Australian King-Parrot

I often wonder about the purpose of this blog. It never fully details my whole experience at a certain place, only snippets of it as I mention the flying creatures. As a birdwatching diary, the pictures are of poor quality and small, the descriptions meagre, and the ornithological identifications amateurish at best. However, they are mine, and though nothing to rave about, are my birding experiences. They are my reminders of the joy derived from simple child-like discoveries of nature.

Maffra was a one-week Cattle Week spent with 3 other coursemates in the back rooms of the Maffra Rural Veterinary Clinic eating microwavable dinners, watching the Australian Open, Masterchef and other tv dramas, doing laundry and shaking English Bulldog puppies after nightfall; battling mud, cows and cow poo in the day - pregnancy testing, delivering calves, milking cows and looking at the bread-and-butter of traumatic reticuloperitonitic cadavers. In the midst of all that chaos, I found a sliver of lazy afternoon in the clinic backyard during one lunchtime - underneath a tree laden with fruit and King Parrots.

A King with his Queen

Sploshes of red through his chest, he might be a Prince

The King and his Court

Major Mitchell's in Mildura

Second half of last year started with my first final year placement, in Mildura, where an injured Major Mitchell's was brought in. Poor bird had a broken wing that couldn't be fixed.

Major Mitchell's (Pink) Cockatoo

They have long white crests that are banded red and yellow, and heads, breasts and inner wing aspects that are pink. The males have brown irises while females have red irises. Females also have less red in their crest (thinner red band) than males. I conclude that our captive was a male.

Homing In

More than a year since my last post, I shall revisit the first half of last year by going back to where my career as a vet first starts: school.

So a big thanks to all the feathered creatures that have made passing of exams that little bit easier (or not).

Ralph the male Eclectus Parrot with chronic Beak and Feather Disease

Our ever-docile Feral Pigeons (or Rock Doves)

The right way to hold a pigeon -

Legs in fingers, thumb over tail.

Not like an Olympic torch!

Cockatiels: our exam nemesis!

The Bronze and the Black

I've been hearing about Common Bronzewings, and two days ago, managed to sight one near the Kangaroos feeding on remnants of roo treats.

Common Bronzewing

Saw a Common Blackbird this arvo also hopping around the Kangaroo enclosure in the Sanctuary. It's a feral bird (ie. introduced species).

I've finally been taught how to differentiate a Purple Swamphen from a Dusky Moorhen. A PS is much more purple than a DM. Hopefully I'll be able to identify those birds in my area when I get another chance to look at them.

A Dusky Moorhen (juvenile), albeit a dead one.

The Tidal Mudflats of Seaholme

Seaholme is a suburb situated at the edge of the sea, as its name suggests. At low tide, the beach transforms into a tidal mudflat teeming with seaweed, shellfish, crabs and sea birds.

I was fortunate enough to get a good picture of one of the most magnificent water birds: the Australian Pelican (non-breeding).

Aside from the common Silver Gulls flocking the beach, there was a pair of...stilts/sandpipers/plovers. They were too far away and my camera couldn't capture them well, but here they are:

I'll bet them as a pair of non-breeding Banded Stilts, but they also look like plovers/sandpipers to me. (According to Birds Australia, they're Black-winged Stilts.)

Travelling slightly further inland from the mudflats, we passed a small creek of Black Swans, various ducks, a few egrets, and commorants! No pictures cause we didn't stop by, but from vague memory they look like a flock of Little Black Commorants, simply because they didn't appear to have any white markings and didn't look quite big enough to be Great Commorants. Apparently they 'fish cooperatively with Australian Pelicans'. I did not see the two species together, but having them both situated within the same vicinity is enough persuasion to label them as LBCs.

Bird Prac

Birdwatching: not just confined to the outdoors. Every opportunity should be taken to learn about our feathery friends. Out of our many practical classes, one is dedicated to the Birds. For this post, I'll mostly let the pictures speak for themselves, with captions.

Precious, the much-loved Galah (race roseicapillus)

Zebra Finches (race castanotis)(background):
2nd bird in the 'back row' is a male - spotted wings and striped chin
King Quail (foreground): male - white crescent bordered black chin

Budgerigars (background)
Cockatiels: next to Budgy is a male - brighter yellow heads

Birds have nucleated red blood cells
(all other animals lose the nucleus as the RBC matures)

Masked Lapwing

There's been a pair of birds hanging out on our Werribee campus. I've procrastinated its sighting for a long while up till now, so my memory of it is blur. Tentatively, it's a Masked Lapwing race novaehollandiae, because I vaguely recall black sideburns compared to its counterpart race miles. I will attempt photography and a clearer description of it.

You may call me fickle, but I'm starting to sway towards Purple Swamphen now. When the sun shone the purplish-ness sparkled off those hens and caught my attention. Yes, you may call me fickle.

Long-Billed Corella

Overcast afternoon, with a thunderstorm looming. I took Hongyao's car back to PC instead of cycling. The car travels along the same route by which I cycle home, except that I usually cycle on the pedestrian walkway, which is on the side of the road going in the opposite direction as that towards home. Travelling on the 'correct' side of the road today, I got a closer look at the flock of cockatoos which I thought were the common Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos.

