the same hooked end as a shrike’s and their feathers have similar patterns to some cuckoos.
These are beautiful, graceful birds to see and hear. I’ve posted descriptions of other Black-faced Cuckoo-shrikes that I’ve spotted over time.
Common name: Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike, also called a Shufflewing
Scientific name: Coracina novaehollandiae
Approximate length: 35 cm
Date spotted: 22 December 2023 (summer)
Location: Manly Dam Park, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’53.2″S 151°15’08.0″E
White-winged Triller at Lake Lyell
A first recorded sighting for me, this White-winged Triller perched at the top of a bare branch long enough for me to photograph it:
White-winged Trillers are migrants to southern parts of Australia, arriving in spring.
I spotted the bird while camping at Lake Lyell, a lovely spot near Lithgow west of Sydney. The bird had perched very high up and quite far away, so my camera zoom was working at its max. The next shot is fuzzy, but does give a good idea of the grey-white colour of the bird’s back:
Common name: White-winged Triller
Scientific name: Lalage tricolor (suerii)
Approximate length: 16-19cm
Date spotted: 3 December 2023 (summer)
Location: Lake Lyell, New South Wales, Australia: 33°31’14.2″S 150°04’37.9″E
Interestingly, at first I thought the bird might be a Grey-crowned Babbler, because at the time when I saw it, there was also a very intriguing cackling sound. You can hear a Grey-crowned Babbler on Graeme Chapman’s site. I wasn’t sure, because I thought I’d also seen some birds of softer grey colours, flying lower down in the forest. And in fact, I’ve never identified a Babbler, and I’ve heard the same intriguing call several times in the past, at the same time as seeing birds of the more stark black and white colouring of the White-winged Triller. So, maybe the Triller and the Babbler hang out together a lot!
Next step: Photograph a Babbler, along with a sound track of that eerily beautiful call.
Eastern Spinebill all fluffed up
Usually, Eastern Spinebills look sleek and well groomed. This one seems to be having a bit of an off day.
Common name: Eastern Spinebill
Scientific name: Acanthorhynchus tenuirostris
Approximate length: 16cm
Date spotted: 19 November 2023 (spring)
Location: Manly Dam Park, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’23.8″S 151°14’38.2″E
Bubble birth
Raindrops falling from a tree into a puddle
Each one prompting the birth of a bubble
Background sounds: At the start of the video, a Masked Lapwing squawks in invisible indignation. A Suphur-crested Cockatoo continues the complaint. Noisy Miners warble their comments interspersed with scoldings. A Currawong carols a short reply.
A bubble reflects the branches that prompted its birth:
Sydney Birder 