Tawny away with the Fairy

Tawny Grassbirds (Megalurus timoriensis) filled the air with their chiding descending songs in many spots at Tyto today. Though they've been noisy for some time activity has stepped up.

Field guides offer a range of northern breeding periods, from a broad August-April to a narrow February-April. Not much doubt, however, what all the to-ing and fro-ing is about.

Makes thing easier for birdos. Not so much easier for photographers, since the birds are so intensely busy and vanish in a flash. Nests, too, when built, are difficult to locate.

Got myself into great position today for the pictured bird. It struck a perfect pose. Camera - set on AI servo for tracking shots - found the low contrast and stillness too much! Perfect pose squandered! Sorry, but second-best has to do for now.

Different story, similar result with a hyperactive Fairy Gerygone (Gerygone palpebrosa).

The birds usually move through a wide variety of trees in groups of six to eight, rarely still and seldom low in foliage. (Unlike White-throated Gerygones (Gerygone Olivacea), usually in pairs, almost always in paperbarks, and scouring them from top to bottom.)

Today's solitary Fairy, busy foraging, stayed low in a small tree and near the outside of foliage close to me. Too close, in fact, since I had trouble locating the bird in the viewfinder.

In the end, no great picture. The bird was too quick and the foliage too thick. Pity, but there it is. Two almosts for the day. But two pictures to build future hopes on.

Of Koels and cool cameras

This juvenile Common Koel (Eudynamys scolopacea) continued its nonstop demands for food from a pair of Blue-faced Honeyeaters (Entomyzon cyanotis) at the caravan park today.

For a large, incessant caller the bird has been surprisingly difficult to spot in the tall trees. It came a little lower early this morning. But feeding was done at such a rush I missed two chances, and then the Koel moved out of sight.

In a post with emphasis as much on photography as the natural world, I like the attractive patterns in the out of focus branches and leaves behind the bird. A plug for image stabilisation: 420mm=630mm, handheld at 1/60sec F14 ISO400. Naturally many more blurred shots hit the trash.

Here's a Golden-headed Cisticola (Cisticola exilis) on a sugar cane flower stalk, also early today. The side-on pose helps keep all in focus. 420mm=630mm handheld at 1/800sec F10 ISO400.

And finally a Monarch butterfly on one of the few Tyto lagoon-edge weeds not to have been sprayed in the last few days. Not a macro, this is another handheld 630= shot, at F13 1/1250sec ISO1600. The picture has been lightly sharpened, without any denoising. Not a super shot, but a telling example of camera technology at work.

Followings and swallowings

Nature bloggers are being urged to match the busy biz self-promotion found within the social networking scene. If we think our stuff's worth reading it's up to us to snaffle all possible readers.

Nothing too much wrong with that - so far as it goes. Though it does seem to be a world so rampantly positive and all-embracingly encouraging that it lacks critical values.

And perhaps 'success' as measured by high readership and followings demands drive and effort that many of us prefer to put directly into our passion. If I could bird and not blog I'd still be happy. Blog and not bird? Unthinkable!

Gee! you say, where's this going? Nowhere very deep, I assure you. Just thinking aloud to introduce today's pix.

Should I open with the best picture, or the lesser picture illustrating an unusual sighting? Who cares? Well, if I'm concerned to push up my ratings I might start to care. Too much. Anyway, on with blog.

Pheasant Coucal (Centropus phasianinus) flew into a rain tree at the mill treatment ponds this morning with something long and green dangling from its bill. As the bird clambered about in the branches a tree frog swung to and fro, head locked in the bird's mouth. Another coucal in the tree looked interested, but didn't offer any challenge.

No surprise to find a Pheasant Coucal with a frog. But its carrying prey into a tree falls outside my experience and expectation. The frog's probable final minutes were hidden from me. (Probable because I once saw a Black Butcherbird virtually swallow a frog before spitting it out unharmed.)

On to a bit of cute. This Black-faced Woodswallow (Artamus cinereus) poses atop a rock on a pile of builder's mix yesterday evening at the caravan park.

Not sure how this pic will hold up. By circumstance and design it's been jpg-compressed three times at 80 per cent. Not best practice, but let's see how it looks. Will it help my ratings???

