Red rumps
One of the most beautiful parrots in the district is the Red-rumped Parrot or Grass Parrot (Psephotus haematonotus) (from the Greek haima meaning blood and noton meaning back). The male bird (pictured left) is mainly emerald green in colour with a bright red rump which is very visible when it is flying away. The female’s feathers are a more sedate olive in colour (pictured below).
Red-rumps are open country birds and are ground foragers, feeding primarily on grass seeds. Clearing of land for agriculture has extended the range over which they live. They are particularly well camouflaged on the ground which means your first sight of them is usually as a group of red bottoms flying away into the distance.
However the other day I noticed ahead of me the head of a male parrot just over a slight rise – and he didn’t see me. After a few minutes of slithering across the ground on my stomach I was rewarded with the sight of several pairs quietly feeding on grass seeds – a great day for me and no doubt a talking point for any neighbours who may have been watching.
Porphyry pearl
No, the title doesn’t refer to that much-maligned sparkling wine of the 1960s (for those old enough to remember it!), but instead to that strikingly colourful waterfowl, the Purple Swamphen, which has the delightful scientific name Porphyrio porphyrio meaning ‘Purple Water-hen’, originally from the Greek porphuroeis, purple.
A group of these birds can regularly be seen on the roadside on Upper King Parrot Creek Road, just a short distance out of Strath Creek. They are presumably attracted there by the lush watered grass outside ‘Callandoon’ and have become quite accustomed to passing traffic. But they are also often found along the banks of the King Parrot Creek in the same area.
The purple swamphen spends much of its time on land, strutting on big feet and long legs, flicking its tail to show the white underneath. It is an accomplished if rather clumsy flyer and doesn’t often swim, being essentially a wader in swampy vegetation on the margins of various wetlands. It feeds on soft shoots of water plants, but also small animals such as frogs, snails and reportedly even ducklings – and remarkably, lerps in trees, according to a reference in Where Song Began by Tim Low.
Purple swamphens are common across most of northern and eastern Australia, with a separate sub-species in southwest Western Australia. It is also found as various sub-species in parts of Europe, Africa and Asia.
It emits quite a variety of sounds – brief examples of its calls recorded near Shepparton by Jo Wood from the Goulburn Broken CMA can be heard by clicking on the audio bar below.
Prepare to be (fly) blown away
In the biological cycle we tend to overlook the things that die. What happens to them? How come we are not knee deep in carcasses? A set of photographs sent in by Judy from Limestone really shows you what a dog-eat-dog or in this case a beetle-eat-maggot world it is out there. The pictures were taken of a fly-blown fox carcass. In them you can clearly see fly maggots feeding on the carcass but feeding on the maggots are two species of beetle.
The beetle with the red head is known by the ominous name, Devil’s Coach Horse (Creophilus erythrocephalus) (from the Greek eruthros meaning red and kephale meaning head). It has large powerful jaws for cutting open prey. Unlike many beetles, its hard wing-casings only cover a small part of the abdomen. Active mainly at night the Devil’s Coach Horses are one of the first species to arrive at a dead animal (obviously after the flies have been there). The adult beetles feed on maggots and pupae of flies. The upper left photograph clearly shows a beetle with a maggot clenched firmly in its jaws. These beetles lay eggs in the carcass and the emerging larvae also voraciously predate on maggots.
The brown, flattish shaped beetle with the handsome orange-tipped antennae is a Carrion Beetle (Ptomaphila lacrymosa) which as the name suggests feeds on the flesh of dead animals but also on fly larvae. They are distinguished by short, longitudinal ridges (called tubercules) on the wing-casings. Both beetles play an important role in maintaining a clean environment and reducing the risk of disease by consuming carcasses and/or fly larvae.
Alien (the movie) has nothing on real life!
Frogs, lizards and lots more at Flowerdale
It’s amazing what you find in the woodpile – not just the usual suspects like spiders, woodlice, ants and earwigs, but frogs, skinks and even bats. The little frog pictured here was one of three that appeared as we were moving split wood into the woodshed – after being relocated near the garden pond, it promptly hopped straight in (photo below).
