Month: March 2012

Crow lumping – my list is not happy.

Evening all,

A colleague at the Royal Zoological Society emailed me the first page of a paper due out soon on lumping all five Australian crow/raven species into one species. Now, I know that lumps sometime happen, but having to take Australian Raven, Little Raven and Torresian Crow off of my year and life lists seems a bit excessive. The authors state that the morphological differences between the five don’t warrant full species status for each and their DNA work appears to back it up. As B-A doesn’t do attachments, I’ve housed a copy of the first page (all that’s available at the moment) on my website if anyone’s interested: http://www.tonykeenebirds.co.uk/uni/JAvGen-advance-83474.pdf Given that the IOC can often support splits or lumps from the evidence of a single study, I would expect this one to be up for an IOC proposal soon. I thought most research supported splitting everything these days, but I wonder if we’re going to see a reversal of this over the next few years, like they did in the 1960s… Cheers,

Tony

Photos, paintings and drawings of Australian, NZ, Swiss and British Birds www.tonykeenebirds.co.uk ===============================

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Red-necked Stint with Flag + Rhynchokinesis, Sooty Oystercatcher

G’day everyone,

Whilst at Long Reef this afternoon I was able to get relatively decent photos of a Red-necked Stint with coloured leg flags.

I’ve checked this website; http://www.shorebird-network.net/shorebirds/shorebird-leg-flags/ but I can’t find the combination of flags I saw on the bird.

Would anyone else know of any other websites that might contain that information?

And secondly, I fluked a photograph of a Rhynchokinesis in a Sooty Oystercatcher (is that the correct way to phrase that?). If anyone is looking for images of such a nature, just let me know and I’ll send you a copy.

Regards,

Mark

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Pelagic off Port Fairy 25 March 2012

Birdswing Birding & Wildlife Tours Pelagic trip off Port Fairy, Victoria Sunday 25th March 2012

Observers: Neil Macumber (organiser & report writer), Doug Robinson, Will Johnston, Geoff Jones, John Stirling, Tom Smith, Michael Stone, Jan Stone, Lyn Brown, Clive Curson, Peter Barrand, Rob Drummond, Steve Clark & Brett Jarrett.

Conditions: 80% cloud cover, 5kn northerly, 2metres swell up to 3-4 metres, seas abated to 1.5mtrs with clouds clearing in the afternoon.

Overview: Left the Port Fairy wharf at 0735 EDST along the Moyne River out to sea heading at 210

My new photography website

Hi all,

Just putting the finishing touches on my new website showcasing some of my pics from the last couple of years. The recent trip through the SA outback is under “latest”:

www.gregoakleywildpix.com

Any comments welcome,

Cheers, Greg

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Flocks – Pied Currawongs and Longbilled Corellas, Ivanhoe, Vic.

About 2pm today a terrific racket of Pied Currawong calls was heard in our backyard, which runs down to Darebin Creek. The birds kept flying in twos and threes into the top of our tall Sugar Gum, then a few more would join them, then some would fly south downstream. This continued for 15 minutes plus, and I had counted about twenty-five or thirty of them, until only two were left. I assume this last two were the pair which have been resident locally for a few years – I think they had been objecting to the visiting flock. While all this went on, a solitary Magpie sat in the Sugar Gum, apparently paying no attention.

At about 7.15 this evening, a flock of Corellas began to settle in our neighbours’ Sugar Gums and Cypress trees. I seized binoculars and was able to pick out red markings on many faces, though light conditions were very poor in the dusk. I counted at least 60 in the visible parts of the tree-tops. There was a lot of noise and I felt the calls were more quavery and like Longbilled, rather than Little Corellas. Suddenly they all took off and flew south towards the Yarra – a perfect snowstorm of birds, definitely many hundreds of them – an amazing sight for a minute or two. Many had been perching in parts of the trees below our sight-line, down over the brow of the hill.

On recent evenings we have heard them go over, often well after dark.

I should point out that times given are Daylight Saving Time – we don’t return to Eastern Standard Time here until 1st April.

Anthea Fleming ===============================

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Tip report – French Island (Victoria)

Another brief trip report for the list. This outing was to the far eastern side of French Island in Western Port which included some inland island localities to undertake threatened species monitoring and vegetation photopoint work by Friends of French Island National Park members.

Unfortunately no White-bellied Sea-Eagles were seen all day (one aim of the trip) but an old eagle nest (Wedge-tail?) was seen in an area of burnt Pinus pinaster (an invasive weed on the island)

Notable observations for the day were: – Mistletoebirds at nearly all locations we stopped at – a single Fan-tailed Cuckoo was heard calling near the ranger station – three species of whistlers (Rufous, Golden and probable Olive) in the one day – lots of Crescent Honeyeaters in the scrub and woodland locations – lots of Grey Fantails plus a few White-eared Honeyeaters, especially in the treed areas near ‘Gartsides’ in the far north of the island – 3 Great Egrets and numerous adult Pacific gulls in the eastern channel off Albions Point in the far east of the island – a pair of very accommodating (extended views!) Scarlet Robins on Causeway Track in the central eats of the island/park. – Cape Barren Geese near the rangers station and along Mt Wellington Road

‘Missing’ species were – most raptors (a single Black-shouldered Kite was seen) and no Swamp Harriers were observed – most small bush birds (e.g. thornbills) although we did hear Brown Thornbills and see a single White-browed Scrubwren.

The island is looking superb at the moment and has lots of birding rewards to the observant and patient birdo who’s prepared to travel to a variety of the islands habitats.

Martin O’Brien Melbourne

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Birding video going viral!

“Here we go” – sorry for crossposting.

There is video on YouTube about birding and us birders that is going viral since yesterday by Jason Kessler http://youtu.be/NaX7i1Q7-Rw. It is very funny. It has almost 15000 views in only 3 days. I managed to get an interview with Jason here http://birdingblogs.com/2012/Gunnar/shit-birders-say and you can also watch the video there. And there is a small competition there as well. Can you guess how many views the clip will have by May 3?

Now what strikes me is that it would be fantastic if this short video could reach say a million viewers. Why? It would have an tremendous impact bridging to non-birders. The combination of this view of birders and the one that is showing on the film the Big Year makes a fuller picture what birding is all about. The struggles with identification and problems of pointing out a bird to someone.

I ask you please to send/share the video or my blogpost to all birders you know or anyone you know who has seen The Big Year movie.

Have a laugh…maybe you even recognize yourself.