Brown Quail at Cassilis Cemetery

A pair of Brown Quail were found at the cemetery in the Cassilis Historic Area near Swifts Creek. The Cemetery and adjoining reserve are located in a beautiful valley and support a surprisingly rich number of bird species.

The Quail were found in a patch of blue periwinkle (Vinca major – see end note below), an introduced invasive weed. While this weed is contained in this location by the surrounding mowed grass and grazed farmland, it is out of control, as is blackberry, along the Tambo River beside the Great Alpine Road between Bruthen and Swifts Creek.

The Brown Quail pair were no doubt only temporary residents at the cemetery and while they were there, the periwinkle provided ideal cover and protection for them.

One bird was particularly shy, while the other, possibly the female, offered some rare close up photo opportunities. 

NOTE: You can left click on any photo to open a slide show of the photos free of text or a right click enables one photo at a time to be opened in a New Tab where an enlarged version can be viewed.

While the bird stood out against the dark green periwinkle, its beautifully patterned plumage provides effective camouflage in most habitats this species lives in.

NOTE: Periwinkle is an invasive weed, particularly species like blue periwinkle (Vinca major), that spreads from gardens to natural areas, forming dense, smothering mats. It outcompetes native plants for light, water, and nutrients by suppressing other vegetation and hindering the growth of young trees. It spreads via runners and fragments carried by water or dumped garden waste, and it can be toxic to humans and animals. 

Pale-headed Rosella at Yanda Campground

In August 2024 we camped for a few days at Yanda Campground below Bourke on the Darling River in the Gundabooka National Park. At the time there had been good local rains and the campground and surrounding area was clothed in lush verdant green annual forbs and gasses. In this arid region conditions like this are the exception with dry bare ground more normal as shown in the following screen shot satellite image of the area from Google Maps. 

Floods in the Darling River will also bring a flush of green but only to the area of inundation which does not include the higher areas where the campground is located. This was the case when we were there again in July 2025. A recent flood down the Darling had triggered a flush of green growth up to the flood line but above there it was dry and barren bare earth, the verdant green of August the previous year long gone. The flood had triggered a massive outbreak of lerp on the fresh new leaves of the River Redgums where honeyeaters, Spiny-cheeked, White-plumed, White-fronted and Singing, were hyperactive, gleaning sugar which was almost dripping from the leaves.

In August 2024 we found a pair of Pale-headed Rosellas at the campground which were attracted beyond the normal limit of their south westerly range by the rare bounty of short lived seeds.

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At times the bird was hidden from my sight and from the camera, by the lush vegetation in which it was feeding.

All of the rosella (Platycercus) genus are spectacularly beautiful including the Pale-headed Rosella. The following shots of the feeding bird at Yanda show just how brilliant their feather colours are.

The bird looked to be feeding exclusively on a very prickly looking green seed from (I think), Medicago polymorpha. Common names include Trefoil, Toothed Medic, Burr Clover etc. While green, the seed spines are soft, however when they dry out and stiffen they can make camping and walking around in bare feet a painful experience.

Our experience at Yanda shows just how variable conditions are in outback arid Australia and how many bird species move in response to the boom and bust extremes of food supplies. 

Noisy Friarbird

Friarbirds are a distinctive group of large honeyeaters with varying amounts of bare facial and/or head skin. The Noisy Friarbird has the most bare skin of the four Friarbird species found in Australia.

The Australian Bird Guide describes the Noisy Friarbird as bold, belligerent and gregarious - they can be found in small groups to large flocks. I agree with the ABG assessment, however from my experience single birds are also common. 

Single birds can be rather elusive and hard to approach but I recently encountered a single bird at close range and before the bird recovered from my surprise appearance and took off, I managed two photos which, when cropped, show the bird’s bare head and facial skin fairly well.

NOTE: You can left click on any photo to open a slide show of the photos free of text or a right click enables one photo at a time to be opened in a New Tab where an enlarged version can be viewed.

Without feathers (ear-coverts), the ear hole, which all birds have and we rarely see, is obvious in the photos. 

The casque, the protrusion at the base of the upper mandible, also stands out and I wonder what purpose, if any, this provides? A quick search suggests the purpose of casques on birds is unknown though there are a number of possible explanations.

The evolution of bare skin in birds has been driven by thermoregulation and/or feeding hygiene and not sexual selection. The Noisy Friarbird’s bare skin may be a survival advantage but to my eye and aesthetic bias, it is not pretty. 

Rose Robin

The Rose Robin (Petroica rosea) is the most commonly recorded Petroica robin (1) found in the BirdLife East Gippsland Region. It is the most arboreal of the genus and is more flycatcher like in its hunting – less of a “perch and pounce” onto ground-based prey approach.