We think it’s a Plains Brown Tree Frog (Litoria paraewingi), but we’ll have a much better idea after Steve Wilson’s talk at the Flowerdale Hall on Friday evening. Steve will be talking about the frogs and reptiles of the Goulburn Broken Catchment. This is a natural follow-on from the previous Focus on Fauna talk on Turtles, and will complete the picture of our local reptiles and amphibians. Steve will have lots of wonderful photographs of the geckos, lizards, skinks, dragons and snakes, as well as frogs, that may be found in our district, some of which have featured in previous posts on this blog.
For full details of the presentation, click on the flyer at left. And if you plan to come, please let us know by email to focusonfauna@gmail.com .
Right-hand drive
It did not take much rain to bring out the mushrooms – and all the fauna that rely on mushrooms as a food source. One of those creatures is a slug, a name used generically to include all snails that do not have a shell. Scientifically slugs make up a group of gastropods (snails) that have lungs instead of gills.
Slugs, it turns out, are fascinating creatures. Most have two sets of feelers (pictured above). The larger pair, set high on the head, contains light sensing organs and is tipped by eye-spots. Lower down, the smaller feelers give the slug a sense of smell. When threatened, the slug can retract these feelers. In addition the slug will produce extra mucus on its body to make it difficult for a predator to pick it up.
On the right hand side of a slug is the pneumostome, an opening through which air is drawn into the single lung-like organ. If you look closely at the photo (immediately above) you can just make out the opening. Slugs are also simultaneously hermaphroditic meaning that they have both sex organs at the same time. They are located near the head. During mating, fertilisation of the eggs occurs in both partners. Afterwards each goes off to lay eggs. Incidentally the sex organs are also located on the right-hand side of the body.
It makes one wonder whether in Europe and the US, the slugs have all their organs on the left-hand side.
Low flow – any fish?
Macquarie Perch
There were also good numbers of other native fish including River Blackfish, Mountain Galaxias, Southern Pygmy Perch and Flat-headed Gudgeon. Brown Trout made up most of the introduced fish catch – one carp was caught at Richards Bridge and two Eastern Gambusia were also found there – the first time in the 10 years of surveying the King Parrot Creek. The by-catch also included 1 Platypus and 13 Snake-necked Turtles, all of which were released uninjured.
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- Low flow at Draytons Bridge
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- Renae and Adrian hard at work
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- Flat-headed Gudgeon
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- Southern Pygmy Perch
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- Snake-necked Turtle
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- Lernaea parasite after removal
The surveys this year involved both fyke netting and electro-fishing. Caught fish were measured, weighed and inspected for external parasites and lesions before being released back into the creek. Macquarie Perch also had fin samples taken for genetic analysis and were checked for presence of previously installed tags – this year there were only 6 recaptured fish.
One parasite found on a few fish is Lernaea cyprinacea, commonly called Anchor Worm, although it is actually a copepod crustacean rather than a worm. It burrows into the fish’s flesh using horns on its head to anchor itself. It causes lethargy and may lead to death if embedded in a vital organ. The survey team carefully removed these 1cm long parasites with tweezers.
A worrying aspect highlighted in the report was the lack of connectivity in the stream caused by the construction of illegal rock weirs which represent a barrier to fish passage.
Just like school kids
We only had one bully at primary school and he wasn’t very good at it. Although I was never directly affected I was vaguely aware of where he was in the schoolyard and when he got close I kept my head down. What I was aware of was the circle of yelling school kids on the oval after school that formed as the bully tussled (not always successfully) with his latest victim.
I was reminded of this last week when I observed a circle of a dozen Australian Magpies (Cracticus tibicen) carolling loudly around two birds having a rough and tumble (pictured left). A search of the web to explain such behaviour revealed that this is not an uncommon occurrence in magpies with many explanations given for such behaviour – a territorial dispute between flocks, determining the pecking order within a flock or a battle for food or even breeding rights.