Birds in my face, under my feet

Female Rufous Whistler (Pachycephala rufiventris) flew so close to me I'd have missed this picture with other than my 28-300mm Tamron macro. Since I have no other lens, I got a picture.

Target until the whistler turned up was a juvenile Mistletoebird (Dicaeum hirundinaceum). The bird's feeding added to the colour of its vivid gape. But it stayed just out of range and light enough for a good shot.

No success with the camera at my favourite rainforest creek either. However, after joking earlier about taking years to find an Azure Kingfisher's dirt-tunnel nest, a bird popped out right under my nose (or feet) today.

Where was it? Two metres from where I watched and shot Large-billed Gerygones building their long dangling nest over the centre of a creek pool!

Over more than four weeks and at least 20 visits to the site - and many sightings of Azures - I saw no behaviour to suggest a pair of the birds had a nest virtually beneath my feet.

The water level has risen more than 600mm after recent rain. There's no easy crossing to the opposite bank. The tunnel entrance will be in shadow, severely backlit for much of the day, and eight metres off - too far for my in-camera flash.

But a bit of sit and watch is obviously called for. Keep you posted.

Rare morning in the rainforest

The rainforest creek pools today produced rare local sightings of Orange-footed Scrubfowl (Megapodius reinwardt) and Channel-billed Cuckoo (Scythrops novaehollaniae). Noisy Pitta (Pitta versicolor), Shining Flycatcher (Myiagra alecto), MacLeay's Honeyeater (Xanthotis macleayana), Large-billed Gerygone (Gerygone magnirotris) and Azure Kingfisher (Alcedo azurea) also showed up.

Sadly, not one bird did a photographer any favours. The scrubfowl strode off sturdily, the pitta made a colourful exit into tall timber, where the channel-billed perched heavily for a few seconds before heading west, the Azure streaked away, the gerygones busied themselves in the nest, the honeyeater (below) grabbed an insect and departed, and the flycatchers mostly detoured around me.

The latter behaviour at least explained why the birds have been difficult to track. Most Shinings I've encountered elsewhere - even along similar small creek systems - stuck close to the low ground and shadowed areas. The present pair make darting flights sideways into the forest, or weave through the trees parallel to the creek before turning to forage again along the banks (male, below).

In Tyto proper, a Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus) - first for several months - stood out in the midst of the expanding set of regulars standing in the rapidly evaporating shallows.

Crimson Finch feathers nest

A wow at mention of Crimson Finch (Neochmia phaeton) led me to seek them out today. With predictable results. Distant poor pictures of finches bathing, feeding, flying, perching, preening. Luckily, the male bird of the pair using a paperbark hole ouside the Tyto hide was fetching feathers to line the nest.

Females sometimes carry feathers but I'm not sure males accept any help from them. Certainly the female didn't take any part in today's hour of to-ing and fro-ing. Heavy morning showers probably limited the selection of suitable small, dry and white feathers. So trips to the nest were fewer than I've observed at other times. Perhaps the work will be continuing tomorrow.

Here's two versions of a better picture taken from my rusty mobile 4WD hide. Surprising just how close one can drive up to birds and other wildlife (but not often practicable).

Bittern sticks his neck up

Here's today's puzzle: find the bird in the bulgaroo. Hurry up, I've done all the hard work. Stood near this spot for months off and on. And all for nothing most of the time. That, or a brief gurgle and then silence for the rest of the day.


Today brought the if-onlys. If only the bird would come out to the water's edge of the bulgaroo (which I cannot identify: am told it's Scleria sp but cannot nail it down. So, bulgaroo it is. Not bulguru: the Water Chestnut.)


If only it would climb to the top of the bulgaroo. If only it would - best of all - stand openly and preen. If only I'd ID the bird? Why, it's a Little Bittern (Ixobrychus minutus). Today's is the first clear sighting for me since April 7. Then, I got obscured, blurry pictures of a bittern seizing a great mass of weed and unidentified prey. One day, if only the if-onlys are aligned correctly, and fate decrees, I'll get a decent picture of little Ixo!



