Month: August 2022

Birdpedia – Australia – Weekly Digest

The following is a digest of Sightings Reported on Birdpedia for the period Monday, September 5, 2022 to Sunday, September 11, 2022:

Area: SA

Location: Dulkaninna wetlands on the Birdsville Track

Plumed Whistling-Duck (Dendrocygna eytoni) (11) We stopped at this beautiful wetland on the way north, and spotted the group of plumed whistling ducks sitting on on the edge of the wetland. There was no sign of them on our return journey the next day

Also in the wetland over the 2 days were 4 brolgas, 3 hoary-headed grebes, a pied cormorant, 20 diamond doves, 5 grey teal, willie wagtails, 2 pied (?) stilts, and we heard white-plumed honeyeaters and a reed warbler. Oddly we neither saw nor heard budgies nor zebra finches over the half hour or so we were there, which had been in so many other places.

Reported by: Barbara and Peter Bansemer on Tuesday, September 6, 2022

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Date: Monday, August 29, 2022

Location: About 5km south of Dulkaninna Station on the western side of the Birdsville Track

Ostrich (Struthio camelus) (1) We could hardly believe our eyes ! A male ostrich was on the side of the road, and stood still long enough for a photo, then ambled off.
In Marree the camp ground receptionist said “Oh, there was a rumour someone had let one go”

Reported by: Barbara and Peter Bansemer on Monday, September 5, 2022

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Date: Monday, August 29, 2022

Location: About 5km south of Dulkaninna Station on the western side of the Birdsville Track

Ostrich (Struthio camelus) (1) We could hardly believe our eyes ! A male ostrich was on the side of the road, and stood still long enough for a photo, then ambled off.
In Marree the camp ground receptionist said “Oh, there was a rumour someone had let one go”

Reported by: Barbara and Peter Bansemer on Monday, September 5, 2022

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Request for information… after looking at ebird! Alice Springs and Uluru

Ok, so I'm going to ALice and Uluru in a week's time and have the following targets:

Rufous-crowned Emuwren
Grey Honeyeater
Rufous Grasswren
Copperback Quailthrush
So the Emuwren I hope to see at either Ellery Creek, Ormiston Gorge or St Theresa Road.
The Grey Honeyeater either at Kunoth Well, Alice Springs Desert Park or Olive Pink Bot Gardens.
The Rufous Grasswren at the sunset viewing area in Uluru.
The Copperback Quailthrush has not been reported from the Alice Springs or Uluru areas according to ebird. Has anyone seen it in these parts or a little further down the Stuart Highway towards SA?
Any better spots than the updated Thomas and Thomas and ebird can supply?
Thanks

—

John Leonard
Canberra
Australia
www.jleonard.net

Make nature great again.

RFI

Gooday all

 

Can some good person please tell me if and where Spotted Whistling Ducks can be found in the NE Qld / Cairns area. We are heading up that way soon and would like to see one if possible if someone can tell us a location for them.

 

Thanks

 

Greg Little

 

That Button-quail

While looking for something else, I came across the following list from 25 years ago. It was a trip for the legendary Phoebe Snetsinger, the first person to record 8000 bird species. What caught my eye was the record of a Buff-breasted Button-quail, in there with the 8000.

www.birdtours.co.uk/tripreports/australia/australia/austral.htm

Geoffrey

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From Birding-Aus

 

 

From: Wim Vader <wjm.vader@gmail.com&gt;
Sent: lørdag 6. august 2022 16:09
To: Willem Jan Marinus Vader <wim.vader@uit.no&gt;
Subject: Gull stories from Tromsø

 

Some gull stories from Tromsø

 

The most common gull species here in Tromsø (70*N in N. Norway) is the appropriately named Common Gull Larus canus.  They are everywhere and nest also in gardens and on balconies. Herring Gulls (L. argentatus) and Great Black- backed Gulls (L. marinus) are also common and especially the former regularly nest on flat rooms in town, where some develop into " "kebab gulls", and steal sausages and such from tourists at outdoor restaurants and on the streets, a well-known problem many places in the world. These last years Tromsø has got a different gull problem in addition: Kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla), who have run into serious problems at their nesting cliffs, have discovered town buildings as safer nesting places, and have started to occupy window sills, advertisements, and outdoor lights. They are noisy and messy, and therefore far from popular, but they are a threatened species in Norway and therefore absolutely protected. There are heated debates in the local press, with of course many arguing that this is intolerable and the gulls must be eliminated; many of the debaters seem unaware of the fact that we are taking about 3 different species with quite different ways of life (No Kittiwake will ever steal a sausage, and no Herring Gull nest on a window ledge).

Tromsø town has built 2 ‘kittiwake towers’, in the hope that the birds would switch from the buildings and build their nests on them, and one of them has in fact attracted many Kittiwakes; but it does not really help all that much and no solution is in sight.

 

Here in our garden a pair of Common Gulls has nested on top of the rabbit house. Before their eggs hatched, we found three very young chicks in the garden, from another nest nearby. Sadly, in the course of a few days they all disappeared, and I watched the last one being taken and killed by a Herring Gull.

 

When ‘our chicks’ hatched, they stayed on top of the rabbithouse for 2 1/2 weeks, in spite of being regularly drenched during this almost record wet July. When they finally jumped down (We had to extricate them from the rabbit yard), they soon disappeared into neighbouring gardens and we hope they succeeded better than the first bunch; they were much bigger already.

 

Nor was this the end of the story! The last 4-5 days we have had a trio of Herring Gull chicks in the garden. They are almost as big as the parents, who keep watch from the street light, and can even fly a little. But they are still being fed, and return every night, some nights sleeping just outside our front door–they even have tried to abscond with a pair of shoes there! And they also whitewash the porch. I suppose they will soon be gone, and we won’t be particularly sad to see them go.

 

There are a few other gull species in Tromsø, but none is common. The Baltic Gulls (L. fuscus) have decreased alarmingly; they are real ‘sea gulls’ and avoid the town. Black-headed Gulls (L .ridibundus) are stragglers here, while in winter we now and then see Glaucous Gulls (L. hyperboreus).

Wim Vader, Tromsø, Norway