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December, 2008

This Sacred Kingfisher was in the process of disgorging an enormous pellet. 
Unfortunately, it turned its back on me just as the pellet emerged! 

Our local crows have managed to raise some young of their own young this year.

As often as not they succeed only in producing a Channel-billed Cuckoo, but now we have two adult
Torresian Crows and two youngsters visiting the bird baths together every day.
I guess it's in the cuckoos' interest that they at least allow the crows to perpetuate themselves!

This feeder is usually the province of pigeon and dove species or Galahs
but Little Corellas have just found it for the first time.

22 November, 2008 - A Mix of Egrets

Heavy rain has caused a local stream to burst over the dam wall put in its way by the land-owner
and it has spilled down the bank and across the nearby road, taking lots of fish and other 
aquatic life with it - resulting in an influx of egrets and other waterside predators.

November, 2008 - Two breeding birds in the local escarpment forest

 .... and an assortment of birds from around the garden

11 November, 2008

           
Plum-headed Finches

  Plum-headed Finches photographed through the window yesterday, 
 a Pallid Cuckoo from this-afternoon, and a Rainbow Bee-eater 
proving that they eat a lot more than bees. 

9 November, 2008 - Quite a weekend!  

 
Our first Abberton Koala!

When we moved onto Abberton, about 20 years ago, a few eucalypts along the old fence-line by the road were the only mature trees we had here. 
Later, we bought the old road reserve alongside that boundary and began to plant it up with local endemics so as to join the vegetation further 
along the creek with what we had here and what we were intending to plant here - the aim being to make a contiguous wildlife corridor.  

Well, it’s been working quite well. Our list of mammals has steadily grown over the years, along with our bird list, 
and this-afternoon in a eucalyptus right in the garden – our first Koala! 

We’ve seen them a few kilometres along the creek in one direction, and along the road in another, but never before in our garden.

 
Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo

We were visited yesterday morning by four or five Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos. 

They spent some time in casuarinas on the creekbank, then moved up into the garden where they gnawed away 
at old seedcases and galls and even branches in a couple of Acacia maidenii, intermittently screeching out their 
raptor-like contact calls as they took over a couple of trees alongside a birdbath.  

In between these events, much of the other usual excitement was going on, a raucous Channel-billed Cuckoo fly-by, 
a gorgeous female Eastern Koel in a tree by the gate as I went out to get the Sunday paper, 
a Wedge-tailed Eagle passing low overhead carrying what looked very like a chook, 
Dollarbirds in pairs, Rainbow Bee-eaters likewise, and at breakfast time this-morning 
two Plum-headed Finches in an unkempt patch of garden just off the verandah.  

4 November, 2008

 
Dollarbirds

Our resident pair of Dollarbirds seem to be winning the battle for a nest hole in the big dead tree just across the creek.  
They are Australia’s only Roller, and for a short while a few years back their ‘official common name’ was changed to 
Eastern Broad-billed Roller – but it didn’t find favour, and it’s been back to Dollarbird for some time now.

  Oh well, what’s in a name, they’re wonderful birds to have around the garden every day whatever we call them!  

Olive-backed Oriole - outside my window

1 November, 2008 - Local wetlands

This Intermediate Egret shows one of the features key to separating this species from the similar, larger, Eastern Great Egret. 

Note that the facial skin and gape below the eye extends as far back as, but not beyond, the eye.
Compare this with the gape in the photographs of Eastern Great Egrets elsewhere on this page, 
which can be seen to extend in a triangular shape backwards beyond the eye. 

30 October, 2008

Satin Bowerbird

Photographed at Mt Glorious, the male Satin Bowerbird takes six or seven years to attain this beautiful glossy blue-black plumage.

         
Black-shouldered Kite

Plum-headed Finches

A party of fifty or so Plumheads have been regular in the local area for a few weeks.

Koala

We dropped in on friends the other day, and found koalas in the trees alongside the house.

                         

Tawny Frogmouth

This is the same nest that I photographed a few weeks ago (lower down the page), but now the young have hatched.
One chick is obvious, another can be seen lying in the foreground in front of the parent bird, 
A friend tells me that a few days later she was at the same nest site and saw three chicks there!

I know of two current nest sites of White-bellied Sea-eagles in the valley, but I don't doubt there are more.

One of the later spring arrivals here, Dollarbirds are a joy to have around. They glide and swoop around the garden and over the creek,
flashing their beautiful blues and greens and aqua roundels in the wings. Every year they compete with parrots and Common (Indian) Mynas
for nest holes in a big dead tree just across the creek.

7 October, 2008

One of the bonuses of having Lockyer Creek flowing again was seeing this Platypus swimming past the house the other morning. 

