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Two varieties of the Eastern Whipbird call
The call of the Eastern Whipbird is a fairly common sound, for those of us lucky enough to live near a patch of Australian bush. The birds make a weird whistling noise that ends in an abrupt burst of noise, a little like the crack of a whip. Hence the name whipbird.
In the first of these two videos, the bird ends its call with an upward tone, while in the second video it chooses a descending tone. First, the upward tone:
Next, the more squeaky downward ending:
The call seems to take a lot of effort, including a little hop and a flap of the wings. I was surprised at how short the bird’s wings are. They seem quite stubby, compared with the elegance of the rest of the body.
Whipbirds are shy, sticking to the undergrowth and making it difficult to get a good picture. Here’s a photo that shows the olive green colouring of the bird’s feathers:
Common name: Eastern Whipbird
Scientific name: Psophodes olivaceus
Approximate length: 30 cm
Date spotted: 3 September 2020 (early spring)
Location: Manly Dam National Reserve, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’36.2″S 151°14’47.9″E
Masked Lapwing (Spur-winged Plover) screeching
A pair of Masked Lapwings (also known as Spur-winged Plovers) strutted companionably on the shore of Manly Dam. Every so often, one of them took off and flew a circuit around the area. The bird left on the ground started calling, and watched the progress of its companion carefully from the ground. The bird in the air replied occasionally, as if to assure its mate that it was still around.
To me, the yellow attachments on the faces of these birds seem rather strange. I guess they do make the birds stand out from other species. Not much chance of making a mistake when a bird is looking for a mate!
The birds have two names: Masked Lapwings, due to that strange yellow mask, and Spur-winged Plovers. The second name comes from the hooks (spurs) on the birds’ wings that they use to fend off any creature that threatens them or their young. If a Spur-winged Plover flies at you, it’s best to duck or hold your arms around your head!
Common name: Masked Lapwing, or Spur-winged Plover
Scientific name: Vanellus miles
Approximate length: 37 cm
Date spotted: 8 August 2020 (winter)
Location: Manly Dam Nature Reserve, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’35.0″S 151°14’50.4″E
Superb Lyrebird – excited to see and hear one in the wild
This morning I went for a stroll along the Berkeley Trail in Berowra. I stopped at the Naa Badu lookout point, to admire the view. From just below me, hidden by the rocks and trees, I heard a busy scratching and rustling. After a few minutes, a male Superb Lyrebird hopped up onto a rock and started whistling:
The bird is rather hidden by the bushes, but you can hear the lovely, clear sounds it makes, and you can get an idea of its appearance, including that impressive tail:
Common name: Superb Lyrebird
Scientific name: Menura Novaehollandiae
Approximate length: 80-95 cm
Date spotted: 3 July 2020 (winter)
Location: Naa Badu Lookout, Berowra, New South Wales, Australia: 33°37’04.8″S 151°07’41.4″E
Superb Lyrebirds are known for their ability to mimic other birds and the sounds around them. I plan to return to the Berowra area and film more of these birds!
This is the view that the lyrebird and I shared from the Naa Badu lookout:
Song of the Fan-tailed Cuckoo
Walking through the Aussie bush, I’m sometimes intrigued by a musical trill coming from the hidden depths of the forest. The sound starts high and drops rapidly down the scale to a lower pitch. Today, for the first time, I managed to spot the bird that makes this lovely noise: a Fan-tailed Cuckoo:
At first I thought it couldn’t be a cuckoo, because don’t all cuckoos leave for warmer climes when winter arrives on the Australian east coast? Evidently not. For the most part, Fan-tailed Cuckoos brave the cold weather, although those in Tasmania do move north into the mainland.
Here’s the cuckoo caught in mid trill:
Like other cuckoos, these birds lay their eggs in the nests of other species. Fan-tailed Cuckoos choose fairy-wrens and thornbills as their hosts. Such small little parents to raise a cuckoo!
Here’s another shot of the bird, this time with its beak closed:
This particular bird has a lovely rich coloring. Other photos I’ve seen show less orange in the chest feathers, and a lighter grey on the head and back.
Singing again:
Fan-tailed Cuckoos feed on insects. Typical behaviour is to sit high up on a branch then swoop down when a meal crawls or flutters into view. Here’s a non-zoomed-in view of the bird:
Common name: Fan-tailed Cuckoo
Scientific name: Cacomantis flabelliformis
Approximate length: 26 cm
Date spotted: 13 June 2020 (winter)
Location: Manly Dam National Park, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’29.5″S 151°14’46.3″E
Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos in the garden
Three Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos dropped in this afternoon. They chatted to each other with their weird squealing call, while demolishing parts of our Old Man Banksia bush.
Here’s one of the birds. The pink ring around the eye identifies it as a male:
In this short video, you can hear them chatting to each other:
It’s lovely to have these big, gracious birds paying us a call.
Common name: Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo
Scientific name: Calyptorhynchus funereus
Approximate length: 65 cm
Date spotted: 20 May 2020 (autumn)
Location: Allambie Heights, NSW, Australia
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:
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
Kookaburra standoff with Magpie
In this video, a Laughing Kookaburra stands guard against an Australian Magpie. The kookaburra has a stash of some kind of food on the rock behind it. Before I started filming, the magpie tried a few times to approach the food. Now, as seen in the video, the magpie seems more or less resigned to just giving the kookaburra a piece of its mind. At the end of the video, an Australian Miner drops in too. I wish I knew what the Magpie was saying!
This is the kookaburra after it finished its meal and flew to a nearby branch:
Common name: Laughing Kookaburra
Scientific name: Dacelo novaeguineae
Approximate length: 47 cm
Date spotted: 28 March 2020 (late summer)
Location: Near Sydney, Australia
The magpie took refuge on our roof:
Common name: Australian Magpie
Scientific name: Gymnorhina tibicen
Approximate length: 40 cm
Date spotted: 28 March 2020 (late summer)
Location: Near Sydney, Australia
I didn’t get a shot of the Australian Miner. It’s probably one of the birds guarding the nest of baby miners which I’ve blogged about recently.
Noisy Miners nesting off season
Just across the road from my front window, a family of Australian Miners is nesting. They certainly are noisy, living up to their alternative name of Noisy Miners. I was surprised to see the birds nesting at this time of year. It’s late summer, coming up to autumn in this part of the world.
This short video shows a parent feeding the chicks. You can make out the orange beaks of the little ones, particularly when the parent flies away.
Here’s a still picture of the nest. You can see the parent bird, and the underside of a chick’s beak just to the left of the parent, between the parent’s chest and the branch:
It’s busy work, looking after a new family. Both parents are very attentive. Here’s one of them gathering nectar from a Banksia bush in our garden:
Common name: Noisy Miner, also called Australian Miner
Scientific name: Manorina melanocephala
Approximate length: 26 cm
Date spotted: 25 March 2020 (late summer)
Location: Near Sydney, NSW, Australia
Sydney Birder 