They were white, but to my surprise, they had no 'sulphur' crests and they had splashes of red around their eyes and cheeks. This was atypical of SCCs or Galahs, which are red and grey without any white. According to the picture in my field guide, these are Long-Billed Corellas.

Long-Billed Corellas feed in large flocks on the ground (which was what they were doing when observed). They are white with distinctive long upper bills and bluish bare skin around eye, and pale yellow on underside (car went too fast for me to see). They have orange-red lores, foreheads, and splashes at throat and breast (close enough). The location shown on the map showed Adelaide and western Victoria (which I was at), and their habitat is 'red gum woodland, farmland'. Next to the ground where they were feeding was this bunch of red gum trees, and further down the road is huge patches of farmland.

Such closely matched descriptions quite confirms my 'diagnosis'. There is another species called the Western Corella, which looks similar to the LBCs except that they have bright yellow on their underside instead of pale yellow, and have shorter bills. They are however endangered and have been observed in remnant woodland on western Australia, so it's not likely they were the birds seen today.

Crested Pigeon

I wish I could supplement my bird watching posts with photographs, but I'm always too absorbed trying to get a closer look at bird details to reach for my camera and grab pictures. I guess I could take pictures off the web, but they wouldn't be an exact reflection of what I saw. It's like trying to tell your story with other people's photographs. It's never the same.

I have a greater inclination towards those birds being Dusky Moorhens now, even though I haven't had much of a detailed enough look yet. Yet, the memory that I have of the look of their head leans more towards the Dusky Moorhens-inclination.

On to new birds sighted: this time it's a Crested Pigeon. I'm quite sure of it since it's the only pigeon of that colour with a crest. The crest is upright, long and slender, splitting into a fork as it points upwards. It was a shy creature, feeding solitary on the ground just outside Mercy Hospital. I've seen it previously among the grassland on the Werribee campus as well. It's wings are brown with black bars, with white brushes nearer the end. Its tail flips up, and tips white as well. It's legs are red, and so are the circles around its eyes.

[Edit: Photo taken and added! Lousy quality but that's the best my cam could capture. You can almost just see the 'crest' on its head.]

The Confusion of the Hens

I chanced upon those Purple Swamphens again. This time they were closer to the sidewalk, so I got a closer look - their foliage were indeed purple under the light. It was a family of 4. What a rare chance to see such a range of ages of one species! The male was clearly the one with the brighter plumage. He was nearest the sidewalk protecting his brood, and eyed me warily when I slowed down to look at them. The female with her duller plumage was with her 2 chicks. One was a hatchling, small and cute like a chick at the market, and all dull and fluffy. The other was a juvenile, with plumage a strange mixture of purple and brown.

However, after a browse on the internet for Purple Swamphens and Dusky Moorhens, I can't quite tell them apart! Much less identify my birds. Honestly my birds look more Dusky Moorhens now. Looks like I need to be equipped with my camera tmr and see if I can do these Hens some justice.

The Start

New times, new blogs. This blog is dedicated to my bird-watching experiences, however scant.

27 Dec 2009 – Visited a garden in Mornington Peninsula, near Red Hill Brewery. Sean brought my attention to a fairy-wren wagging its tail in the sunlight. I was wearing my sunglasses and couldn’t quite see it clearly. All I saw was its long straight upright tail behind it and a flash of blue as it wagged and took off into the sunlight. Due to the brief experience, I can’t say for sure that it is a fairy-wren, much less confirm the exact species. Based on those few details of my memory, however, it is likely to be a Superb Fairy-Wren. Males during the breeding season have bright blue crowns and a black back, with brown wings. My memory says the whole thing was black/blue but it was flying into the sun, so I’m most likely wrong.

4 Jan 2010 – On my way to and fro uni, I almost always spot these birds on the vast plains flanking Sneydes Rd. However, I never get a detailed enough look to properly identify these birds. During my attachment, I was invited to watch a post-mortem of a Brolga. I had no idea what a Brolga was, and imagined to be either a breed of one of the domestic animals like dogs and cattle, or a marsupial. To my delight, it is a bird. A Brolga is a long-legged grey crane that roams wetlands and grasslands. This Brolga was brought in by a breeding sanctuary in Geelong to find its cause of death. It had haemorrhages to its neck and was speculated to have died of trauma, from being caught in a fence or from attack by the other Brolgas. To our surprise, its trachea was coiled, like a trumpet, around a bony structure. This probably produces the trumpet-like effects of calls made during the breeding season. It was fascinating. It also did not have a crop.

Me and Dr Padraig Duignan and a dissected Brolga

5 Jan 2010 – I finally got my 3rd or 4th look at those ibis-looking birds on the plains. I also realized the presence of reeds, suggesting a pool of some sort around. Due to the curved bills, I thus suspected Ibis, and true enough, they were Straw-necked Ibises. Straw-necked Ibises have a bare black head and a black body with sheen. Its neck looks white from afar, but apparently they are straw-like. I have also seen them fly in a group. According to the field guide, they fly in a V formation. When I saw them, they were close to landing, so the V formation was not observed. The field guide says white body and black wings, and so it is. They roam shallow, freshwater wetlands and pastures, an apt description of my plains with a few reeds.

The second birds of interest that I spotted on the way to uni were a pair of birds that looked like Purple Swamphens, except that the birds I saw looked more black than purple, and were wandering the grass next to sidewalks rather than swamps and marshy paddocks.