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Three pelicans on a lamppost
Pelicans are very large and weighty birds: 1.7 metres from head to tail, weighing up to 13 kilograms. So, not a bird that you’d expect to see perched on a street lamp. The idea of three of them perched on the same lamp at the same time sounds unlikely, if not bizarre.
Yet, when I arrived at Long Reef Aquatic Reserve in Collaroy, I was greeted by this sight:
No wonder the street lamps are of sturdy construction!
What a face! A little glum, a little world-weary, but so wise:
When flying, a pelican is graceful and beautiful. Even so, it reminds me of an armchair in the sky:
Three Australian Pelicans head off towards the ocean, with a White-faced Heron in the distance:
Common name: Australian Pelican
Scientific name: Pelecanus conspicillatus
Approximate length: 170 cm
Approximate wingspan: 2.5m
Date spotted: 24 March 2024 (summer)
Location: Long Reef Aquatic Reserve, Collaroy, New South Wales, Australia: 33°44’19.7″S 151°18’42.0″E
Three raptors in one day
A few days ago, I was super lucky: I saw three birds of prey in one afternoon. The first was an Eastern Osprey, holding a fish in its claws. The second was a Black-shouldered Kite, hovering above the grasslands near the beach. For a short time, there were two of these birds quite close to each other. The third was a Peregrine Falcon, soaring in the sky above the suburbs.
Eastern Osprey
The Eastern Osprey was exciting to see. It was quite large, flying high in the sky above Long Reef Aquatic Reserve in Collaroy. At first I thought this large bird was one of the pelicans that were floating about. When I saw it through my camera lens, I spotted the fish in the bird’s grip.
The next picture is fuzzy and only a partial shot of the bird, but it gives a good idea of the colouring of the underside:
The next picture shows the Osprey’s long wingspan — about 1.5 metres. The bird is flying away from the camera:
Common name: Eastern Osprey
Scientific name: Pandion cristatus
Approximate length: 57 cm
Date spotted: 24 March 2024 (summer)
Location: Long Reef Aquatic Reserve, Collaroy, New South Wales, Australia: 33°44’19.7″S 151°18’42.0″E
Black-shouldered Kite
Nearby, a Black-shouldered Kite hovered above the grassy, bushy stretch that runs along the coast. It was amazing how the bird hung almost motionless in the air, held aloft by the air currents:
The next photo shows a slightly different angle. It might be the same bird or a different one, as there were two in the area:
Also in the area were some paragliders, enjoying the same up currents as the birds. The gliders kept a respectful distance, and the birds didn’t seem worried at all, as you can see in the next video. The second Black-shouldered Kite makes a brief appearance part-way through:
Common name: Black-shouldered Kite
Scientific name: Elanus axillarus
Approximate length: 35 cm
Date spotted: 24 March 2024 (summer)
Location: Long Reef Aquatic Reserve, Collaroy, New South Wales, Australia: 33°44’19.7″S 151°18’42.0″E
Peregrine Falcon
On my way home, I saw a Peregrine Falcon soaring high in the sky. As I took the photo, the bird turned its head and looked down at me:
The images are fuzzy because my camera isn’t super powerful, but you can still make out the features of the Peregrine Falcon:
Common name: Peregrine Falcon
Scientific name: Falco Peregrinus
Approximate length: 42 cm
Date spotted: 24 March 2024 (summer)
Location: Allambie Heights, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’18.2″S 151°15’39.4″E
It’s not often that I see one of Australia’s birds of prey. To see three different types in one day was a raretreat.
Little Pied Cormorant on honeycomb rock
Little Pied Cormorants are quite common in the waters around Sydney. Most often, you see them from afar, and they just look like another black and white bird. But when you see them through the camera zoom, they’re rather cute. They have big floppy black feet, a Tintin-like hairstyle, and a goofy smile:
Their tail is short and stubby, and seems to be useful in preventing them from teetering over backwards. That tuft of black hair extends down the back of their necks, adding a touch of sophistication:
The rock that this cormorant is sitting on has attractive honeycomb weathering patterns:
In this video, the cormorant is stretching its neck and gulping to help its latest meal go down.