Elsewhere, I came across two young Welcome Swallows (Hirundo neoxena) awaiting impatiently on a bridge rail for their hard-pressed parents to meet their demands for more, more, more... ...and people think teenagers can be just a teeny bit demanding! At least they don't physically try to bite your head off.

Jellies set me a problem

Jelly fungi don't appear often in Tyto, and seldom at this time of year. But downpours early last month revitalised growth and breeding, desirable and not (cane toads are pouring forth).

After twice failing to find any sight or sound of any Lovely Fairy-Wren at the nest site reported on in my last post, today I went hunting for more static sights. I found some fungi I'd not seen before. Top picture and the one below are, as best I can ID, Auracularia sp.

The problem is the depth of my ignorance about fungi is closely matched by the sparsity of library resources available to me. I can't pin down the species below.

Railing and quailing over ID

What's small, brown, silent, a bit clumsy in the air, without much tail, rising out of the head-high bulrushes and landing like a rail in short new-growth before vanishing into the tall stuff?

How about Baillon's Crake (Porzana pusilla)? Smallest of the rails. Fits the colouring as seen from behind. Perfect location. Almost the ideal answer. Too bad the species isn't known in these wetlands.

So. Almost. But maybe a bit too big. Perhaps too much tail to match the bird briefly observed in gusting breezes early today.

Come noon after two laps of Tyto and it's much hotter and breezier. What are the chances of another sighting? Zero? But then again...

Stalk slowly along edge of bulrush beside track. Sneak around corner and spot hurried movement just ahead. Hello, Red-backed Button-Quail (Turnix maculosa). Why are you here? You should be in knee-high weeds, not messing about flying up out of the tall bulrushes.

Easy answer - on reflection. Much of the weed habitat foraged over by the button-quail has been heavily sprayed and mown. Sightings may be fewer this year as the birds that stick around make greater use of the bulrushes.

Whatever proves the case, the nippy movers will be no easier to capture with a camera. (Today's dodgy efforts further obscured by a thumb smear on the main lens while detaching 1.7x telephoto.)

No need to get all snarky about it

Poking your tongue out isn't rude, if you are asked to do so, I said. In fact, it might be considered the polite thing to do. So I'll ask again, nicely. Poke your tongue out, please.

Sha'n't! Sha'n't! Sha'n't! Hissed the Carpet Python. My name's Morelia spilota mcdowelli and my rank is reptilia and that's all you're getting out of me. And I'm warning you. Touch me again and I'll bite.

There's no need to take that attitude, I said. I was just giving you a little pat goodbye. Then you got all snakey. Sorry, didn't mean to be offensive. Snarky. That's what I meant. Snarky.

Snarky? Snarky? Who are you calling snarky? I'm perfectly composed ...

Of course you are, I ...

...and don't interrupt, it's not polite. As I was saying, I'm composed and have every right to aggrievement. Lying contentedly taking the morning sun and not a trouble in the world - until you came along and thrust that glassy thing in my face.

I'm sorry, I ...

You're not sorry at all. I've heard that you do this sort of thing all the time. All the time! Don't you dare try to deny it. I'm going off to report your intrusion right now. You'll be hearing from us.

Us? What do you mean? Us?

FANGS, that's who. Fellowship Against Naturalists Grabbing Snakes. You've got a severe tongue-lashing coming ... Don't! Don't you dare ask again that I poke my tongue out.

With that, M. s. mcdowelli was gone, leaving me chastised. But undaunted. Little did the snarky one know I'd captured an early shot of the tongue today at Tyto. Not so clever now, eh, M.s.m.?

Whipsnake not so dead(ly)

Greater Black Whipsnake (Demansia papuensis) poses reluctantly for a picture of its underside after being caught playing dead. These are among Tyto's most commonly encountered daytime snakes. Can't recall any positive sightings of the Lesser Black (D. vestigiata).

I spotted the one-metre snake idling across a track of short grass and over a patch of leaf litter at the base of a few paperbarks. A tree snake would have gone straight up a tree, but whipsnakes seem only to consider climbing when on the track of prey.

The defensive strategy is to sit it out in whatever limited cover is available, stiffen up and feign death. The pretence continues even when a stick is gently pushed under the snake and most of the body is hoisted clear of the ground.