Dust ups between birds I am used to seeing (see Wattlebird Wars). They are usually over and done with in a flash. However in this case the dominant magpie in the fight held the other magpie down for several minutes occasionally delivering a peck or two to the prostrate victim which just laid there (pictured right). The carolling onlookers also added a peck or two for good measure.
What disturbed me about the whole proceeding was that it somehow looked vaguely – human!
Frog legs on the menu
We’re used to periodic outbreaks of noisy squabbling among our local White-winged Chough tribe, but this kerfuffle was more animated and louder than usual. One of the choughs had discovered a large frog, probably a Pobblebonk, and was stabbing at it with its long, curved and very sharp bill. With tail fanned out, plumage puffed up and bright red eyes bulging, the chough had got the whole group excited, but was not going to let any other bird near its prey, except for one young bird that followed it around closely, begging to get at least a leg or two.
The recent rain seems to have produced a food bonanza of earthworms, insect larvae etc for the choughs after months of slim pickings foraging among parched dry grass and leaf litter. This frog would be a substantial addition to their usual fare.
The photos here are less than ideal because every time we got at all close, the chough would pick up its meal in its bill and scuttle away out of sight behind a bush with the youngster in tow. The rest of the group, which numbered about twenty, eventually lost interest and resumed their foraging elsewhere, leaving the now-mangled remains to a very chuffed pair!
Time to go
At the moment there are large flocks of Silvereyes in the garden. That can only mean one thing. It’s time to quit this town. The Silvereye is a small olive-winged bird with a very obvious white ring around its eye. They are found in Australia and the South Pacific and are distributed in Australia along the entire east and south coasts.
The scientific name, Zosterops lateralis, is derived from the Greek words zoster meaning girdle and ops meaning eye, referring to the light eye-ring. Lateralis is Latin for side. Silvereyes have a number of sub-species or races which are distinguished by the colour of their flanks. My guess based on the colouring of the birds in the garden and the distribution map of the races is that the birds at our place are of the race westernensis.
In late Autumn/early winter the birds gather to migrate north to warmer climes. The Tasmanian races migrate to Victoria, the Victorian races to NSW and so on.
I guess what you consider warmer depends on where you start.
Bee-mused
The Wild Pollinator Count was again held around the country last week. This citizen science project involves simply watching a flower or group of flowers for 10 minutes and recording what insects land there and presumably aid pollination.
Our predominantly native ‘garden’ is lacking many flowering plants at present – a few bluebells, Austral Stork’s-bill and Rock Isotome – but what was really buzzing was a Weeping Bottlebrush (Callistemon viminalis – a ring-in from coastal areas of Queensland and northern NSW). At first sight it seemed to be mainly attracting European Honey Bees (Apis mellifera) but on closer inspection amongst the numerous bottlebrush stamens were lots of small insects that we couldn’t identify.
But with the help of Karen and Manu from Wild Pollinator Count we were able to label them as native bees in the Subfamily Hylaeinae. These bees, which appeared to be from two related genera, Hylaeus and Amphylaeus, are among around 2,000 native bee species, all of which play an important role in pollination.
Hylaeine bees are distinguishable from other bees in having yellow markings on their face and/or body and appearing smooth and shiny since they don’t have as many hairs on their bodies as other bees. On close inspection of our bees there seemed to be several species with different markings, but as Manu pointed out, males and females of a single species usually have different face markings, so it is easy to mistake them for different species. Even so, there were perhaps two or three species. The pollinator count has shown that Hylaeus bees in particular are very keen on callistemon flowers.
A rosemary bush also seemed to attract a range of pollinators, including butterflies – a rather showy Meadow Argus (left) and a delicate Common Grass Blue (below).
The Wild Pollinator Count has a Flickr album with a wonderful range of photos submitted during the count. And if you want to see our bees in closer detail, click on the photos above.
Focus On Fauna 