I’ve birded fairly solidly over the last ten days or so, and seen more than 190 species in the process,
including thirteen raptor spp, with Wedge-tailed Eagles every day. 

Tawny Frogmouth at the nest

The local lagoons are full of birds, many Red-necked Avocets and Red-capped Plovers, and large numbers of at least 8 species of ducks.

Red-necked Avocets

Some local forest birding

Grey-headed Flying Foxes

A daytime roost of thousands of Grey-headed Flying Foxes has recently invaded what has been one of my favourite spring-time 
birding spots on the Toowoomba escarpment.  The sight, sound, and even the smell of the place has changed dramatically, 
and nearly all the birds I have been used to seeing there at this time of year were absent. 

I went back a few days later and found the bats somewhat reduced in number – and a few more birds around.   

All four local egrets are in their full breeding flush right now, providing an opportunity to see Eastern Great, Intermediate, Little  and Cattle Egrets 
practically side by side while their beaks and soft parts are really coloured up.

25 Sept 2008

Channel-billed Cuckoo

Cuckoos abound – ready to take advantage of the nesting that is either underway or imminent. 
In the last few days we’ve had Horsfield’s Bronze-Cuckoo, Shining Bronze-Cuckoo, Pallid Cuckoo 
and Fan-tailed Cuckoo and Eastern Koel around.

 
Shining Bronze-Cuckoo

Lots of water around, and hundreds if not thousands of water birds including Red-capped Plovers and Red-necked Avocets, but no other sandpipers yet.

Heaps of Australasian Shovelers, Pink-eared Ducks and so on.

8 Sept 2008 - Courting Leaden Flycatchers

I can’t imagine a more exhuberant suitor than a male Leaden Flycatcher, nor a prettier courtee.  
A wooing pair has invaded our garden again this year, chasing and following each other all around the garden, 
the male striking the most extravagant dandy-like poses while the female looks on, thrusting her pretty orange breast 
towards him at every opportunity.

           
Leaden Flycatcher - male and female

From the garden, I spotted a bronze-cuckoo on the verandah deck.  
Initially, it was sitting low, head up, beak open, and from a distance I thought it might have been 
a young bird, particularly because it just stayed and stayed. 

When I snuck into the house and got close to it from inside, it proved to be a well-coloured adult Shining Bronze-Cuckoo 
- maybe it had hit a window and was in a state of recovery.

Plenty of raptors in or over the garden – Wedge-tailed Eagle, Brown Goshawk, Collared Sparrowhawk, 
Brown Falcon, Nankeen Kestrel, Black-shouldered Kite and Whistling Kite this weekend.

We watched this White-faced Heron from the verandah as it spent some time preparing a large freshwater-crayfish for consumption.

It repeatedly tossed the crayfish in the air, juggling it as it snipped off its two big front claws, dropping it in the water frequently 
and then recovering it, before finally position it for an easy passage down its throat.

31 August 2008  - Under attack!

This-morning, I inadvertently wandered too close to some Masked Lapwing chicks.

The parent birds quickly pointed out my mistake - first calling loudly, then taking to the air... 

and finally launching an all out attack, spurs raised and ready to strike!

Masked Lapwing

I hid behind the camera!

Rainbow Bee-eaters

Rainbow Bee-eaters are busy pairing up and going through their aerial courtship.

Just now the air is full of the sight and sounds of pairs of bee-eaters, gliding and swooping to bring morsels to each other.

30 August 2008  - Trying not to photograph

Scolding and chattering coming from an assortment of honeyeaters, scrubwrens and other small passerines often leads 
to the discovery  of an unwanted intruder.

It's always worth investigating the cause of the threat, which in order of likelihood is most often a Kookaburra, 
a cuckoo, a raptor, a Carpet Python, or an owl.

Collared Sparrowhawk

This time it was an adult Collared Sparrowhawk - a threat indeed to the smaller residents.

Snapping around the garden

Birds on some local ponds

         

Plumed Whistling Ducks and Pink-eared Ducks on the same small lake.

Eurasian Coot

21 July 2008 - Plumheads, and more from the garden

 
Plum-headed Finches

A flock of around a hundred Plum-headed Finches were feeding in a freshly-hoed paddock just along the road yesterday. 
You can see both sexes and all ages in these photos. 

As Eileen described them, a pleasure of Plumheads.

         

The Red-capped Robin is still here, and I can't resist taking a few photos whenever I see him.  

 
White-browed Scrubwren

And, a bird that is so common in the garden that I almost never get round to photographing it, a White-browed Scrubwren.  

 
Yellow Thornbill

Yellow Thornbills are around all the time, mostly working their way through the tops of trees, 
but this one was quite low in an Acacia salicina close to the house.

