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Bar-shouldered Dove in Manly
A pair of Bar-shouldered Doves cooed to each other as I walked down a path on Manly North Head. It was a beautiful nearly-spring day. North Head is a headland that forms the northern natural gate to Sydney Harbour.
Only one of the doves was visible, but I could hear the other one replying from a distance.
These are large doves, and quite pretty with their soft cinnamons and grey colouring. This is only the second time that I’ve seen one. The other sighting was way back in 2018. My bird book says that they’re common in the north of Australia, but sedentary, uncommon, or vagrant in the south.
Common name: Bar-shouldered Dove
Scientific name: Geopelia humeralis
Approximate length: 30 cm
Date spotted: 9 August 2024 (late winter)
Location: Manly North Head, New South Wales, Australia: 33°48’38.9″S 151°18’03.1″E
Corellas chewing yacht ropes
A group of Little Corellas has lately taken a shine to the Forty Baskets Beach area in Balgowlah, NSW. They spend their time in the nearby trees and on the rocks.
The corellas seem to enjoy the sea water trapped in crevices on the rocks. Or perhaps it’s rain water.
The corellas are beautiful, and fun to watch, but I’m rather glad that I don’t have a yacht moored there.
The birds really get into the ropes, watched by their friends:
It’s a good time for all.
When fun at the beach palls, it’s time to find a nook for a bit of canoodling:
This grooming session ended in a squabble:
Common name: Little Corella
Scientific name: Cacatua sanguinea
Approximate length: 36-39 cm
Date spotted: 28 July 2024 (winter)
Location: Forty Baskets Beach, Sydney Harbour, New South Wales, Australia: 33°48’15.8″S 151°16’13.9″E
Great Egret at Manly Dam
This is the first time I’ve seen a Great Egret in this part of the world. My only other sightings were on a trip to Queensland a while ago.
They’re quiet and imposing birds. This one had a fluffy beak. I guess it had been doing some preening before I came along.
Common name: Great Egret
Scientific names: Ardea alba
Approximate length: 85 cm to 1.05 m
Date spotted: 26 July 2024 (winter)
Location: Manly Dam Park, near Sydney, Australia: 33°46’34.8″S 151°14’49.6″E
Red-browed Finch
I love these birds. They’re the only native finch that I see commonly around Sydney.
They usually look spiffing, all buffed and polished. This one looks a little less well turned out. Perhaps it’s a youngster. Standing straight and tall (well, tall for a finch anyway):
Common name: Red-browed Finch
Scientific name: Neochmia temporalis
Approximate length: 12 cm
Date spotted: 24 July 2024 (winter)
Location: Allambie Heights, NSW, Australia: 33°46’18.7″S 151°14’56.1″E
Lyrebird imitating a shooting game and several birds
It was a rare treat to find this Lyrebird in Sydney’s Northern Beaches. The bird was dancing, displaying his tail, and calling. He had an impressive repertoire, including the pieuw-pieuw sounds of an electronic shooting game and the calls of various birds.
Hint: For the best experience, increase the default quality of the video. (Use YouTube’s cog icon to update the settings.)
At the start of the video, the Lyrebird is searching through the leaves and twigs on the ground. The rushing noise in the background is a small waterfall nearby. The bird starts gently crooning and chirping to himself. (Turn up the volume to hear the mutterings.) Then the urge to sing overcomes him, and he starts his performance. The full display starts at about 50 seconds into the video, with the rattling and pieuw-pieuwing of an electronic shooting game accompanied by side-to-side and frontwards steps. He mingles some bird chirps into the shooting sounds for dramatic effect. Next come the bird sounds. I heard the start of a kookaburra call, though he didn’t get fully into it. (He did the full call in another performance, which I haven’t posted here.) He adds the calls of magpies, wattlebirds, lorikeets, and whipbirds. I think I hear a Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoo and a magpie in there too, and other birds that I haven’t identified.
Between performances, the little fellow spent some time resting and picking through the leaves before starting up again.
