The hardheads are back
Hardheads (Aythya australis) are a species of duck distributed over Australia and some of the Pacific. They are also known as White-eyed Ducks for the males’ appearance. The female bird has a brown eye. The white under-tail is a diagnostic feature of the species (see photo). Hardheads are grouped in the sub-family Aythyinae which include all the birds known as diving ducks.
Ducks in this group feed in deep water, diving down for long periods of time to collect water weeds and small aquatic creatures. In times of drought Hardheads will travel long distances to find suitable deep, still water. Hardheads have not been common in the district for some years but with a lot of wetland billabongs and farm dams flooding in recent times, Hardheads have turned up in numbers to feed in the deeper waters.
They will never be called a disco duck though. The placement of their legs on their body that makes them excellent divers renders them awkward on land.
You smell nice
Pheromones are chemicals emitted by organisms which trigger a group response in the larger population. They can have a variety of uses. Alarm pheromones can alert the larger population to impending danger. Trail pheromones can lead organisms e.g. ants to a food source. And then there are sex pheromones that female animals use to attract a mate.
In insects the primary organs for detecting pheromones are antennae. They are attached to the head between the eyes. The antennae contain olfactory hairs that absorb pheromones from the air and allow the insect to follow the ‘scent trail’. Antennae can have a number of uses apart from pheromone detection. Cells in the base of antennae act like gyroscopes and stabilise an insect’s flight in windy conditions. Depending on the insect species antennae have a variety of forms.
Male Feather-horned Beetles (Rhipicera sp.) have large pectinate (feathered) antennae. These antennae have large surface areas of olfactory receptors and therefore are very sensitive to pheromone trails, particularly sex pheromones, left by female beetles. The female beetle has no need for such sensitivity and has thin rod-like antennae (pictured below).
Some moth species also are equipped with large antennae. Moths are generally night fliers and cannot use sight to locate a mate so the males have developed large elaborate antennae with which they detect a female’s pheromone trail over large distances.
Personally, I’ll stick with Brut 33. No antennae needed!
Feeding the Birds
There is debate about the advisability of putting food out for wild birds. I visited a bloke who puts out a few cupfuls of grain every day for the neighbourhood birds. I came across him because a new species turned up, but more on that later.
In the short time I was there, I saw a delightful parade of visitors at the feeder: a Little Corella, an Eastern Rosella, King Parrot, Noisy Miner, Spotted Dove, Crested Pigeon, and Rainbow Lorikeets. Even a Magpie-lark and a Little Raven came in as well.
Is feeding birds good or bad? There are sides to the argument. All the birds I saw are fairly common, fairly dominant birds – it is easy to encourage them and hard to entice the rarer, more obscure species. People who feed meat or bread find an abundance of magpies, butcherbirds and currawongs – do we want more of these bullying types in our gardens? People say, “Don’t feed cockatoos – they will soon be eating your house!”.
And there is the issue of health – a feeder that isn’t regularly cleaned can be a point for passing on diseases. And is the food good for birds? Bread is probably unhealthy for most creatures.
But on the other hand, human food is probably only a supplement – wild birds will meet most of their dietary needs from natural sources and we should keep it that way. Feeding birds or putting out water for them in a bird bath – these are valuable opportunities for us to get close to nature and feel the thrill of kinship with other creatures, appreciating their personalities and beauty.
And occasionally we see things unexpected. My grain-feeding friend in Drouin had a White-headed Pigeon (Columba leucomela) turn up. This is a bird from NSW and Qld that seems to be turning up in Victoria more regularly, probably because of climate change. This is the first report for this district. [It is said they love the invasive Camphor Laurel (Cinnamomum camphora), and they ‘consume buds, flowers, leaves, and ripe and unripe fruits of the camphor laurel year-round.’ (Wikipedia).] We once had a report from Strath Creek as well.
Of course, it didn’t come to the feeder while I was there!
My, what hairy legs you have!
The warmer nights are bringing a myriad of insects to the outdoor lights, many of them moths. Last week an Emperor Gum Moth (Opodiphthera eucalypti), pictured below, landed on the deck. Moths are hairy but you never really appreciate this until the moth is large and you can get a good look at it.
The hairs are not in fact hair but modified scales similar in composition to the scales that cover the wings of butterflies and moths. These modified scales serve several important functions.
As many moths are night fliers the scales provide the insects with an insulative layer to protect them from the cooler night-time temperature.
The scales also assist in disguising the shape of the moth from predators, and if the moth is attacked, the scales break off easily allowing the moth to escape. Another predator-proof feature is that the ‘fur’ can dampen the return echo-location signal that bats use to track their mothy meal.
Lastly and unexpected moth are very good pollinators of those flowers that are open at night.
With all these benefits of being hairy I might buy myself a toupee.
The life of a local
Some people live their lives and die having never left the area in which they were born. The same happens for some fauna.
The Lithosiini are a tribe of moths characterised by caterpillars that live on lichen and algae. They are also characterised by caterpillars that are decidedly hairy. Yesterday I came across one of them, a Clouded Footman (Anestia ombrophanes) caterpillar, pictured left, grazing on a lichen covered fence post.
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Before pupation the caterpillar constructs a loosely woven cocoon out of silk and its own body hair, pictured right and then pupates in this open weave structure.
The female Clouded Footman moth is wingless and flightless. Upon emerging from her cocoon she is mated with by the male and lays eggs on the cocoon from which she has emerged, pictured below.