But it seems the muscular demands of continuing the trick cannot be sustained when all the body is raised. The snake then slowly 'returns to life'. There's no aggressive reaction or sudden movement, simply a gradually easing of body off the hoisting stick.

Only when back on the ground and facing a camera close to its head will the snake rear back in defensive threat. Pull camera or presence away slightly and wary calm returns. Pull back a little more and a gentle escape is made.

Though large whipsnakes are considered potentially dangerous there's something unthreatening about them. The only snakes I've felt comfortable having close enough to 'taste' my sandalled toes with their delicate tongues have been Common Trees, Greater Blacks, and small pythons.

This from a Kiwi cyclist whose first reaction on seeing a tiny snake on a Boondall Wetlands (Brisbane) path nine years ago was to hoist both feet high off the pedals. Times change - and we can too!

Woodswallow so obliging

Black-faced Woodswallow (Artamus cinereus) shows the usual tolerance of the species toward people. The birds rival Willie Wagtails in their willingness to have cameras thrust in their faces. The woodswallows flock to Tyto only for short spells during the year and generally prefer more open country, leaving treed places to the more dominant White-breasted Woodswallow (Artamus leucorhyncus).

The three Black-necked Stork juveniles have taken possession of a small mound in the middle of the main lagoon. The parent birds no longer keep an eye on the trio for much of the day. The young birds stand around a lot without foraging in the knee-deep shallows. Perhaps they're enjoying a spell living off their equivalent of puppy fat. Though they don't appear to have any inclination toward puppy behaviour. In fact, now I muse on it, most of what appeared to me to be 'playfulness' came from mature birds.

The Forest Kingfishers have gone, five months after first appearing in large numbers following the wet season. Not clear where they go. Field guides say Todiramphus incinctus is: Sedentary. Or migratory. Or semimigratory. Nests in arboreal termite mounds. Or hollow branches and trunks. Heads south. Or north. For winter. Or summer. Of one thing I'm sure: they don't stay in Tyto once things warm up.

Also gone (again): Yellow-billed Spoonbill, Cotton Pigmy Goose.

After banging on regarding calling birds out, I note the subject's coincidentally become a hot item on birding-aus, http://groups.google.com/group/birding-aus

Finally - and apart from BWO - I add that it's taken almost a week to subdue some nasty head-invading pus-monster that kept me away from the wetlands. Thank you to doctor number three, the one who isn't scared of antibiotics!

Two on to three won't go!

Two out of three ain't bad, they (the ubiquitous they) say.

Ain't good neither, say I. Two's company, three's a crowd as an adage doesn't count for much as we add age.

Enough trying to make every word count. Here's the problem. Agile Wallaby 10 metres below us with young joey peeking brickish-red face out into the morning. Willie Wagtail, diving about and using wallaby's back as springboard.

How many shots needed to get all three in one? Don't waste your time. Problem doesn't compute. It appears the joey and the bird have a deal: one shows, other goes; one chides, other hides.

Second problem: even if all three lined up, the scale between them means two onto one won't go. Cut out the middle Mum? Thought of that but bird and joey wouldn't play ball.

Here's the real lesson. We know it's never going to add up. But we sit there because it just might. And when it doesn't, it doesn't matter. We've had 30 minutes' fun trying to talk them into it.

Complete change of pace and place. The latest edition, 83, of I and The Bird, blog carnival to treasure, is again working its magic, at:
http://reflections.wrenaissance.info/2008/09/i-and-bird-83-joy-of-birds.html

Read, wallow in and wonder at the world of birds and birders. I'd plug it even if I wasn't making a debut entry (he said, mock-modestly).

Some weren't here yesterday

Rufous Songlark... shows up after three weeks without being sighted

Many birders will understand that terrible dread of letting down a visitor to one's stamping ground.

Having written or otherwise played up the rare treasures within, one's left saying, 'Well, they were here yesterday.'

So it's with some relief to report that a southern visitor shared in most of the 68 birds ticked off today before a localised front bucketed down - on me alone. The visitor got out beforehand. Sitting on 68, I decided to crack on for 70+ and ended drenched and still on 68.