Common name: Little Pied Cormorant
Scientific name: Phalacrocorax melanoleucos
Approximate length: 60 cm
Date spotted: 25 February 2024 (summer)
Location: North Harbour Walk, Sydney Harbour, New South Wales, Australia: 33°48’05.9″S 151°16’10.1″E
Black Swan grooming
Early in the morning, a Black Swan was grooming.
In the foreground, a Pacific Black Duck still sleeps.
Common name: Black Swan
Scientific name: Cygnus atratus
Approximate length: 120 cm
Date spotted: 4 February 2024 (summer)
Location: Manly Dam Park, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’35.4″S 151°14’49.8″E
Little Black Cormorant swimming underwater
Today I managed to catch some footage of a Little Black Cormorant swimming in a quiet offshoot of the Hawkesbury River.
We were at Akuna Bay in the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. The bay is home to a marina, with boats and jetties and restaurants, yet it was quiet and peaceful when we were there.
This is a still shot of the cormorant under the water:
Little Black Cormorants are one of five types of cormorants found in Eastern Australia. I don’t have many photos of them yet. As well as being entirely black, Little Black Cormorants are distinguishable by their bright green eyes. The next photo gives some idea of the eye colour, though it’s rather blurry:
Common name: Little Black Cormorant (see other cormorants)
Scientific name: Phalacrocorax sulcirostris
Approximate length: 65 cm
Date spotted: 29 December 2023 (summer)
Location: Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, New South Wales, Australia: 33°38’46.1″S 151°14’04.9″E
The creek was still and smooth. A haven for mosquitoes, alas, but pretty too:
Here’s a rare picture of me examining another part of the creek:
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
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
Two Sacred Kingfishers at Manly Dam
A rare treat! This morning I saw two Sacred Kingfishers resting on a clump of dry bush at the edge of Manly Dam. I’ve seen a kingfisher at Manly Dam twice before, both near the dam wall. These two were in a different area, at an inlet on the north west side of the dam.
Before I saw the birds, I’d heard their call, though I didn’t know what it was at the time. It was a fairly high-pitched, insistent sound, uttered in groups of two to four squawks: “kik-kik-kik-kik”.
I think the one on the left might be male, and the one slightly higher up on the right might be female. Females have more green and less blue on their wings than the males do.
Kingfishers are related to kookaburras. (See my earlier posts for pictures of kookaburras.) But whereas Laughing Kookaburras are quite large (47 centimetres from head to tail), Sacred Kingfishers measure only 20 centimetres.
For comparison, here’s a kookaburra from another day:
Back to today’s Sacred Kingfishers: At one stage, both birds turned round to show me the backs of their heads. They look much more like colourful kookaburras now:
The next picture shows the bank of the dam where the birds were sitting. I was on the far side of the inlet. You might just be able to make out one of the kingfishers on the clump of dead bush towards the middle left of the picture. The other kingfisher had been chased away by a Willy Wagtail!
Common name: Sacred Kingfisher
Scientific name: Todiramphus sanctus
Approximate length: 20 cm
Date spotted: Saturday 14 October 2023 (spring)
Location: Manly Dam Park, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’34.4″S 151°14’48.9″E
Pair of White-faced Herons in Sydney Harbour
A pretty pair of White-faced Herons were strutting their stuff at Forty Baskets Beach this morning. They were quite interested in each other, and the feathery plumes on their backs were quite noticeable. It looks as if breeding season has started.
In this video, the pair of herons are on a small boat moored just off the beach. All is peaceful until the seagulls start bullying the herons. After ducking a few incoming gulls, the herons take off and fly past me, landing on some rocks near by. Along comes a small dog (off scene). The dog owner tells the dog to wait. The dog doesn’t threaten the birds in any way, but they decide it’s politic to move to a different spot. They fly past me again, and come to rest in a quiet little bay.
Aside from the noise made by the seagulls and the sea, you can hear some raucous Sulphur-crested Cockatoos in the background. And, if you listen very carefully, you can hear the softer grunting croaks of the herons as they fly past me and then land on the rocks.
Scientific name: Ardea novaehollandiae
Approximate length: 66-69 cm
Date spotted: 5 August 2023 (winter)
Location: Forty Baskets Beach, Sydney Harbour, New South Wales, Australia: 33°48’15.8″S 151°16’13.9″E
Sydney Birder 