A life spent probably on the same post.
The have and have nots
With the approach of Spring, nestboxes become hot property as fauna look for secure places to roost or rear their young. The local wetland has installed many of these wooden structures, built by the wood-working students from the local high school. The boxes are monitored regularly to see if they are occupied and by what, and to check that feral species such as the Western Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) haven’t moved in.
Up until last week possums (Ringtailed and Brushtailed) and Kreft’s Gliders have been the only creatures observed to inhabit the nestboxes, apart from the aforementioned Honey Bees. But last week White-throated Treecreepers (Cormobates leucophaea) were seen occupying two of the nestboxes. These birds are distributed along the east coast of Australia from Cooktown around to Adelaide. They are insectivorous and often seen climbing up the trunks of trees looking for insects, mainly ants. They occupy the same ecological niche as the Varied Sitella (Daphoenositta chrysoptera), a bird that is most often seen climbing down trees. The reason for the change in occupant is unknown. Maybe the recent flooding in the wetland has forced the ‘fluffies’ to seek accommodation elsewhere.
Meanwhile less than a kilometre away at my place a White-throated Treecreeper was seen spending the night tucked under the eaves (pictured left). They can do this because their legs and feet are controlled by special tendons so that when a bird bends its legs the feet automatically close. In this way the treecreeper can sleep whilst attached to vertical surfaces.
It just shows though that the housing crisis isn’t just restricted to us.
They’re living in the city
For many years I have participated in the annual Aussie Bird Count run by Birdlife Australia but have regularly been dismayed by the results. Appearing near the top of the bird sighting lists every year are several birds that though seen around Flowerdale and Yea are certainly not in the numbers that would warrant being top-ten contenders.
But now that I am spending time in the city I know why those species are near the top of the list. They are living here. Without doing an actual bird count the three most numerous birds I have observed around my new inner-city locale are the Rainbow Lorikeet, Noisy Miner and the Australian Magpie-Lark.
Surprise, surprise this agrees with what the survey has been telling me for years. In 2025 Aussie Bird Count they ranked 2nd, 3rd and 5th respectively.
Next time I see a Rainbow Lorikeet in Flowerdale I won’t get so excited. I’m over them.
All boats lift on a rising tide
….is a saying that is often used in economics. For example if the ASX200 has a good day most shares will be in positive territory. It could also be applied to the recent floods. The Yea Wetlands has been in full flood in recent weeks i.e. all wet and no land. Those who have been intrepid enough to don waders and wander out into the flood waters would have seen Swamp Wallabies happily skipping through the water to find the next log to perch on, wombats less than happily stranded on a stump waiting for the water to recede and arthropods aplenty trying to stay above the water level.
When the spectacle of a flooded wetland occurs, few think about what happens to all the spiders, insects, slaters and snails. My recent slosh through the flooded reserve revealed every reed and grass stem sticking above the water crowded with arthropods seemingly observing an uneasy truce. Fauna that would normally be sworn enemies were patiently sitting next to (even on) each other waiting for the water level to drop (pictured above).
Of note were the large numbers of medium sized black and red spiders, formally known a Red and Black Spiders (Nicodamidae family) that appeared, pictured above. This family of spiders is only found in Australia and Papua New Guinea. They are not often seen because they build sheet webs at ground level and as such are usually hidden in the vegetation.
But as the saying goes ‘All arthropods lift on a rising wetland’.
How very FIFA
In keeping with a World Cup theme, in some parts of the landscape particularly those where mulch has been applied there are a number of what look like miniature soccer balls on the ground. They are not puffballs but the membranes protecting Latticed Stinkhorns or Red Cage Fungi (Clathrus ruber), pictured below. This fungus is native to southern Europe but is now found world-wide. When the membrane ruptures the red-orange lattice-shaped fungus emerges.
The lattice is lined with a dark slime that contains the fungus spores. The slime smells of rotten meat, hence the appellation ‘stinkhorn’. The smell attracts many species of invertebrates particularly flies. The invertebrates walk in the slime whilst feeding and when they leave, the spores are carried with them.
It is lucky this is not a scratch’n’sniff blog – the smell is quite overpowering.
Birds in Strange Places
Some birds live in very specialised habitats, for example the Eastern Whipbird is only found in dense wet forests, or quail are only found in grassy plains and paddocks. But there are cosmopolitan species that can find a living in many different habitats.
I recently spent some time on the coast down near Inverloch and saw some familiar birds in surprising locations.
Masked Lapwing (Vanellus miles subspecies novaehollandiae) and White-faced Heron (Egretta novaehollandiae) are both common on farms and ovals, paddocks and suburbs, yet here they are close to the crashing surf on sand and rock. Perhaps it is no coincidence that both have the word novaehollandiae in their Latin name – they are birds of ‘New Holland’ the old name for all of Australia. (Although, the Lapwing’s subspecies is the one occurring in the South of the continent – the subspecies in the North is called ssp miles and has larger yellow drupes (called ‘lappets’) on its face and more white on its breast and neck).
Other common farm species also seen at the beach were ravens, starlings, cormorants and wattlebirds (in the coastal scrub).
When the apocalypse descends and the great extinction of species gains speed, we will probably lose those species that have specialised habitats and limited range. I expect the Lapwing and the White-faced heron will survive along with cockroaches and black rats. They’re adaptable, have a range of foods they can forage, and the skills to relocate easily.