But (always a but), didn't find Grey Whistler, or White-browed Crake, or any much less likely Lovely Fairy Wrens.

Best in the air: dark Swamp Harrier, maturing White-bellied Sea Eagle, Pelican, Little Black Cormorant, and (all to myself, BV before visitor) 9 Red-tailed Black Cockatoos (heading north: nothing in Tyto appeals to them).

In the trees (some on visitor's wish list): White-gaped Honeyeater, White-browed Robin, Rufous Fantail, Northern Fantail, MacLeays, Dusky, Graceful and Brown-backed Honeyeaters. Also sightings of Brush and Fan-tailed Cuckoos with caterpillars.

On or over the water: Little, Azure Kingfishers, juvenile Black-necked Stork, White-necked Heron. Water Python nosing about at water side of bulrushes, but no clear view.

About four hours of spotting and conversation, dealing, of course, largely with birds and wildlife. Enjoyable as a change, though at end of the joint bike ride, not a photograph taken. Obsessive single-mindedness is modified in company.

It had paid off before the joint effort as I patrolled my 2ha listing segment. Two puzzling birds engaged in distant hectic chasing through and around a grove resolved their differences and plonked themselves close to me: the 'vanished' Rufous Songlark and a young Horsfield's Cuckoo. Hadn't seen songlark for almost three weeks. Suddenly it's on top of me! Picture. Best (and only bird) of the day, but, sadly, BV.

Yellow Spoonbill fronts up

Bigger of Australia's spoonbills, the Yellow-billed (Platalea flavipes) ranges over most of the country - and even gets to New Zealand - but seldom drops in to Tyto, where the Royals (Platalea regia) are relatively common in small numbers.

Another major difference, as in the bird pictured (only the second of 2008), is the plumage. Yellows just don't come in the spotless white of Royals and the even whiter white of Great and Intermediate Egrets. Nor do the Yellows glory in the startling yolky yellow breeding patches above the eyes of Royals. Seems a bit unfair, given the name, missing out on glorious yellow markings, doesn't it?

When foraging in the shallows, the birds sweep their heads rhythmically left-right-left-right, pausing in this metronomic pattern to swallow such prey as the sensitive bills have located and captured. I've never seen a spoonbill catch hold of a fish or, say, frog big enough to be seen clearly. This would explain why small parties of spoonbills often have an egret, usually the large Great, stalking along and accepted beside them. The spoonbills feel their prey, the egret sees its meals. No competition, no squabbles.

The latest Yellow arrival probably won't stay long. Even though often solitary, the birds obviously by their general absence throughout most of every year do not find Tyto's lagoon system as welcoming as do the Royals. On the plus side, the bird is not flighty, so long as the approacher moves slowly and doesn't seek to get inside the 'zone of confidence': which varies with all living things - in this case 20-25 metres.

So, if I can get close why isn't the picture better? Good question. I've just rechecked the focussing on the Panasonic FZ30. In short, it doesn't. Well, of course it does, but not super sharply. The Pana's days are numbered. If I'd known then what I now know etc etc...

But it has taken 62,000 images without any problems apart from the hand grip stretching (cut it away and glue-on two small velcro circles) and the 1.7x lens cover cap falling off (tiny drops of super glue dried hard on cover's six ribs).


Finally, the return of the slime!!! Couldn't resist picture of this colony of Fuligo septica (about 500mm x 250mm). And a last look at the sporangium of the earlier post, now slowly fading away.

Bumpy frog and Mr Grumpy

Now you see him, now you don't!

This Bumpy Rocketfrog (Litoria inermis) might not be a him. Whatever the gender, the frog looks more Mr Grumpy than Bumpy. Not so hard to explain. It's nice and dark and you're in the middle of a mass of rocketfrogs, all dreaming rocketfrog dreams, the next second someone's poking a finger into a cleft in a dead stump and you're rudely prodded awake.Blame a more active frog whose movement caught the prodder's eye.

What can an indignant frog do under such circumstances? Best to play it cool. No noises, not even a 'cluc' or 'wek' - they're for mating. Disdain. Unblinking disdain. Regal disdain.