This Nankeen Night-Heron has taken to roosting very low on the creekbank, and has favoured this spot regularly for a couple of weeks. 
Most often they find a daytime roost high in the older big casuarinas close to the creek.

 The Eastern Whipbird photo isn't a crisp one, but I'd followed a pair of whipbirds trying to get a clear shot of them 
as they chatted and called to each other all the way from close to the house, down through the garden to the 
thick vegetation along the creek, and this was the best I managed.

Around the Valley

         
White-bellied Sea-Eagle

There are several pairs of White-bellied Sea-Eagles nesting alongside wetlands throughout the valley.

White-naped Honeyeater   

Our most numerous honeyeater around the garden just now is the White-throated Honeyeater. The bird above, the White-naped Honeyeater is
common in the forests throughout the valley, but as yet it hasn't made it on to the Abberton list.

The most immediate difference between the two species for id purposes,
is the red crescent above the eye of the White-naped - White-throated having a white crescent over the eye.

Blue Bonnet

We have to travel an hour or two inland to find resident populations of this gorgeous small parrot.
It's a very skittish bird, and that is why I'm showing this not-so-good photograph,
because it's the best I've got so far of a Blue Bonnet in flight.

30 June 2008  -  Echidna and Grey Goshawk

We see both of Australia’s surviving monotremes at Abberton; Platypus only occasionally, when the creek is at the right height. 

Short-beaked Echidna, however, live in the garden and we see them shuffling around from time to time.

 
Short-beaked Echidna

Echidnas are most active at dawn and dusk, but around midday on Monday this one was feeding on the creek-bank 
opposite the house.  I took this snap from the creek bank directly across from where it was foraging.

  A Grey Goshawk dropped in just above the echidna location, 24 hours later - but didn't wait to be photographed.  

27 June   -  Robins still, and others

This dainty female Rose Robin has been around now for a couple of weeks, 

and a male Golden Whistler has become regular here over the last few days.

The Red-capped Robin is a regular winter visitor here, this one from this-morning is our first this year. 
I promise you the photo hasn’t been enhanced – this is exactly the colour of this brilliant little flycatcher! 

         

Same goes for the fiery red of the Red-backed Fairywren!

....and the scarlet of the Scarlet Honeyeater.

                    
Welcome Swallows

6 June 2008 -  A Honeyeater at the coast

We visited friends at the Sunshine Coast the other day.  
 It wasn’t a birding trip as such, but we did see a few of the coastal locals that don’t occur around Abberton. 

White-cheeked Honeyeater

 I’m pleased with this White-cheeked Honeyeater pic, not least because it is an opportunistic snap of a bird that just popped up close by on a Banksia in the coastal scrub.

 
Little Wattlebird

2 June 2008 -  Birds in the garden

 
Shining Bronze-Cuckoo

We’ve had at least three individual Shining Bronze-Cuckoos passing through in the last couple of weeks.

                   
                

The Red-capped Robin above, and the Little Eagle below are both winter visitors to the Lockyer Valley

Tawny Frogmouth

Just after dark, and just a few yards from our gate, on the way home from shopping.

9 May 2008 - Mostly raptors and parrots

         

There are heaps of raptors around the valley right now, some spp in numbers. I encountered 13 raptor spp over the weekend, including  
8 individual White-bellied Sea-eagles, Black Falcons in two locations, 7 Brown Falcons, 2 Peregrines, 3 Wedge-tailed Eagles – and so on.

  And nearly as many parrot spp, viz - Red-tailed Black Cockatoos, Sulphur-crested, Little and Long-billed Corellas, 
Galahs, Cockatiels, Little, Scaly-breasted and Rainbow Lorikeets, Pale-headed Rosellas, Red-rumped Parrots, Australian King Parrots.

Pink-eared Ducks

Four Black-tailed Godwits, some resplendent in rufous-orange breeding plumage. Also Black-necked Stork, Swamp Harrier,
and plentiful Pink-eared Ducks. 

Spectacled Monarch still on the Toowoomba escarpment on Sunday (4th May). Fan-tailed Cuckoo too, 
also Fan-tailed Cuckoo and Shining Bronze in the garden, and Brush Cuckoo calling here every day for the last couple of weeks.

 
Bush Stone-curlew

Our garden trees are full of boldly buff-flanked Silvereyes, up from the south, 20 or so on and around a birdbath this-morning. 
Immature and female Golden Whistlers are also back. Similarly, Grey Fantails have arrived in small numbers, 
both these and the Golden Whistlers being autumn/winter birds in our garden.

And in contrast to all this, being Queensland after all, Rainbow Bee-eaters are still calling and feeding overhead every day.

