Fieldwork: Never work with animals

I think it's probably even more true for wild animals.

It's not even that the little buggers are not doing what I want them to do, they are simply not doing much at all. During multiple focal watches absolutely nothing happens, the birds just forage and preen themselves.

This means that data collection has been going rather slowly and I started to get a little bit stressed - what if I don't get enough data? I know it's not the end of the world, but I feel committed: I'm investing hours and hours of my time here (including on weekends) and feeling a little bit of pressure that I don't have much to show for it. I'm still learning a lot while I'm here, but something tangible would be nice, especially that this time would have been otherwise spend on results-producing analyses.

I know that I can complete my PhD without these data... Yet, somehow, I know it will feel just a little bit like a failure if I don't get the data. The impostor syndrome is hiding just around the corner, pocking it's ugly head out.


Decision has been made - I'm going to extend my stay by a couple of weeks, till the end of October. Hopefully that will be enough. I shall find out I guess! Now onto flights re-booking and accommodation-searching.


To illustrate how slow and late everything in the field is - some of our males are still not through their moult!

Look at that scruffy face!

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!

In-between fieldwork: Powl

"Powl" is how the local birders refer to their powerful owl. I find the abbreviation oddly cute.

The powerful owl (Ninox strenua) is Australia's biggest owl species. It's big, with big claws.

Meet Powl. Look at those claws!

When it looks at you it seems to be measuring you with its gaze, and I could swear it's wondering whether it could take you on. Can I eat it? it seems to ask.

Powl sees you.

Those owls are normally found in forests, yet Powl lives in a park neighbouring a bowling club. Powl lives alone and it is currently not known whether it's a boy or a girl. I like to refer to Powl as "she" (I can blame it on owl being a feminine word in my mother tongue).  She might be a bit lonely, but she is probably not struggling for prey around this area.

Powl with dinner. Can you spot the possum?

The lovely COG birders have introduced me to Powl and I have been visiting her every few days with hope of getting some decent images I could share with you. She is snoozing peacefully most of the time I see her and I've got lots of "bum" shots. She likes to tuck her head into the feathers and can be fairly tricky to spot when sitting completely still high up in the trees, between all the foliage and branches, but as with all bird photography patience and perseverance seems to be the key to success.

She can be cute when she wants to. I bet that's how she lures the unsuspecting prey into the park.

Fieldwork: Displays

My fieldwork centers around male courtship displays and their variability. Only males that have finished their moult, i.e. only males that are "fully" blue, display. I've been even told that there have been males that started displaying immediately after they shook off their last brown head feathers.

grWM after a moult - fully blue.

Males display to their social partners, but they will also travel to other territories in order to display to females resident on those territories. Displays are a form of an advertisement - they never result in immediate copulation, but males can promote themselves and maybe, just maybe, the females will be impressed enough to choose them as their extra-pair partner during one of their forays.

While displaying male attempts to hide his brown wings and belly from female's view - he tucks those parts under the black feathers. Black creates the perfect background for the iridescent blue of the head and cheeks. Male then raises and fans the blue feathers - his head looks a bit odd during the display, as if it were flattened. Makes me think about cartoon cats squished by pianos.

GnwG displaying - isn't he handsome?

Nice view of the fanned and flattened blue feathers.

Males often chase the females, either in addition to the display or sometimes instead of it. I think the reaction of the female and that of the resident male plays a role here - maybe if the male can't display "in peace" he chooses to chase? It could also be that less experienced males chase more - we are not sure at the moment. One thing I do know is that those chases can be really intense and take IDing of the birds to a whole new level. Dear fairy-wrens, please stop the chasing and display gallantly.

In a small proportion of displays males carry yellow petals or small yellow flowers. This makes the male very easy to spot - I guess getting attention is exactly what he wants! It also looks unbelievably cute. I'm still trying to get a good photo of this, but since it's fairly rare and the wrens are hard to photograph as it is I'm not doing so great. My best one so far is below and you can just about see the yellow flower... It's really there, I swear!

GnwG with a yellow flower in his beak.

Another interesting aspect of the display is the "seahorse" flight. Again, it doesn't happen all the time, probably because it is energetically costly. I watched a few males do it and they only manage it for a short distance after which they land in a bush and pant with their beaks open, poor little fellas. The nature of this flight is hard to explain, but the name makes perfect sense if you see a fairy-wren do it - they really look like seahorses!

Let me try to describe it. A male attempting the seahorse flight flies in a straight line bobbing up and down, undulating, changing his body position from horizontal to vertical and back. The female would be able to see the back of the male, so he tucks in all the brown feathers, exposing only the black and blue to her. While in vertical position the tail is pointing downward and the bird looks hunched up. The shape and the undulations make them look like seahorses. It is an odd and awkward sight, it doesn't look like something a bird is meant to do. I have never seen a photo of the seahorse... I might try drawing a sketch if I see the flight a few more times.

In-between fieldwork: Gang gangs

Gang gang overload!

The boys have red heads and the girls are all grey. I never knew that the feathers on the females' bellies are tinted till now. They always look happy too :]

In-between fieldwork: Parrot photos

I have a group of friends interested in parrots and they wouldn't forgive me if there were no photos up - so here they come! I'll clearly title all parrot posts as such, so, if you are not mad like we are, you can easily skip them.


How can anyone resists the beauty of parrots? They are so incredibly photogenic too!

Out of the three species presented below gang gangs are the hardest to photograph, as they tend to sit rather high up in the eucalyptus trees and rarely come down to the ground. Getting a nice angle on them and capturing the face aren't always possible. If that wasn't tricky enough, their grey plumage + shadows from foliage above/around them aren't an ideal combination either. I'm still trying to get some decent shots.

On the other hand this photo was taken on my first morning here and out of my bedroom window. It was the loud screech of flying-by cockatoos that woke me up, but those guys foraging just outside more than made up for it.

All of this would probably be a bit easier if I actually knew how to use my camera... I just bought a new one recently and I'm still figuring it out (no previous photography experience). It's nothing fancy, a little bridge camera. Any wildlife photography tips would be appreciated. For instance how do I deal with stunningly white cockatoos, often sitting on white-barked eucalyptus trees and posing against a clear, bright sky?

In this one a little shade went a long way in helping with all the whiteness, but I don't get this lucky all the time.

Fieldwork: Moult

The vast majority of male superb fairy-wrens moult into an eclipse plumage for the winter - they go brown (except for their tails). Now that spring has come they are moulting back! It takes them a while to turn fully blue.

I thought I'd show you a few photos, so you can get an idea of the process. In the first photo you can see a male that hasn't sta

RrbR in eclipse plumage - completely brown

Blue feathers appear around the beak first. Have a look at the cheeks of this moulting male.

YYbw starting to moult

YYbw with a few more blue feathers on his face

Then gradually the rest of the face fills in. Blue feathers appear on the top of the head as well as cheeks. The feathers still-to-be-moulted look scruffy.

Face is blue, but the back of the head is still brown

And finally the male is moulted, blue and ready to start displaying!

Fully moulted blue male