At Walhalla recently a male Rose Robin was observed in the tangled branches of an introduced deciduous tree where it was seen to hold out and flutter its wings which were held in a downward position – see the first photo below. It was not a hot day and there did not appear to be another Rose Robin present – male or female. A little research suggests this behaviour in males is a territorial display which is consistent with spring breeding when birds are establishing and holding breeding territory and looking to attract a mate. 

The following photos are of the subject male. 

NOTE: You can left click on any photo to open a slide show of the photos free of text or a right click enables one photo at a time to be opened in a New Tab where an enlarged version can be viewed. 

Finding any of the red (Petroica) robins in the field is always a cause for some excitement. 

(1) The Petroica genus in Australia comprises the following five robin species: Scarlet, Flame, Red-capped, Pink and Rose.

Brown Thornbill

Six species of Thornbills are found in the BirdLife East Gippsland Region; Brown, Striated, Yellow-rumped, Yellow, Buff-rumped and Weebill. Browns are by far the most often encountered and recorded. Of the 4,480 surveys (at 5/12/2025) recorded by BirdLife East Gippsland in its region, Brown Thornbills were recorded in 1,733 of the surveys. Only Superb Fairywrens, Grey Fantails and Australian Magpies were recorded more often. The frequency of recording for the other five Thornbill species found in the East Gippsland Region fall way behind the 1,733 records for Brown. Other records are, Striated 701, Yellow-rumped 458, Yellow 430, Buff-rumped 96 and Weebill 56.

Browns are sedentary and occupy a wide range of habitats with dense vegetation across most of East Gippsland, which may explain their greater abundance compared with the other thornbill species which have narrower habitat preferences in East Gippsland. 

Of all the Thornbills, I think Browns have the greatest repertoire of calls which can include mimicry of other species and they also have harsh churring scolding alarm calls. Their main calls are fairly easily recognised which helps identify these small brown birds in dense vegetation which therefore results in a higher reporting rate.

Found most often singly or in pairs they can sometimes be found in family parties. Recently, while birding alone, I encountered such a party comprising five birds which I first noticed by their scolding alarm calls. At first I looked for the cause of their agitation which most often will be due to the presence of a predator. However it soon became apparent that I was the source of their agitation as they were clearly focused on me as they moved about in a bush close by. I took this rare opportunity to capture some close up photos.

NOTE: You can left click on any photo to open a slide show of the photos free of text or a right click enables one photo at a time to be opened in a New Tab where an enlarged version can be viewed.

Olive Whistler

On the mainland Olive Whistlers are uncommon compared with Golden and Rufous Whistlers. In the East Gippsland region, comprising the Wellington and East Gippsland LGA’s, out of all the Birdata surveys which include the three Whistler species found in the region, the number of birds reported are; Olive 273, Golden 5,514 and Rufous 9,363. 

Clearly the abundance of the Olive Whistler is very low compared with the Golden and Rufous, even taking into account the likely under reporting of Olives due to their retiring habit and tendency to inhabit dense undergrowth in wet forest habitats and higher more remote country during the summer. The Olive Whistler’s distinctive call is often the first indication of their presence.

Olive Whistlers are altitudinal migrants moving to higher elevations over the warmer months. On a recent (23/10/2025) visit to the Mt St Gwinear area in the Baw Baw National Park, several Olive Whistlers were heard calling by the carpark in Snow Gum (E pauciflora) woodland. After observing for a while I concluded there were two pairs with the males calling to advertise and claim adjacent spring breeding territories.

The following photos were obtained of one of the males (note the grey head – females have a brown head).

NOTE: You can left click on any photo to open a slide show of the photos free of text or a right click enables one photo at a time to be opened in a New Tab where an enlarged version can be viewed.

BirdLife East Gippsland members have recorded a total of 4,619 surveys in Birdata, of which only 34 surveys include sightings of Olive Whistler (Golden 1,218 and Rufous 596) – a further testament to just how rare this whistler is.

Bush Stone-curlew

The Bush Stone-curlew is a large, unusual, endemic, nocturnal, ground dwelling shorebird/wader that is mostly heard when making its eerie wailing calls at night. By day it loafs and sleeps, usually in the shade of a tree, alone, in pairs, or after the breeding season, in small flocks, using its cryptic plumage as camouflage which can make them hard to find. Being ground dwelling they are particularly vulnerable to fox and cat predation.

With a wide distribution across mainland Australia they prefer open woodland and forest near watercourses and wetlands and perhaps somewhat surprisingly they can be found in urban and semi urban areas, especially on the margins, though I have even found them on nature strips in densely built up areas. 

