In one end and out the other
A grove of Yellow Box (Eucalyptus melliodora) saplings that germinated after the ’09 fires has been a continual source of interest, mainly because of the invertebrates that live on it. This year one of the saplings has been strong (and bushy) enough to support a Striated Thornbill nest, pictured left.
The Striated Thornbill (Acanthiza lineata), pictured right, is a member of the Acanthizidae family, which contains other birds such as Weebills, Gerygones and Scrubwrens. It is only found in mainland south-eastern Australia. The scientific name is derived from the Greek words acantheon meaning a thorn-bush and zao meaning to live in, and the Latin word lineatus meaning lined, referring to the markings on the head – literally a ‘lined thorn-bush dweller’.
The nest is an oval domed construction with a hooded opening near the top. It is made out of bark, spider webs and moss and is lined with fur and feathers. The female incubates the eggs. Both parents feed the young. Immediately after feeding, the chicks defecate a faecal sac – a translucent gelatinous membrane containing all the excrement. In practice one parent flies in and feeds the chicks followed by the second parent which removes the faecal sac (pictured left).
They must feel pooped.
Same species, different outfit
This is not about local sightings, but does highlight what you may come across when getting out and about to some of the wonderful Biodiversity Spring events being held across the Goulburn Broken catchment and north-east Victoria, coordinated by the Euroa Arboretum. After attending the ‘Taminick Walk and Squawk’ (and seeing the promised Turquoise Parrots) we made our way up to the northern (Killawarra) section of Warby-Ovens National Park and were lucky enough to spot this Lace Monitor (Varanus varius) pictured at left climbing up a Mugga Ironbark tree (Eucalyptus sideroxylon). This particular goanna is the less common ‘Bell’s form’ of the Lace Monitor, characterised by the broad banding on its body and tail.
When first spotted it had a small colourful feather stuck to the edge of its mouth – hopefully its last meal wasn’t a Turquoise Parrot!
The following day we attended the first of the Grassy Woodlands Field Days held at Dookie College. Following a morning of informative talks, we headed to the college’s bushland reserve where we again came across a Lace Monitor climbing a tree, this time the more usual form with a patterning of more subtle bands and spots – see the photo at right.
You are probably unlikely to encounter a Lace Monitor in the Flowerdale/Strath Creek area, but please, prove us wrong and report any sighting by leaving a comment below.
One lump or two?
Hemiptera is an order of insects characterised by having sucking mouthparts. Some species suck sap from plants. Others just suck the life out of each other. Insects of this group include gumtree hoppers and psyllids, featured in previous blogs.
The sap suckers try to extract protein from the sap. This is their food. However, the protein is in such small quantities that the insects have to suck up an enormous amount of sugary sap to meet their requirements. To do this they simply suck in the sap and remove the proteins while, at the same time, expelling the waste sugar from their anuses in the form of honeydew.
Recently I found hemipterans known as Wattle Plant Lice (Acizzia sp.) on a Golden Wattle (Acacia pycnantha). Probably the fourth and fifth instars of the lice are shown in both photos. The white packages dragged along by some of the instars are crystalline honeydew. It’s a bit like going to a tea party where it’s BYO sugar-cube. An element missing from this scene is the presence of ants. Ants would usually attend these creatures to harvest the honeydew in return for protecting them from predators.
Maybe the ants were out getting the scones and bikkies.
Metamorphosis 3
10th October – full tail
11th October – tail shrinking
13th October – tail almost gone
At the risk of tadpole overload, we will finish the Metamorphosis series of posts with some pictures of our last home-raised frog. What amazed us about this one was the speed of change in the last few stages of development, particularly the shrinking of the tail, as you can see from the dates on the photos.
This tadpole/frog turned out to be a brown tree frog, but without hearing its call, we can’t be sure whether it is a Southern Brown Tree Frog (Litoria ewingii), or a Plains Brown Tree Frog (Litoria paraewingi), as it seems we are on the overlap of distribution of the two species. In the past we have heard the calls of both of them here. Either way, we returned it to our ephemeral wetland, where we hope it will be able to avoid the interest of the White-necked Heron currently residing there.
The other tiny frogs we previously managed to raise from tadpoles appeared to be Common Froglet (Crinia signifera) and Plains Froglet (Crinia parinsignifera), which were also returned to the wetland.
Duck? What duck?
Looking down onto the dam from the hillside I could make out several ducks and the unmistakeable shape of a flotilla of ducklings. Lots of quacking and lots of splashing about. This was strange because ducks often frequent the dam but never with ducklings, and they fly off well before I get there. But with ducklings what would they do to hide from me??
When I got to the dam the ducks were nowhere in sight. After a careful search I found them hidden in the branches of a fallen tree in the dam (above) – a male and female Chestnut Teal (Anas castanea) and a female Australian Wood Duck (Chenonetta jubata) with three chicks. Several things were unusual. First, they were completely silent, including the ducklings – very well trained. Second, I could not quite make them out because they weren’t ‘duck-like’ in shape.
I know as a bird watcher and a hunter (with a camera) of animals through the bush that very often it is an unusual shape in the landscape that triggers me to observe that something is there, rather than the direct recognition. This ability we have to recognise shapes rather than objects is the reason for example army clothes and vehicles are camouflaged in khaki, dark green and brown patches – the colour hides the subject and the patches break up the shape of the person or vehicle and therefore makes it less recognisable.
