Readers’ wildlife photos

Today we have bird photos from reader Rodney Graetz of Canberra, Australia, who has contributed several times before. Rodney’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

A Backyard Year

Because we live in a leafy suburb in an intentionally leafy city, our very ordinary backyard occasionally hosts interesting native wildlife.  In January, the first appearance of this juvenile (yellow/buff chest feathers) and very ragged and grubby Kookaburra (Dacelo sp.) Why so?  Kookaburras, along with 50+ parrot species, nest only in tree hollows.  Consequently, the competition for nesting sites is incessant and fierce.  For Kookaburras, the competition within a nest is also fierce, sometimes lethally so.  Driven by food and space conditions, aggressive nestlings are known to kill one another (Siblicide): usually the last born or smallest is killed first.  So, this grubby (sex unknown) bird may well have had a tough upbringing, including a killing:

The same bird in late September, now well-groomed and obviously in good condition.  It returns irregularly and we hear it more often than we see it.

This pair of Magpie Larks (Grallina cyanoleuca) appeared last year and have remained ever since.  The male is standing, and the post-bath female is squatting (deformed foot).  It is a widespread species that we include here as part of a larger story later.

Now (November), both birds have begun harvesting mud and grass for nest building, ferrying high up into the street tree, beak full by beak full.

This is the nest that they made last year in October.  It is a substantial, thick-walled cup nest, built, beak full by beak full.  It failed during a heavy rainstorm.  The current nest under construction is nearby:

Though slight birds, both male and female birds will display and fight over territory, here the birdbath.  We include this (Trap) photograph because it revealed the mesmerising underwing feather patterning of the Satin Bowerbird (Ptilonorhynchus violaceus), none of which is visible when the wings are folded:

In early September, this young Grey Butcherbird (Cracticus torquatus) arrived, a first.  Note the sharply hooked beak.  Its bathing technique is to get completely sodden, as here, then spend 10 minutes or so, meticulously grooming.  Its song is delightful.  Lately, we hear the bird more than we see it.

I add this borrowed photo to illustrate how they earned their common name Butcherbirds.  Like in a butcher shop – remember them? – surplus prey is hung or wedged, as here, or spiked on a thorn.  I’ve yet to personally see this in the wild.

A likely male (black eye) Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita) contemplating a drink, a lengthy process similar to a winetaster at work.  A very common bird everywhere in Canberra, visually and noisily.  I include the photo to illustrate how large this parrot is (750+ gm, 1.8 lb) and to note that it will readily bathe in aviary captivity but rarely in the wild.  Most likely because a wet bird this size would require considerable effort to get airborne from the ground.  They do ‘sponge bath’.  During rain, they select a tree canopy with dense pendulous leaves, as Eucalypts mostly are, and fly into them, hanging upside down and flapping their wings to get them wet, particularly the wing underside – wing pits?  Their raised crest signals are similar to human eyebrows in showing surprise, fright and rage.

In early November, a first, both of sighting and visit, a female Pacific Koel (Eudynamys orientalis), a migratory Cuckoo species.  Two interesting aspects: the first being the probable migration distance travelled from northern tropical Australia, or even Indonesia, to Canberra in southern Australia.  The second is that, like all the Cuckoo family, they are brood parasites.

The female Koel has turned to call loudly after a departing (all black) male Koel, thus displaying her intricate feather patterning.  The behaviour of the two birds suggested there was a mating event.  If so, she and all other gravid female Koels in Canberra, will stay feeding and begin searching for susceptible birds’ nests in which to deposit their egg(s).

National bird experts list the local bird species vulnerable to Koel Brood Parasitism, among them being the Magpie Lark.  Copied from a national bird book, this painting illustrates the closeness in egg appearance between that of a Koel and a Magpie Lark, a pair of which birds are busy making a mud cup nest in our street tree.  We live in interesting times: