Fwd: Red eared Firetail at Cheynes Beach

Hi Jenny, That could well be the case. Pizzey has the juvenile birds with black bills but it seemed to me that the young birds lacked colour in general. But of course, you could be right that progressively birds develop the red ear patches. Best wishes, Patrick Sent from my iPhone > On 27 Feb 2015, at 8:20 am, Jenny Stiles <jstiles@optusnet.com.au> wrote: > > > Hi Patrick, > We have just been viewing Red-eared Firetails too, but at Lesmurdie Falls, WA. Looking at photos online it appears that Juveniles get the spots before they get their ear-patch colour, so the birds you saw were probably well grown but young birds. > From Jenny Stiles, Sydney > > > >> >>> On 27 Feb 2015, at 12:50 am, Patrick Scully <scullyp3@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> Hello All, >>> I just recently had a trip down to Cheynes Beach (20 to 24 th Feb) with Cherilyn Corker from Mandurah. >>> We had luck with just one of the 3 skulkers, the Noisy Scrub- bird. It was calling but took enormous effort to get a brief view. The Western Whipbird was not calling at all, with exactly the same result at Mt Trio in the Stirling Ranges. We did hear one brief call of Western Bristlebird just opposite the entrance to Cheynes Beach caravan park. >>> We did see an amazingly close view of Red eared Firetail and I suspect that Pizzey and Knight are wrong with their description of the female. We saw males with scarlet very bright (they were less than half a metre away) ear patches and what I assume to be females that were identical but with no ear patches. Is that correct? Can some knowledgeable person please explain. And is Pizzey wrong about the female? >>> We were lucky with Rock Parrot. We had dinner with Cherry’s friend in Albany and she mentioned having seen an unusual bird on the beach, which of course was a Rock Parrot. We arranged to meet her on Sunday morning and drove to the cafe in the old whaling station and sure enough we had great views of Rock Parrot on the beach below the cafe and the next beach to the right of the cafe. I did try at Lancelin for another look without success. Another treat was a very close up view of Elegant Parrots perched on low tree branches at the Stirling Range Retreat in the afternoon. >>> Best wishes, >>> Patrick Scully