Even though I could tell the ducks were in there I couldn’t recognise a shape. The adult ducks held their heads out in front of them submerged up to the eyes and nostrils. And the ducklings were doing the same. Their shape was more like floating wood than duck and therefore in between the branches they were very difficult to see.
Maybe I am making the explanation up but I have never seen ducks sit like that AND they were hard to see.
Birthday treat
It seems some wildlife around Flowerdale is getting very hungry and very bold lately. Our last post was on a Common Pheasant hanging around the back door of a Flowerdale farmhouse, and now we have the case of a Brush-tailed Phascogale (Phascogale tapoatafa) turning up at Trent and Vikki’s side door, scurrying around late in the morning, much to their astonishment. 
They were actually celebrating their son Jarrah’s birthday and, although they wouldn’t normally feed wild animals, they couldn’t resist offering the phascogale some birthday lunch chicken, which was greedily consumed as they watched fascinated from the doorway.
The phascogale looks large enough to be an adult and, since all adult males would have succumbed to stress-induced disease by now, we can assume that this was a lactating female, hungry enough to be out foraging during the day.
Mystery solved
We received the photo at left from Norm, who has a grazing property backing onto the Mt. Disappointment State Forest at Flowerdale. The shot was taken through his kitchen window with a mobile phone camera, and Norm wanted to know the identity of the bird that was brazenly wandering around next to his house, pecking at spilt grain from his bird feeder.
Due to its streaked/mottled back, our first knee-jerk thought (hope) was a Spotted Quail-thrush, an uncommon bird that has been sighted in recent times on the edges of the forest as well as other parts of the district.
We decided to set up a remote camera close to the house and, after a few days, a check of the camera revealed, among many shots of Norm’s chooks, cat, dogs, lawnmower, sparrows and a king-parrot, several clear pictures of the mystery bird. See blown-up photo below.
It is in fact a Common Pheasant, a female. This is an introduced species, possibly someone’s escaped pet, since few manage to survive in the wild.
Perhaps Norm can keep fattening it up for a good Xmas lunch !
Flowerdale feature renamed
On a stretch of fence at the head of a gully on our property (which we named ‘Wombat Gully’), the top two strands of barbed wire are caught up together, see photo right. (We haven’t got to replacing the barbed wire out there yet.) I can only think that a large animal has pushed at the fence and twisted the strands on its way through. Ouch! Kangaroos generally scramble under the lower wires and deer usually jump over the top. Maybe it’s the Flowerdale Panther! Time to use the motion-sensing remote camera.
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We attached a camera to a tree facing the twisted strands, figuring whatever passed through the first time would do so again at the same location. After a week—nothing! What we did capture though was a range of creatures looking after their young—a young Common Wombat (Vombatus ursinus) following mum (presumably) down the slope, a thoroughly lazy Eastern Grey Kangaroo 
(Macropus giganteus) joey with mum (fact). Only seconds earlier, the joey was grazing from the pouch while mum was grazing. Also captured is the rear shot of a Swamp Wallaby (Wallabia bicolor) with an obvious pouch full of arms and legs and tails. No large animals pushing through the fence. No panthers.
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The conundrum about the twisted fence wires remains unsolved. However this valley will now be known as Nursery Gully.
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P.S. I have included a gratuitous photo (left) of a Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) wandering by. No young in sight, but too good a sighting not to include.
(Click on photos to enlarge)
A tale of two corellas
Little Corella
Long-billed Corellas
Despite its name, the Little Corella is only a couple of centimeters shorter than the Long-billed, so size is not a reliable means of differentiating between the two species. The calls of the two species are also, to the untrained ear, indistinguishable. One difference, however, apart from the length of the bill, is that the Little Corella has a white crest that may be raised, though not in our picture here. But don’t worry if you can’t identify those corellas flying past – you’re not alone – BirdLife Australia even has a special category, ‘Corella species’ for recording unidentified corellas in its database.
From memory, corellas first started appearing in this district in the mid-1990s, initially just an occasional one or two often mixed in with flocks of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos, then gradually building up numbers until quite large flocks are now a common sight. Presumably this was in response to more farmers feeding out grain and resowing paddocks, particularly in the drought years. The heart of Long-billed Corella territory is Victoria’s western district, whereas the Little Corella is a bird found over much of inland Australia and the north and west of Western Australia.
Click on the audio bar below to hear calls of what we think were Long-billed Corellas.
Go Tiges
Well the footy season is over for Richmond AGAIN! But rest assured all you Richmond Tigers fans, there are some Tigers—Water Tigers, that is—fighting and scrapping in your local dams and billabongs. Water Tigers (Dytiscidae sp., from the Greek dytikos meaning ‘able to dive’), pictured left, are the larvae of Predaceous Diving Beetles.
Both the adult beetles and larvae eat by grasping their prey between strong pincers. The pincers are hollow, which allows the Water Tiger to inject enzymes into the victim and then suck out the juices while the prey is still alive, similar to how a Robber Fly feeds. Whereas the adult beetles can swim and catch prey, the camouflaged larvae hunt by remaining motionless on a rock or stick and then grabbing any prey that floats or swims by. Adult beetles can stay underwater for prolonged periods by trapping air between the wings and body. The larvae breathe through three snorkel-like attachments at the rear of the body (see photo).
And then there were two!
These insects are highly predaceous at all stages of development. In some aquatic environments the Water Tiger is the apex predator (has no predators itself). In the time it took me to get my camera focused for the photograph (right), two Water Tigers had already attacked and half-devoured a third individual.
It appears that pond life is just as cut-throat as footy.
Focus On Fauna 