25 April 2008 - Brown Goshawk

Brown Goshawk

On Sunday morning, I had just settled down on the front verandah with the weekend paper when this second year imm Brown Goshawk dropped into a gum tree right alongside me.

 A furtive reach for the camera, without moving in my seat, and I just got this pic before it slipped away down to the creekside trees.

11 April  - Some good Autumn birding

28 March 2008  - Non-gardening

 
Mistletoebird

Gardeners pull out Black Nightshade – here’s the reason I don’t.

9 April 2008 - Black-necked Stork

4 March 2008  - Variegated Fairy-wren

         

This male Variegated Fairy-wren and his family live in the garden just around the house, and he pops up outside my window 
at some stage every day.  This bird has appeared on the website several times over the last several months from when 
he was still in his eclipse plumage, through various stages right up to the splendid adult male bird he now is.

  As you can see from the photographs, he comes very close to us, and I can’t help saying ‘Wow!’ every time.  

26 February 2008 

I had a refreshing morning’s birding around the valley yesterday -  water and waterbirds in all of the 
lakes and lagoons, including the ephemeral ones that had been dry for years.

Also had a good close view of some Ground Cuckoo-shrikes, often a difficult bird to find.

21 February 2008 - A new bird for Abberton!

 
Australian Brush-turkey

A new bird wandered onto our house-list on Tuesday, bringing the total to 209 spp. It is still here on Thursday, an Australian Brush-Turkey 
- not unusual in the region, but special for us given the regeneration we've been undertaking here over the last 20 years.  A photo taken through the window .

It took 10 years before an Eastern Yellow-Robin turned up, now they're here year-round and breeding. Much the same story with other forest birds such as 
Varied Sittella, Yellow Thornbill and various honeyeaters.  Black-faced and Spectacled Monarchs drop in sometimes, even a few occurrences of Regent Bowerbird, but for some 
reason the Brush-Turkey seems to provide a special validation. I hope we don't feel differently if we end up with too many of them a few more years down the track!

Pheasant Coucal

Southern Boobook

February, 2008 - Late summer

White-throated Nightjar

A pair of White-throated Nightjars have nested on a property not far from here.

When I dropped in there the other day, they took a bit of finding , but eventually I spotted both adult birds on the ground, Iess than a metre apart.
I took a couple of long-range photos, but they knew I was there and both of them flew up to nearby trees, leaving their solitary chick dependent on
its camouflage amongst the forest litter. 

I'm sure I would never have seen the chick had I not noted where the parent birds had been, but there it was, snuggled helplessly against a stone.
Just a few seconds of photos of the chick, and I retreated back down the track, not to return this year.

Spangled Drongo

The regular chattering of Spangled Drongos can sometimes sound a bit like the noisy squawking of Dollarbirds.
The other day we watched a drongo in a tree close by the house as he called, first exactly like a Pied Butcherbird, then a Noisy Miner,
and then a Nankeen Kestrel - each call indistinguishable from the bird he must have learned it from.

Immature Pallid Cuckoo

If you wander anywhere near Black-winged Stilts while they have 
eggs or young, they'll make a noisy bee-line for you, yapping all the way.

January 1, 2008 - Roosting owls

Other birds didn't seem to spot them until around 7 or 8am, then honeyeaters, fairy-wrens, thornbills and others kept up a noisy hassle for a few hours.
All the owls did was to shift their positions a few centimetres now and then, and just stay put until after dark. 

This-morning, at least four and maybe five or six Eastern Whipbirds were criss-crossing noisily between eucalypts 
close to the house, never still for a moment, constantly fanning their tails and wings, whip-cracking 
and making all manner of other excitable sounds for at least 20 minutes.

In the afternoon, the cabaret moved down to a row of creekside casuarinas.

The Royal Spoonbill flew overhead while I was watching the Eastern Whipbirds.

Late December, 2007 - The creek is back

When I looked out through the dining-room windows at 5am this-morning, a Black Bittern was standing in shallow water right in front of the house. 
I tried to sneak onto the verandah for some better photographs – but it flew off immediately I got out there.

However, just a little to the left of where the bittern had been the Bush-hen was strolling about in the shallows - calling occasionally as he wandered 
around completely in the open. I managed half-a-dozen photos from the verandah, as well as a good long look through my binoculars. 
This individual looks prime for breeding, with a rich bluish-purple breast.

Around 7am when I took another look through the windows, the Black Bittern was back again, so I just snapped away through the closed window, 
and got some passable images. The bittern turns up in the same spot at some stage most days, the present shallow level of the creek just in front of the house seems 
to suit its needs. But it's a very flighty bird indeed.

    
Black Bittern