Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike chick

To end the Avithera posts for 2021 I will go back to the start of the year to some photos I took of a very young Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike just out of the nest. 

The incessant call of the young bird in our garden attracted my attention. It did not take long to find the chick. I suspect it may have left the nest prematurely. It could barely fly and as it fluttered from one perch to another, landing clumsily each time, it made its way through our garden to the old abandoned orchard where its parents fed the hungry chick for a few days before I lost track of it.

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The young bird’s first set of feathers were beautiful, ranging from soft pale greys to black.

One of the parents arrived with a juicy green caterpillar. It was wary of me and approached the chick using a tangle of branches as cover.

The chick was not bothered by me, it just wanted to be fed.

The parent soon overcame its concern for me and delivered the caterpillar.

The parent was soon back with another caterpillar, a brown one this time.

I kept an eye on the chick from a distance as it moved about the orchard, its calls to be fed showing me where it was located. After a few days it stopped calling – I assume it had grown strong enough to move on. I did not see any other young birds. It is possible the chick’s siblings – BfCs’s usually have 2-3 young - remained in the nest under the care of the their parents and the young bird in our orchard left the nest prematurely by accident. 

Pallid Cuckoo chick

Pallid Cuckoos parasitise birds with open cup shaped nests including Willie Wagtails, woodswallows, whistlers, robins, orioles, cuckoo-shrikes and honeyeaters. The incubation period for the cuckoo egg is 12-14 days which is shorter than the host species incubation period. The larger and stronger cuckoo chick ejects the host’s eggs or young from the nest.

Back in late November, at the popular Hall Road birding site in State Forest on the edge of farmland near Wairewa in East Gippsland, I became aware of a Pallid Cuckoo chick by its incessant calling to be fed by its foster parents, a pair of White-napped Honeyeaters. While the chick was still quite young and small it was larger than the host parents and by the time they finished raising the chick it would dwarf them.

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The bird world has evolved many reproduction solutions with cuckoos that use other bird species to raise their young being one of the more amazing evolutionary developments.

Pheasant Coucal

The Pheasant Coucal (Centropus phasianinus) is a rather large ground-dwelling member of the cuckoo family, however unlike all other cuckoo species in Australia it is not a brood parasite. It builds its own nest and raises its own young with the male doing most of the incubation and feeding of the young. 

Males and females look similar although the female is larger than the male.  They form lasting pairs. During the breeding season their head, neck and entire underparts are black. In the non-breeding period the head, neck and underparts are cinnamon streaked, rufous and buff.

Pheasant Coucals are not found in Victoria. The nearest records in Birdata are around Jervis Bay on the mid NSW south coast. Being sedentary ground dwellers that are not strong fliers, it is perhaps unlikely that we will ever see them in Victoria.  However with climate change and the southerly drift of a number of other vagrant species one cannot rule out the possibility of one turning up in East Gippsland.

Pheasant Coucals inhabit tall grass and other dense ground cover including cultivated sugar cane crops where their presence if often detected by their distinctive call – if you have not heard the call before it is worth checking. They are rather shy and usually run for cover when found, so opportunities to photograph them are usually a matter of luck. They do on occasions forage in urban gardens where these afford dense cover. Now and again when surprised, rather than run for cover, they will flutter or climb up to a vantage point, providing the possibility of brief photo opportunities before flying to cover. 

Recently two Pheasant Coucals were heard calling in my daughter’s NSW Northern Rivers area garden. I grabbed the camera and carefully stepped out the front door to find the pair on the front lawn. One was noticeably smaller than the other. I managed one photo before they jumped the fence into a dense thicket of Tiger Grass. After a short wait, one bird – not sure if it was the male or the female – emerged from the grass and flew first to a shady shrub, then to the neighbouring house roof, from there back to my daughter’s house roof, then to a Jacaranda tree on the front fence and from there across the road to a large Blackwood Wattle tree. The series of photos in this post were taken in the seven locations described above. 

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The notes above and the following photos reveal what a strange bird the Coucal is. It has a somewhat fearsome appearance with red eyes and a strong hooked bill that are reminiscent of a raptor.

White-bellied Sea-Eagle pair

It is early September and the start of the breeding season for the Brunswick Heads resident pair of White-bellied Sea-Eagles. Each morning they share a perch high in a giant Hoop Pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) above the Brunswick River in the Brunswick Heads Nature Reserve.  From this vantage point they were facing the rising sun. 

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I have not seen their nest however I am sure it is close by their favourite perch. Just a week earlier they were seen copulating on this perch. As for most raptors, the female Sea-Eagle is larger than the male so the larger bird on the right in the photos is the female.

The Brunswick River and associated estuary and the nearby Pacific Ocean and beach appear to be bountiful, providing plenty of fish for the Sea-Eagles plus two pairs of  Eastern Ospreys which nest in the same area (nesting is well underway) and also a pair of Brahminy Kites. 

The following photos were taken at 6.30am while the pair loafed as the tide started to run in. They appeared to be relaxed and the female preened, however their head movements indicated they were vigilant – from their lofty perch not much would escape this pair’s attention.

There were just two precise spots along an access road from which the pair were visible high in the Hoop Pine through small openings in the dense forest canopy. The following uncropped image shows the pair from the closer spot with a steeper angle and the next photo shows the pair from this location. 

The next photo shows the view through the canopy from the next more distant location.

The following photos were taken from the more distant location.

Majestic Sea-Eagles make great photo subjects – I couldn’t resist some shots of the Brunswick Heads pair.

PS Thank you Mac for showing me the two locations from where the above photos were taken.

Australian Logrunner

Within their range and suitable habitats in NSW, Australian Logrunners are uncommon to rare. We recently found Australian Logrunners in the Booyong Flora Reserve (1), a Big Scrub lowland rainforest remnant near Bangalow in Northern NSW. With close to 100% forest canopy cover, the floor of the Booyong Reserve is rather dark with little understory growth, though there is a tangle of vines and fallen branches and some struggling shrubs including Walking-stick Palms etc. The canopy above drops litter including spent flowers, fruit, leaves, twigs, branches, large limbs and occasionally whole trees and the resulting forest floor eco system suits the Logrunners well.

Our encounter with a small party of three Logrunners (there may have been four?) was brief. Out of only half a dozen photos snapped in the low light at ISO 6,400, with a fully open aperture and even then only 1/100th of a second shutter speed, just two photos were fortunately free of obstructions and reasonably sharp, and luckily one was a male and one a female. 

Please click on photos to enlarge.

The adult male Australian Logrunner

The adult female Australian Logrunner

The Orthonyx genus of logrunners contains just three species, one from New Guinea and two, the Australian Logrunner (Orthonyx temminckii) and the Chowchilla (Orthonyx spaldingii) which are both endemic to Australia. Logrunners have an ancient lineage dating back at least as far as the Middle Miocene (16 to 11 million years ago) – Walter Bowles published a paper in 1993 in the EMU (2) on the fossil remains of Orthonyx found in the Miocene fossil beds at Riversleigh in North-west Queensland. 

The Australian Logrunner has developed a unique foraging technique as part of its adaption to life on the floor of temperate, subtropical and tropical lowland rainforests. The origins of these forests date back to before Australia split from Gondwana some 41 million years ago. These forests were once much more widespread in Australia however as the climate has slowly dried over millions of years they have shrunk and since white settlement logging and clearing for agriculture and urban development has seen further significant declines in these types of forest habitats. 

Logrunners (Orthonyx species) have developed short broad tails with feathers ending in strong spines that they use to prop against while using their strong legs and feet to move rainforest floor leaf litter and then scratch in the exposed soil for invertebrate food. Further, the sideways sweeping action of their legs which they use to shift leaf litter is unique to logrunners. They have evolved a short and broad pelvis with stout femurs which have strongly developed projections to support their strong leg muscles enabling them to shift large quantities of leaf litter to expose their food.

I am now keen to find the Chowchilla (Orthonyx spaldingii), the Australian Logrunner’s close relative, in its much more restricted range but similar habitat in north-east Queensland. 

Notes:

(1) The Booyong Flora Reserve is a protected nature reserve located in Booyong in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia. The 13-hectare sub–tropical jungle is situated 18 kilometres northeast of Lismore and is a remnant of the Big Scrub, of which less than one percent of the original Big Scrub remains. Wikipedia

(2) BOLES, W. E. 1993. A Logrunner Orthonyx (Passeriformes, Orthonychidae) From the Miocene of Riversleigh, North-western Queensland. - Emu, 93: 44-49.

Striated Herons

Striated Herons (Butorides striata), stocky bittern-like herons, are strongly associated with mangroves and tidal estuaries and rivers. 

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Morcombe notes they can be secretive, skulking in shadowy mangroves and emerging at low tide to forage. However they can become relatively tame around manmade structures such as marinas, sea walls and oyster farms for example.

Striated Herons in Victoria are probably best regarded as rare vagrants with just 23 records in Birdata from the Mallacoota – Gypsy Point area between 2008 and 2014 with a peak of sighting records in 2010. There may have been unrecorded sightings since 2014 and eBird may contain additional records.

There are several Striated Herons on the Brunswick River in northern NSW where I found two birds using oyster farm racks to hunt fish on a rising tide. When hunting, the birds adopt a crouched posture. They often crouch low and rigid with intense concentration and focus while waiting for hapless prey to swim into the range of their surprisingly long necks and beaks which they use to make lightning fast lunges to capture fish and other small aquatic prey such as crabs and shrimp. They also stalk prey, once again in a crouched posture – I assume this makes it hard for their prey to see them. When not hunting they adopt a much more relaxed and upright stance. 

When not in hunting mode the Herons are relaxed and assume an upright posture.

In hunting mode they adopt a crouched posture and stalk with intense concentration.

Hunting from on top of the oyster racks required them to have good grip with their strong feet and legs to make vertical downward lunges at the fish below.

All the fish I saw caught were very small – these seemed to be targeted as a preference as there looked to be larger fish present.

A view of the Heron’s back.

A relaxed upright non-hunting posture.

 

The Striated Herons on the Brunswick River certainly make good use of the oyster growing infrastructure. They also forage along constructed rock sea walls and look for fish from mooring lines in the marina.

Oyster farms may be a physical blight on scenic tidal environments however they are an important aquaculture industry and they do provide very useful habitat for roosting/resting and foraging water birds including migrant shorebirds. Also small fish use them as shelters and sources of food.

Great Egret attraction to excavator?

On a recent Saturday morning birding walk at the Byron Wetlands I came across a parked bright orange Kubota excavator which had been used to do some vegetation clearing around water management infrastructure. (1)

To my surprise there was a Great Egret (Ardea alba) standing on the left hand rubber track of the excavator. Even though the bird was quite close, and from my experience well inside the distance within which this species would normally not tolerate human presence, it showed no sign of moving. 

Please click on photos to enlarge.

I took a couple of photos and then moved a couple of paces forward and the bird then flew up to a hydraulic hose on the excavator arm.

The bird perched on the hose for a few minutes before dropping down to the ground beside the excavator.

After a minute or two on the ground by the machine the bird then flew up to the roof.

I observed the Egret on the roof for over ten minutes. While it was on the roof an Intermediate Egret (Egretta intermedia) flew in quite close over the Great Egret to land nearby on the mown grass of a lagoon bank. (2)  The Intermediate had not noticed me at first, I suspect because it was focused on the Great. However when it did notice me its head feathers were erected in alarm and then it ejected an impressive stream of white liquid.

The Intermediate soon flew off to the adjacent lagoon where it commenced foraging. The Great remained on the roof of the excavator so I decided I would see how close I could get before the bird flew. I moved to about 10 metres from the bird before it flew, however when it did fly it did tight circuits around me and the excavator with hoarse croaks of displeasure,  landing on the roof couple of times and then eventually on the nearby lagoon bank before flying 100 metres or so to a dead tree in the lagoon.

By this time I had observed the Great Egret for just over 20 minutes. The bird clearly showed it did not want to leave the excavator in spite of my close presence which was well within the bird’s normal FID (flight initiation distance). I was left wondering what it was that attracted the bird. My only explanation is the bird had been attracted to its reflection in the excavator cabin plastic screens which are highly reflective. 

I did not see the bird pecking at the screens as many male birds do when they see their own reflection and take it to be a competing male in their territory. This is often seen during the breeding season. I have seen birds attacking car external rear view mirrors and house windows. The attacks can in the case of house windows go on for many days. Species I have seen doing this include Superb Fairy-wrens, White-browed Scrubwrens, Willie Wagtails, Magpie-larks, Rufous Whistlers and others. So I do not think the Great Egret was responding as it might to another male competitor and I’m thinking it may have seen its reflection as a potential mate.

Great Egrets must see their own reflection a lot as they stalk prey in still water. In this case the reflection was in the  vertical surface of the excavator windows and not the usual horizontal surface of water. Perhaps the novelty of a vertical surface led the Egret to see its reflection differently. 

I had a close look in and around the machine to see if there was any food item or other attraction for the Egret but could find nothing to explain the attraction.

As I ended my walk about an hour later I noticed I had a distant view of the excavator so checked with my binoculars and there was the Egret, still on the excavator roof.

Note 1: The formal title for the Byron Wetlands is the Byron Bay Integrated Water Management Reserve which is run by the Byron Shire Council.  Access is provided only by obtaining an electronic gate key.

Note 2: Identification of Great and Intermediate Egrets in the field can be tricky at times. While the two species are quite different with respect to size they do look very similar and their hunting styles can be similar. One way to separate the two species is via their gapes which in the case of the Great E extends to behind the eye whereas the Intermediate’s gape stops short of the back of the eye. The following two photos of the subject egrets show this potential ID feature.