The bird kept to the shadiest spots, making it hard to get a good photo. This is the best that I managed:
Common name: Superb Lyrebird
Scientific name: Menura Novaehollandiae
Length: 80-95 cm
Date spotted: 18 July 2024 (winter)
Location: Sydney’s Northern Beaches, New South Wales, Australia
Two pretty little Silvereyes
Two Silvereyes perched on a twig, lending a touch of colour to the winter chill. Here’s one of them, showing the buff colouring on its front, under the wings. And, of course, that characteristic white-ringed eye:
Another view shows the olive green on the birds’ backs and wings:
Common name: Silvereye
Scientific name: Zosterops cornwalli
Length: 11-13 cm
Date spotted: 13 July 2024 (winter)
Location: Dobroyd Head, New South Wales, Australia: 33°48’36.1″S 151°16’24.1″E
Brown Honeyeater at Maleny
A little Brown Honeyeater was feeding on flowers at the botanical gardens in Maleny, Queensland. Brown Honeyeaters are rather drab little birds, and I didn’t get a good photo of this one. But it’s worth posting as a first sighting:
These little birds are very similar to Fuscous Honeyeaters. I identified this one with the help of the Australian Birds sub-Reddit. This bird doesn’t have the yellow patch on the neck that Fuscous Honeyeaters have. And this bird’s beak is more curved than the Fuscous beak. The next photo shows the curved beak, albeit on the other side of a twig!
There’s also a hint of yellow at the edge of the eye, as well as that lovely dark eye mask:
Common name: Brown Honeyeater
Scientific name: Lichmera indistincta
Length: 12-16 cm
Date spotted: 6 July 2024 (winter)
Location: Maleny Botanic Gardens, Queensland: 26°46’54.7″S 152°50’04.0″E
Noisy Friarbird feeding on Grevillea
I recently visited The Gap in Brisbane, Queensland. Every morning, as the sun came up, Noisy Friarbirds visited the flowering Grevilleas outside our window.
For the most part, the Noisy Friarbirds did live up to their name: they were noisy. Funnily enough, though, there’s not much Noisy Friarbird noise in the above video. I did take another video in the same location, of a Pale-headed Rosella this time. And, again funnily enough, in that video you don’t hear the Rosella but you do hear the Noisy Friarbirds (and other birds) in the background.
Noisy Friarbirds aren’t the prettiest of birds. Their body and wings are attractive in a quiet way, but the head looks as if it belongs on a dinosaur! The video and this photo give a nice view of the bump at the top of the bird’s beak, the bare skin and exposed ear, and that red eye:
Common name: Noisy Friarbird
Scientific name: Philemon corniculatus
Approximate length: 30-35 cm
Date spotted: 6 July 2024 (winter)
Location: The Gap, Brisbane, Queensland (approximate map reference)
Pale-headed Rosella, my first
I recently paid a visit to Brisbane and stayed in an Airbnb with a gorgeous garden. Every morning, as the sun came up, birds visited the flowering Grevilleas outside our window. One morning, this beautiful bird was among them:
It’s my first sighting of a Pale-headed Rosella. They’re not found in the Sydney area, but are common further north in NSW and Queensland. I love the soft colours and gentle manner of this bird.
Common name: Pale-headed Rosella
Scientific name: Platycercus adscitus
Approximate length: 28-32 cm
Date spotted: 6 July 2024 (winter)
Location: The Gap, Brisbane, Queensland (approximate map reference)
A covey of Brown Quails on Old Grafton Road
I was recently on Old Grafton Road, in the vicinity of Glen Innes, NSW. On the road was a group of six to seven little birds that I’d never seen before. They were clustered together, but were quite timid and fled into the undergrowth when I got out of the car to take a look.
I thought they must be some type of small pheasant. They turned out to be Brown Quails. Evidently a group of quails is called a covey.
Here’s the best picture that I have of any of them.
This picture of two of them shows the brownish eye:
Here are five of them clustered together:
It’s exciting to see a species for the first time! In the past, I’ve spotted little birds dashing into the undergrowth in various places, which might have been quails, but I’ve never before caught a good look.
Common name: Brown Quail
Scientific name: Coturnix ypsilophora
Approximate length: 17-20 cm
Date spotted: 5 July 2024 (winter)
Location: Old Grafton Road, NSW. Approximate map reference: 29°40’29.5″S 152°04’42.0″E
Sydney Birder 