It’s a Flame … by a nose
Male Flame Robin
During a recent bicycle ride down the Epic Trail on Mt Buller I shared my lunch stop with a flock of Flame Robins (Petroica phoenicea). The photo (left) certainly does not do justice to how striking the male plumage is, particularly against a dull and rainy day in the high country. As far as I knew, this was the first time I had ever observed a Flame Robin.
Recently I found myself in the middle of ‘the tribe’ – a mixed flock of small birds that forage together across our property. It contained treecreepers, thornbills, scrub-wrens, fairy-wrens and robins (usually Scarlet Robins and Eastern Yellow Robins). In fact the male Scarlet Robin was easy to spot flitting through the undergrowth. 
When I later examined my photos on the computer, what I assumed to be a female Scarlet Robin, was in fact a juvenile male Flame Robin, pictured right. Surprising, because I had never seen Flame Robins before on our hill (or so I thought) and also because the adult male bird was nowhere to be seen in the wandering flock.
To my untrained eye the difference between the Flame Robin (right) and female Scarlet Robin (Petroica boodang), pictured below, certainly at a distance and in the bush, is slight. But when you see them together the obvious give-away is the white nose spot on the Scarlet Robin. So I may have observed a Flame Robin before but not noticed. 
It’s another tick on my list of bird sightings up on the hill.
The one that got away
Sometimes the smallest things in nature are the most fascinating to watch. The sight of this tiny Wall Spider (Oecobius navus), not much bigger than the Green-head Ant it was wrapping in its silk, had even our resident arachnophobe enthralled. The spider ran round and round the ant, gradually cocooning it. However, just when the ant seemed thoroughly encased, it somehow managed to escape, and the spider retreated to its nearby web in the brickwork.
Immigrants or emigrants?
Hitting town for the winter
With the coming of winter, all across Victoria, people are starting to dream of the upcoming ski season. In bird-world, though, some species are not so rapt with the approaching cold in the high country. They are known as ‘winter or altitudinal migrants’. In summer they spend their time in the cooler temperatures of the higher altitudes. But when the temperature starts to drop they are out of there and make their way down toward us in the milder climes of the low altitudes.
In the King Parrot Creek valley we are now starting to see species such as Scarlet Robins (Petroica boodang), above, and Golden Whistlers (Pachycephala pectoralis). Similarly, populations of Pied Currawongs (Strepera graculina), right, have increased recently and flocks of ‘green’ Australian King-Parrots (Alisterus scapularis), below, have also entered the district.
This migration is not as pronounced as it has been. With milder winters and humans providing a plentiful food source, particularly for the King-Parrots, some species are less inclined to follow the seasonal path up and down the mountains.
If these species are called winter migrants in the lowlands, are they called summer migrants in the hills?
Riparian restoration reaps rewards
King Parrot Creek at Burslems Bridge
There was great news last week from the scientists from Arthur Rylah Institute who recently completed their annual fish survey of King Parrot Creek. Using fyke nets at the usual 5 sites and some electrofishing at intermediate locations, the team caught 386 endangered Macquarie Perch, by far the highest total since surveys began in 2006, and an increase of almost 60% above last year’s catch.
As Jo, one of the survey team, commented: “It’s wonderful to see the creek so healthy, and it really does show that all the hard work that the Landcare group are doing along the creek continues to pay off.”
Some key findings from the survey were:
- Native fish accounted for 86% of all fish collected – 7 species in all
- Macquarie Perch were the dominant species, comprising 64% of the total catch and found at all sites
- One year old MP were the most numerous group, suggesting strong breeding in spring 2013
- Only two introduced species were caught – that means no carp, no goldfish and no redfin
One downside of the survey was that litter, discarded fishing line and illegal fishing traps are still being found along the creek.
We are very grateful to the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority for its continuing support for these fish surveys. To see posts on previous surveys simply type Macquarie Perch into the ‘Search This Site’ box in the right hand sidebar.
Take me to your leader
Summer has ended and with it goes leaving the curtains open until late at night. On summer nights the insects amass on the outside of the window trying to get in through the glass – mainly moths and beetles – but also the occasional praying mantid comes over for a feed. At a high level, praying mantises are grouped with unlikely bedfellows such as cockroaches and termites. The mantids belong to the order Mantodea (logically enough!), which derives its name from the Ancient Greek word mantis, meaning prophet, and eidos meaning form, referring to the way these insects hold their front legs as if they were praying. They are ambush 
predators that wait for prey to get close and then they grasp it with their spiked front legs. If you look closely at their eyes it seems as if they have a dark pupil. However like most insects, mantids have multifaceted compound eyes and the ‘pupil’ is an illusion created by the eye structure. The praying mantids on my window in summer are the green Garden Praying Mantis (Orthodera ministralis), pictured above. Recently I have come across some mantids of different sizes and colours. At about 10 cm long this Purple-winged Mantis (Tenodera australasiae) at right was a minor obstacle on the bike path.
