In-between fieldwork: Varied sittella

Varied sittella (Daphoenositta chrysoptera). Such a cool little fella! Three local birders and myself have sat down to have some food and we spotted this varied sittella and its nest. I'm happy I found the nest, it's rather well camouflaged.

The sittella was going back and forwards, I'm pretty sure it was feeding chicks. It would fly onto the branch above the nest and then hop along (while being upside down) towards the nest. It also removed something from the nest, something white, I think it might have been a faecal sac.

In-between fieldwork: New Holland Honeyeater

They. Were. Everywhere.

The study site was full of New Holland Honeyeaters (Phylidonyris novaehollandiae) chattering away, zooming around, hopping from branch to branch, feeding, flying... so active! Hard to get good photos due to all the movement, but fun to watch.

Every now and then they would take a few moments to preen, but even the preening was energetic and the majority of photos came out blurred.

In-between fieldwork: Red-browed finch

Red-browed finch (Neochmia temporalis) is the most common finch around Canberra. I'd often see pairs of them in bushes during the day.

Early in the morning I would come across little groups foraging on the ground, between the grass too.

When the spring kicked-in I saw some nest-building too. It looks very funny, as the finches are rather small, but they carry super-long bits of grass. It looks like a tiny bird with a very long tail or a mini peacock struggling to fly away! 

In-between fieldwork: Laughing kookaburra

Laughing kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae) - love them! They are loud and bossy, but also manage to appear very cuddly.

Very entertaining to watch, I had so much fun watching them dig for worms and eat them up like they were spaghetti.

We do have some issues with the ones on the study side as they are very used to people. This means that when we are mist-netting in order to catch superb fairy-wrens and ring them we have to be really careful and watch out for kookaburras. They will come very close to people and the nets and might try to grab any birds that fall into the net. They just sit there and wait!

In-between fieldwork: Koala

Koalas in Canberra are extinct, which is a great shame. Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve used to have a few captive koalas, but from what I have been told all but one of them died in the big 2003 bush fires. Poor things.

Some koalas have been translocated back to the reserve recently and I saw those. They have a little house there, where some of them sleep. They live up to the cuteness standards.

I was also lucky enough to see one of them awake and climbing around. At one point he was hanging using only his arms,flailing his legs around - pretty funny sight!

In-between fieldwork: Dusky Woodswallow

Dusky Woodswallow (Artamus cyanopterus). I couldn't get much closer, but they spent ageeees preening each other and I got several very cute shots of this pair. If you think that they don't look quite right for a swallow you won't be surprised to read that they are actually more closely related to currawongs and Australian magpies than they are to swallows.

I even managed to see a nest, bowl-shaped and made of twigs, tucked behind a bit of bark. No photos though as I didn't want to bother the birds.

In-between fieldwork: Magpie-lark

Magpie-lark (Grallina cyanoleuca). Odd critters, very boldly behaving, not scared to come up to people. Foraging in open grass a lot. Kind of reminding me of little dinosaurs.

Males and females can be distinguished by markings on their heads. Pay attention to the black stripes across the eyes. Males have a horizontal black stripe:

And females have a vertical black stripe and also have white throats:

Update: "in-between fieldwork" every other Thursday

Me again. I have decided that for now In-between fieldwork posts with Australian wildlife will appear on Thursdays (completely arbitrary).

I'm currently scheduling posts for every other Thursday to gauge how much material I have and will go from there - if there is lots left over I might bump it to a weekly Thursday post. Either way, if you are mainly interested in the photos hopefully this will make it easier for you to know when to pop back :]

In-between fieldwork: Australian king parrot

Those guys were easiest to spot in the late afternoon. There were some trees on my way home where they seemed to forage a lot. Their roost must have been somewhere else, as I never saw them stay there for the night and they were never there during my morning cycle down.

I've seen them eat some nuts and buds and their feet are surprisingly agile, they could handle even very small pieces of food well.

In the above photos you can see females. For easy comparison a profile of a female below - mainly green bird with red belly.

While male plumage is much redder and the red spreads all over the bird's head, neck and nape. Wings are green.

In-between fieldwork: Black-fronted dotterel

Black-fronted dotterels (Elseyornis melanops) are not very common around Canberra and I only managed to see a pair during my visit.

They were very easy too spook and didn't allow me to approach at all, every time I tried to take a step in their direction they would strut off hurriedly. They were moving around quite nervously and most of my photos came out rather blurry.

In-between fieldwork: Australian pelican

The Australian pelican (Pelecanus conspicillatus).  Beautiful and so very big, wing span of over two meters and bill around 45 cm long! If I'm not mistaken that's the species with the biggest bills. Very majestic too and not particularly fast-moving, so taking photos was a bit easier.

