This will probably be the last batch of readers’ wildlife photos for a while, though I’m bringing my file with me to India. Reader John Harshman, a birdophile (is there a word for that?), submits some photos of our feathered friends from Australia (as well as one mammal).
A brown booby (Sula leucogaster) on Michaelmas Cay in the Great Barrier Reef. You can walk from one end of this island to the other in about 3 minutes, but there are thousands of breeding sea birds on it.
A brahminy kite (Haliastur indus):
A chestnut teal (Anas castanea):
A couple of flying foxes; sorry, but they’re mammals, and I don’t know the species. Taken in Darwin, if that helps. [JAC: readers?]
An eastern yellow robin (Eopsaltria australis), which needless to say is not closely related to any of the birds called robins in North America or Europe, or in fact to any of the birds in North America or Europe:
sub
My guess on the flying foxes, based on it being taken in Darwin, is that they are little red flying foxes, Pteropus scapulatus. AFAIK the only other species local to Darwin is the black flying fox, and they are distinctly different to these.
Yeah the are like the pictures of flying foxes I took in Cairns but my pictures didn’t turn out well due to technical problems I was having.
We had thousands of those regularly flying over our house in Mount Isa; they navigate between roosts and feeding areas using hilltops, and we were on a local high point where they would make a 30-degree turn, on average. No mango trees at that house so they stayed above treetop level, but at the house before that they smashed fruit and squawked at each other all night, through the mango season. Unless they went to some other oasis that year, which happens too.
Also saw the navigating-by-hilltops thing with Grey-headeds (P. poliocephalus) in Sydney, where I grew up near the main route between colonies at Roseville (and points north) and feeding areas around the harbour including the majestic figs of the city parks.
Very nice pictures.
Fruitbats look more like P. conspicillatus to me — the spectacled flying fox. While it’s hard to see the face for sure, the bright patch of fur across the shoulders & upper back match this species better than P. scapulatus, which does not have such a patch (& is a more deep reddish brown).
I always think it is cool, no matter what the species, to walk down through a big Aussie city, and have fruitbats feeding in the fig trees along the streets, between the skyscrapers. I’m not sure the owners of cars parked underneath those trees share my fascination, though…
Years ago I was with a class on a field trip into Mexico. One day we boated into the gulf to visit a tiny island covered with boulders, sea lions, and nesting boobies (I forget the species). Hiking over the mountain, we had to clamber on all four limbs over guano covered rocks past the boobies. The sea lions had booked it to the sea when we landed. Every time a hand or foot got within reach of a booby they would lash out with that wicked beak. That was scary at first, as these are huge birds, but they only caused minor cuts.
You don’t see many Booby’s on the internet!
Aviphile?
Ah, the Eastern Yellow Robin. I’ve seen lots close to where I live in the Dandenong Ranges on my Sunday morning runs (?walk ?climb). I went through hundreds of pics on the Internet a few years ago to identify it.
John, what nice shots of some great animals! That kite is spectacular-looking!