Another mantid, pictured at left, was hidden 
on a tree and seemed from a distance to be part of a branch. I don’t know about you but a praying mantid’s head reminds me of pictures people draw of aliens. Na noo, na noo.
Honeyeaters
Brown-headed Honeyeaters
While weeding in the garden one of us even experienced its reported habit of taking human hair for nesting material – unfortunately from the one who could least afford to lose any more!
Brown-headed honeyeaters live and travel in close-knit communal groups, usually of 10 – 20, and are noted for huddling along a branch when roosting at night.
As usual, bird baths make good sites for photography, and we managed to get some shots of Brown-headed Honeyeaters on their own, as well as with a closely-related White-naped Honeyeater and some Yellow-faced Honeyeaters.
A wetland visitor
With dams getting very low, there is now plenty of soft silty mud exposed on the edges for wetland birds to forage for small invertebrate prey. We have just acquired a lone Dusky Moorhen that regularly patrols the perimeter of our largest dam. With its very large feet, walking in the soft mud is no problem – click on photo at left. This bird is immature and is yet to develop the distinctive red frontal shield of adult birds.
Our bird is relatively unconcerned with human presence, but still keeps a safe distance. If unduly disturbed, it prefers to duck into the cover of stands of Swamp Paperbark and River Bottlebrush on the banks, rather than take to the water.
It does however swim at times, and dives among the Floating Pondweed – see below.
Losing those post-summer blues?
Got the post-summer blues? Well do what the Superb Fairy-wrens do and simply shed them.
Blue wrens have been one of the constants in my life, although those on the west coast of Australia are different from the blue wrens here in central Victoria. The blue wrens here are Superb Fairy-wrens (Malurus cyaneus), cyaneus being Latin for dark-blue. The male is conspicuous with its bright blue and black breeding plumage (pictured left), while the female is grey-brown (pictured below). During the summer breeding season the sexes are easy to tell apart.
At the end of summer all the male Fairy-wrens, except the apex males, moult their familiar blue breeding plumage in favour of grey-brown plumage. At the moment hopping around the bush there is a motley collection of males at various stages of losing their ‘blues’ (see below). During winter, immature and adult males can be identified by the slightly blue tail and the black beak. The females have a brown beak and brown lores (the area between the beak and the eyes). Next spring the breeding males will again don their nuptial plumage to attract the females.
So if you are suffer from those post-summer blues don’t worry. As any fairy-wren or whiskey drinker will tell you, all you need to drive those blues away is a good ‘moult’.
Eye-catching
Continuing the wasp theme, this striking blue-winged wasp was photographed just before disappearing underground in our vegetable patch. It’s a native Black Flower Wasp (Austroscolia soror), belonging to the family Scoliidae. It is a parasitoid and burrows with its strong legs into soil, or compost heaps, looking for scarab beetle larvae. It paralyses the larva with its sting and lays an egg in it. Upon hatching the young wasp has a ready food source to munch on.
Black Flower Wasps are usually solitary. They are large (about 3cm long) and hairy, but they are not aggressive, although females can sting in defence. Adults feed on flower nectar.
Another solitary parasitoid non-aggressive wasp caught our eye recently – this one we think was an ichneumon wasp from the family Ichneumonidae. There are something like 1500 species in Australia in this family, only about a quarter of which have been described. We’re not sure which species this is, and what species it parasitises. Any suggestions welcome.
I spied a wasp
You may have noticed over the past couple of months a black wasp with bright orange antennae prowling around the place inspecting nooks and crannies. It is a Black Spider Wasp (Fabriogenia sp.) and as the name suggests it is looking for spiders.
After mating, the male dies (it will do anything to get out of looking after the kids!) and the female hunts for a single spider on which to lay her eggs. 
The picture above shows a female wasp dragging a paralysed spider to the nest. The spider’s legs have been removed so that it is easier to carry and so that it actually fits in the nest opening. Click to enlarge photo.
The nest is a burrow dug into sandy soil. The wasp uses its back legs to rapidly excavate a tunnel. The picture right shows the wasp leaving a burrow that has been tunneled under a clump of moss.
What I 
didn’t realise and only found out by watching this wasp is that once the spider has been deposited and the eggs laid the female wasp seals the spider and eggs into the burrow using wet mud, just as I have seen Potter Wasps or Mud-dauber Wasps do on the sides of our house. Pictured left is the female wasp returning to the burrow with jaws full of mud. Before entering the tunnel she would mould the mud into a convenient ball shape. And then it is off to source more mud (pictured below).
Up, up and away
It reminds me of horror movies in the dim, distant past where people were bricked into basements.
Focus On Fauna 