This guy kept spreading his wings and posing for me!

In-between fieldwork: Red-necked wallaby

The red-necked wallaby (Macropus rufogriseus) - see the red just above the shoulders? I think that black nose and paws, and that white stripe around the mouth can be used to distinguish the red-necks from other local wallabies too. Although to be perfectly honest I find it rather tough to tell some of those guys apart.

Cute, right?

...and they had the biggest pouches I have seen so far. Some of the pouches were pretty much resting on the ground while females foraged.

In-between fieldwork: Yellow-tailed black cockatoos!

Yellow-tails black cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus funereus) were my must-see in Australia. Those guys are absolutely stunning creatures! They seem quirky, fly beautifully and softly for such a big bird, have heaps and heaps of charm... Even their calls are lovely (which is fairly unusual for a parrot!).

I was lucky enough to see them earlier in my trip with one of the local birders. Unfortunately, we accidentally spooked the birds, they flew across the river and even though we could still watch them from a distance I couldn't get decent photos.

This was the only ok-ish one I got:

Since then I have been on a hunt for the yellow-tails. There is just something about them - seeing them once simply wasn't enough. Such beautiful birds. Despite the efforts and assistance from aforementioned birder I haven't managed to see them again. Until today.

Yay! Finally today I have stumbled on a bigger flock and managed to get some photos. I've been bouncing of the walls with excitement the entire afternoon :]

The conditions for taking photos weren't great, but I'm quite happy with what I got, especially considering that I'm leaving Australia soon and this was my last chance to see the yellow-tails on this trip.

More photos to come in the future :]

In-between fieldwork: Eastern rosella

Those little colourful guys are not as common as Crimson rosellas, yet are fairly easy to see, I think I've seen a couple of them at least every other day. They are easier to spook than the crimsons though and don't seem to hang out in big groups.

Eastern rosellas (Platycercus eximius) seem to prefer open spaces and grasslands, and I've seen them mainly foraging on the ground.

Those photos don't show them off though, so I've been trying to catch them when they are perched on branches. Aren't they beautiful?

Update on the "in-between fieldwork" posts

I have seen quite a few things in-between fieldwork so far* and I still have two weeks to go. I realise now that if I want to post a good chunk of it (and I'd love to have a record of it here and be able to share it with my friends) I will have to space it out a bit more.

I will upload photos when I get a moment, but I might schedule the posts to get published in the future so that you don't get too overwhelmed. Hope you enjoy the photos at least to some extend!


*Australia's wildlife is awesome

In-between fieldwork: Painted button-quail

Stumbled across this little guy digging in the ground, while spinning around - quite a funny sight! They are apparently not the easiest things to find, so I'm pretty pleased this one decided to come out and say hello :]


Painted button-quail (Turnix varius), male.

EDIT: Those circles in the leaf litter made by the bird spinning around are called platelets. I learn something new every day!

In-between fieldwork: It's mine!

This morning there was a whole bunch of galahs and gang gangs having a heated debate over who gets a nest cavity. I took a few photos before starting the fairy-wren trials, but the noisy debate continued for quite a while right above my head!

In-between fieldwork: Red wattlebird

While superb-fairy wrens are just starting to lay eggs many other species have been at it for a while. One of them is the red wattlebird (Anthochaera carunculata).

Cute proof:

Red wattlebird chicks

They don't stay this cute forever though. This is what they will look like when they grow up.

The adults seem to be pretty aggressive towards smaller birds, including fairy-wrens. They keep chasing them around and swooping at bushes full of little birds. I don't know whether this is a seasonal behaviour linked to the breeding season or whether they act this way the whole year around.

If you can't quite work out where their name comes from here is a shot where you can see the red wattles.

In-between fieldwork: Tawny Frogmouth

Finally! I have been looking for those guys for a while now. I have been told more or less where to look in the Australian National Botanic Gardens (ANBG). It turns out that they are actually on the other side of the lawn than I thought... Typical!

The tawny frogmouths (Podargus strigoides) look a little bit like owls and are nocturnal, which means that they snooze during the day. They can be very still and well camouflaged (resembling bits of tree bark) so it's easy to miss one. I have only managed to find one and will definitely try to find the other one (there is a pair at ANBG). I'd love to see chicks! I can only imagine how cute those would be.

In-between fieldwork: Sulphur-crested cockatoos

Those guys are super sociable and love to play. It can be soooo much fun to watch them interact with other, jump around, investigate things, swing... They even seem to play while flying!