On display
Last week a small flock of Dusky Woodswallows could be seen circling around the canopies of some tall Yellow Box and Grey Box trees on the steep east face of the Three Sisters, Flowerdale. Between their sallies out searching for flying insects, they would settle on branches of the trees or on bare branches of lower shrubs, which is where one was spotted spreading its wings and quivering in what was presumably a courtship display.
It was so absorbed in this display that it allowed itself to be photographed at quite close range. We have seen Striated Pardalotes engage in a very similar display in a large Yellow Box near our house.
Dusky Woodswallows in south-east Australia are migratory and most head north for the winter, so these birds would probably be recent arrivals returning to the district.
A key feature distinguishing them from other woodswallows is the white streak along the leading edge of the wings (see photo below).
Click on any of the photos for a closer look.
Vale Cato. RIP.
The animal that you can get closest to at our place (if you pretend to be looking in the other direction) is the Swamp or Black Wallaby (Wallabia bicolor). Walking at a steady pace can sometimes get you within metres of these beautiful animals. Swamp Wallabies are the only living species of the genus Wallabia. They are solitary creatures coming together only to breed. Each animal has a distinct range that they defend aggressively from other wallabies, as you can tell by their shredded ears. In fact it is this feature by which you can identify individual animals. We have five Swamp Wallabies with ranges on our property. One of these we have named Cato. Those of a certain age may remember Cato Fong, the Chinese man-servant of the Peter Sellers’ character, Inspector Jacques Clouseau in the movie Return of the Pink Panther. Cato used to hide in the Inspector’s house and attack him by surprise, so that the Inspector could keep his martial arts skills honed.
Cato (the Wallaby’s) home range covers our eastern slope and includes the dirt road and the neighbour’s steep gully. As with Cato Fong, our Cato would regularly launch surprise attacks on our car as we made our way up the road, sometimes leaping from the upper road-side bank to land seemingly within inches of our 4WD to then continue across the road and down the gully. We were ever vigilant for Cato’s next raid.
At dusk last week we were walking down our winding and steep road when a car came hurtling around the corner, way too fast for the road conditions let alone the fact there were wallabies and roos grazing on the road side. We managed to jump out of the way and the car continued at a rapid pace around the next bend. As we rounded the bend we found Cato dead in the middle of the road.
I know, given where we live it is probably just a matter of time before we all collect an animal with our cars, even if we are careful. What I don’t understand is how you can hit an animal and not stop to render assistance or worse still leave it lying in the middle of a single lane, steep and winding dirt lane for the next unsuspecting driver to confront as they come driving around the bend.
Vale Cato. You gave us hours of entertainment as we tried to predict where your next attack was coming from. RIP.
Peg basket squatters
The Grey Shrike-thrush is one bird that seems to have adapted well to human incursion into its habitat. Many of us who have had them nesting in odd places around houses or sheds will relate to this story sent in by Rosemary from Strath Creek:
“Two years ago my peg basket became the home of a shrike-thrush, its mate and later two healthy youngsters. The washing was still pegged out only metres away but I had to find new storage for the pegs. The chicks eventually reached a size where they could crawl/hop along the clothes line to be fed (meanwhile the washing had a new home).
Then disaster struck! A feral cat took the youngsters one by one. We received a trap from the ranger and caught the cat, but it was too late for that year’s brood.
Last year the basket was hung in a more secure position but didn’t attract the birds.
However, now the adults are back once again.
Does anyone experience the same excitement and pleasure as I do in providing a safe space for the birds and observing the new inhabitants? It means I have to walk up the path to the other washing line, but it’s well worth the inconvenience!”
The Grey Shrike-thrush is actually neither a shrike nor a thrush, but is in the Whistler family Pachycephalidae (also known rather unkindly as the ‘Thickhead’ family), which contains some of our most beautiful songsters. To hear some of the shrike-thrushes wide repertoire click on the audio icon below.