That's it, the disdain of a monarch. Take up a commanding position and stare the danger down. Then hop off somewhere safer. Such as merging against a dead trunk. Wait for the intruder to go away and play his anthropomorphic games with someone else.

All interesting enough as part of today's life in Tyto, but a curious thing comes with the frog on the stump. As is only too clear, I missed part of frog, and focus is soft. Nothing odd there.

But when I crop any part of the full frame the picture suffers. The more I crop, the more it suffers. Others may find nothing in the picture and feel little regret that (I think) something better was butchered.

Fungi fun and name games

Coming to an 'understanding' of the problem

Covered the almost endless depths of my ignorance about slime moulds by delving into Bruce Fuhrer's Field Guide to Australian Fungi. What then could be simpler than finding fungi in the rainforest, getting them to smile and say cheese (and truffles) and naming them all from the book. Too easy!

Sure, most snakes are almost impossible to photograph, let alone name. Little brown birds can make one a twittering wreck. But a few fungi. How hard can that be?

Much harder than expected. Few fungi found. Not all photographed well. And even with book in hand names didn't pop out easily - or at all. But I liked the pictures enough to give two of the fungi a run.

Naturally, we'll start with a mystery entry. Can't find anything like this one in the book. Seems to be a 'clumper' that's been growing for quite some time. Width about 150mm. The picture is a view from above. The same species, shot from below and growing on the same fallen tree, opens this post.


Think I'm on surer ground with this one. Microporus xanthopus is found throughout tropical Australia. Large (up to 90mm) and small. I find the funnel 'flowers' mainly on small fallen branches in drier patches of forest.

Frog bites off two too much

Rebuilt earlier post to bring it within the layout that seems to work best with this template.

FROGS seem to have top PR people, don't they?

And it's not only because many of them are dying off in disturbing numbers all round the world. Seldom do we hear anyone bad-mouthing a frog. Nobody jumps up on a chair if a frog enters the room. Or rushes for a death-dealing broom.

Even the glitteringly colourful tropical rainforest frogs carrying lethal amounts of toxins produce more oohs and aahs at their beauty than flinching from their deadliness.

But a frog has to live. Living for most frogs means death for some other form of life. It's a jungle out there, they say, with that old line from one of Darwin's chums: "Nature raw in tooth and claw". Not so many teeth or claws with frogs, rather a cavernous mouth and an appetite to match.

Yet big eyes and even bigger mouths can lead to biting off more than one can chew. So with this White-lipped Green Treefrog.

In the dark at a caravan park in North Queensland, the frog sought a late-night meal at a Willie Wagtail nest holding three near-fledglings. It grabbed two as one fluttered to safety.

Problem then for the frog was the weight of two birds and its tenuous hold on the wrought iron grille the parent birds had built their cupped nest upon. Gravity won. The frog lost its grip on both birds. One died. The other, put straight back into the nest, survived, along with the third sibling.

The frog lived to bite another day. (Green Treefrogs are thriving.)

Slime's time has come

Who's up for some time with slime? No pretence at dinkum knowledge on my part. Pictures mine, the serious stuff's from a book.

What looks like a kitchen sponge turned feral is a mature fruit body called a sporangium (spore producing phase) of Fuligo septica (slime mould: Myxomycota division of kingdom Protoctista).

The spores become an amoeba-like creeping slime mass called a plasmodium feeding on bacteria, fungi and organic debris. (Remember The Blob? - Showing my age!). When the time of slime ends the cycle begins again. (I don't think the insects are in danger.)

The large (about 100mm x 50mm) red bracket fungus Pycnoporus coccineus (kingdom Eumycota; division Basidiomycota), is a common sight on fallen logs. Tyto has many such, casualties in the war against invasive exotic trees. (Insect definitely not in danger.)

Pictures here reverse usual order of things. But it's time the slime moulds - few in number and until recently lumped in with the fungi - got a break. Tough enough cycling through life looking like lumps of dog vomit and worse without always being put last in all the books.

Paperbark bursting its seams

Change of focus with a wind-stripped paperbark that looked to be bursting out of its skin. As I walked by the tree I could almost feel it calling out to be photographed. Doesn't happen often - and usually I lack the gear to do the chance justice. But I'm learning - rather late in life - to listen better to nature.