 Recently while driving in Byron Bay, roadside temporary signage and a cordoned off area using stakes and plastic tape around a mango tree alerted me to the presence of four Bush Stone-curlews. The following photos were taken of two of the birds as they loafed/slept in the shade of the mango tree. The birds rest/sleep either standing, semi standing with legs bent at right angles at the knees or fully prone as seen in the photos.

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Being a member of the shorebird/wader family and having very long legs the Bush Stone-curlew must have evolved in watery habitats. However it has gone bush, on an evolutionary time scale, as its name suggests and now lives a terrestrial life. A number of other endemic shorebirds have also done this, for example the Banded Lapwing and Inland Dotterel.

Pheasant Coucal - non-breeding

A previous Avithera post in December 2021 featured a Pheasant Coucal in breeding plumage – see the following photo and the link to the 2021 post below for more information and photos. 

This post shows a Pheasant Coucal in mostly non breeding plumage though there are some black feathers on the legs and lower belly. 

Coucals are sedentary and common however they are more often heard then seen given they frequent dense vegetation. The breeding season is from October to April when they can be seen in breeding plumage.

Just like the bird in the 2021 blog, this one visited our daughter’s NSW  Northern Rivers  garden where it foraged in the densely planted garden beds. As for a number of ground dwelling birds, their plumage offers good camouflage.

NOTE: You can left click on any photo to open a slide show of the photos free of text or a right click enables one photo at a time to be opened in a New Tab where an enlarged version can be viewed.

Link to December 2021 post:

https://avithera.blogspot.com/2021/12/pheasant-coucal.html

Noisy Pitta at Victoria Park Nature Reserve

Pittas inhabit rainforest habitats where they exploit invertebrates living in the leaf litter. While they may call from high in the canopy they are essentially ground dwelling birds.

We recently visited Victoria Park Nature Reserve near Alstonville in Northern NSW. This park protects one of the last surviving remnants of original rainforest known as Big Scrub. Booyong Nature Reserve near Bangalow is another similar rainforest/Big Scrub remnant. These patches are popular with birders because they are good places to find rainforest species such as Brown Cuckoo-Dove, Topknot Pigeon, Brown-capped Emerald-Dove, Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove, Superb Fruit-Dove, Wompoo Fruit-Dove, Wonga and White-headed Pigeon, Green Catbird, Regent Bowerbird, Spectacled Monarch, Black-faced Monarch, White-eared Monarch, Russet-tailed and Bassian Thrush, Paradise Riflebird and Noisy Pittas.

Being winter, Noisy Pittas have come down from higher altitude rainforest in the nearby Great Divide so it was not surprising that we soon heard the distinctive call of this bird and then found a bird foraging in leaf litter beside the boardwalk which loops through a section of the forest. 

Photographing birds in rainforest has two significant challenges. One, the birds are often heard calling high in the canopy where it is both difficult to see them and photos are near impossible, and two, on the forest floor light is very low making full open aperture and high ISO necessary to achieve reasonable shutter speeds to avoid image blurring.

The camera was set at ISO 12,800 and f5.6 and even then, shutter speeds were 1/60s and 1/100s which for a 600mm lens is really too slow. Never the less the results after culling half the shots and some sharpening were acceptable enough to post here.

NOTE: You can left click on any photo to open a slide show of the photos free of text or a right click enables one photo at a time to be opened in a New Tab where an enlarged version can be viewed.

Note the powerful thrush-like bill which is used to move leaf litter and probe underlying soil for food. The long legs, needed to walk around in deep leaf litter are buried in the litter or behind a fallen limb so are not fully visible.

An earlier post from 2021 featuring an immature Noisy Pitta in littoral rainforest beside an ocean beach at the Brunswick Heads Nature Reserve can be viewed here: 

https://avithera.blogspot.com/2021/07/noisy-pitta.html

Beach-stone Curlew – rare visitor Lakes Entrance

To the date of this post, from when one bird was first recorded at Port Albert in 2013 (1), Birdata has recorded a total of 122 Beach Stone-Curlew sightings on the Victorian and South Australian coast for this strictly coastal shorebird species, at only 12 locations and always for just one bird for each record.

Since 2013 there has been a relatively large number of Birdata BSC sighting records including a single bird appearing to take up residence in the Snowy River Estuary at Marlo in East Gippsland for a number of years between 2014 and 2018. During the same period there were a number of sightings in the west of the State near Apollo Bay and Cape Otway and even five records in South East South Australia near Port Macdonnell. 

At the time some of us pondered if the westerly sightings were either due to the Marlo bird ranging further west or a second bird present in Victoria during the same time period. 

Since 2018 there has been one bird recorded in SA in 2019, one near Cape Otway in 2021 with a gap until late 2024 when a bird was recorded at Mallacoota on the 1st of October, then one bird at Lakes Entrance on the 8th of November, which was most likely the Mallacoota bird ranging further west. There have been no more sightings of BSC recorded in Victoria to mid-July 2025.

The surprise Lakes Entrance visit prompted me to make a detailed assessment of the Birdata records to determine if during the 2014 – 2018 period we had just one or perhaps two BSC’s in Victoria. The assessment revealed overlapping dates in February and March 2014 that confirmed there were in fact two birds in Victoria at that time.

NOTE: You can left click on any photo to open a slide show of the photos free of text or a right click enables one photo at a time to be opened in a New Tab where an enlarged version can be viewed.

The following photos are of the Lakes Entrance bird which made a brief visit in November 2024.

Of course without being able to identify individual birds, or records more than one bird in different locations simultaneously, we cannot be sure exactly how many individual BSC's have visited Victoria since 2013. It is possible however and even likely that the bulk of the 122 records are for just two individual birds during the 2013 to 2018 period, and the four records since 2018 possibly include one or two additional birds. If so this makes visits to Victoria by BSC's very rare and therefore applying the term vagrants (2) to BSC's sighted in Victoria is justified.  

More information on BSC’s - this link will take you to a 2021 Avithera post featuring three BSC’s in the Marshall’s Creek Reserve at Brunswick heads in northern NSW.

http://avithera.blogspot.com/2021/07/beach-stone-curlew.html

NOTES

(1) There may well have been unrecorded sightings or recorded sightings in other databases prior to 2013 – only Birdata, which includes eBird data imports up to 2022, has been searched for this post.

(2) Sean Dooley in his excellent book Anoraks to Zitting Cisticola defines a vagrant bird as “a bird that turns up in a region where it shouldn’t normally be”.

Tawny Frogmouth family

Tawny Frogmouths are our most often encountered and reported terrestrial nocturnal bird species (1). The reason they are so often found is they often roost during the day in plain sight, relying on their brilliant feather colouring to blend in but also on their “dead branch” imitation while perching very still with eyes closed (2). 

As Frogmouths present no threat to other bird species, they are left to roost in peace, whereas predatory owl species must hide away to avoid being mercilessly harassed by birds they may prey on, making them much harder to find by day when most of us are out birding.

Recently at the Broken Hill Desert Park we were asked by a lady if we would like to see something very special. Of course we said we would and were then shown three Tawny Frogmouths roosting together in the open on a branch about head height beside picnic facilities. It was great to see her excitement and clear delight in seeing these beautiful birds, eyes shut and motionless, on their perch bathing in full morning sunlight after a very cold night.

As I took a few photos I thought this is a family group – mum, dad and a young one.

NOTE: You can left click on any photo to open a slide show of the photos free of text or a right click enables one photo at a time to be opened in a New Tab where an enlarged version can be viewed.

However on checking the photos on the laptop later and verifying their sex after consulting field guides, it was clear the trio were all females as shown by the brown colour of some feathers. The males are all grey with no brown colouring. So this family group comprised mum, seen as the larger bird at the rear, and two advanced female young, which in the photos look smaller and are not perched in the head up dead branch stance so common in adult birds.

The following photos show there is not much action to capture when photographing roosting Frogmouths, their movements are slow and minimal.

Photo cropped for a close view of one of the young birds showing the extravagant rictal bristles and feather detail which provides camouflage by replicating dead wood.

NOTES

(1) It is claimed the Tawny Frogmouth is our most frequently encountered nocturnal bird. A check of Birdata sighting records on 16/07/2025 confirms this: Tawny Frogmouth (62,141), Southern Boobook (46,633), Owlet Nightjar (25,501), Powerful Owl (18,987), Eastern Barn Owl (9,635), Barking Owl (7,402). All the other nocturnal terrestrial species have much lower reporting rates.

(2) The following quote from Michael Morcombe’s excellent Guide to the Birds of Australia is a good description of Frogmouths: “Probably the best known Australian nocturnal bird; occasionally seen in camouflage pose on an exposed limb, stiffly posed to mimic a broken branch. The streaked and mottled plumage looks like old wood or bark, the bill and bristles like the jagged end of a broken branch, and the untidy white spots and dark streaks are like lichens and sap stains on old timber. Yellow eyes look through narrowed slits; the head turns almost imperceptibly to follow an intruder’s movements.” 

Sadly Michael passed away recently.