The insurance shot
The AAMI picture
One of the joys of walking in the bush is seeing something you haven’t seen before – even better, getting a clear, definitive picture of it so that it can be positively identified later. Birds are tricky. They are usually small and high up in the branches so that auto-focus cameras rarely get them in focus, instead focussing on the branches all around. So the question is always, ‘Should I just take the auto-focus shot for insurance purposes knowing that it probably won’t be in focus but at least I have a picture so I can identify the bird?’ Or, ‘Should I take my time, switch to manual focus and in the time it takes, risk the bird flying away?’
Of course there is no right answer. Ideally I want the perfect shot but I have been burned a number of times, especially when photographing raptors. Taking the time to manually focus has left me with a shot of a bird flying off in the distance. Very frustrating.
This week I saw out of the corner of my eye flitting through the branches what I thought was a Grey Shrike-thrush, but not quite. I went the insurance shot (above) but was lucky enough that when the bird flew off it landed on the ground not too far away. A Fan-tailed Cuckoo (Cacomantis flabelliformis), often heard, rarely seen – by me at least.
If I had not taken the good picture (right) I probably would have been able to identify the cuckoo from the blurred image. Thank heavens for insurance.
Sticky beaks
On sunny late winter days, a flowering Downy Zieria (Zieria cytisoides) in our garden attracts a range of insects hungry for nectar. The zieria bush is native to Victoria, but not this district. The Common Hover Fly (Melangyna viridiceps) pictured at left and below, is, as its name suggests, skilled at hovering and can often be seen probing the small flowers with its proboscis (click on the photo for a closer look). The proboscis is a hollow tube used for feeding which is otherwise kept coiled – at least in butterflies and moths – not sure about the hover fly. Hover flies are beneficial as pollinators of native plants, while their maggots prey on aphids.
As well as the hover fly, numerous feral Honey Bees (Apis mellifera), pictured below, visit the flowers. Feral honeybees, as opposed to managed honeybees, are generally considered detrimental to the Australian environment.
They are less effective pollinators of small native flowers and have been implicated in the decline of many species of flora.Their sheer numbers outcompete native insects and they are known to take up to 80% of floral resources, as well as possibly damaging the ovaries of some flowers by their size. They also, of course, occupy tree hollows (and nest boxes) which would otherwise be available for native birds and mammals.
Another occasional visitor to the zieria bush at the moment is the smallish butterfly pictured at right, which we think is an Australian Painted Lady (Vanessa kershawi), one of the first of the spring butterflies.
Same name, different creatures
When we lived in Brunswick we lived next to a household of ferals. We called them that because they called themselves that. They were invariably goatee wearing (the males), tattooed (both males and females), dreadlocked and the nicest set of neighbours you could ever want – even if the parties got a bit loud on the weekends.
Now we are in Flowerdale our neighbours are still ferals, of a different type. The motion-sensing camera set up for a week revealed several species of feral animals cavorting on our back lawn.
Both the Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) and the European Fox (Vulpes vulpes) were introduced to the Australian mainland in the 1840s and 1850s for recreational hunting. Both species have been a disaster to the Australian environment. Rabbits are prodigious eaters of vegetation. It would be OK if they tucked into the Capeweed, Thistles and Patterson’s Curse but at our place they appear to mow through all the native vegetation including the native orchids and lilies. And the foxes decimate the native fauna. The only saving 
grace is that the foxes also eat the rabbits.
Cats (Felis catus) arrived as domestic pets but sometime later were released to keep to rabbits down (go figure). They also keep everything else down as well.
Even though I far prefer living in the wilds of Flowerdale, as loud as they were, I think for overall niceness, I prefer my feral neighbours in Brunswick.
Metamorphosis
Armed with a net and bucket, we headed off to sample some dam water among the rushes to see what waterbugs were present. Sifting through the sample, we discovered a variety of little darting creatures: tiny water mites, beetles, backswimmers, waterboatmen etc. – as well as a few tadpoles, which we took back to the house to examine.
With the aid of our newly-acquired copy of Marion Anstis’s superb book Tadpoles of South-eastern Australia, a hand lens, a USB microscope and camera, we endeavoured to find out which species they were.
Tadpole identification is not easy, and requires the careful study of a range of features such as body/tail shape and size, location and arrangement of mouth parts, eyes and nostrils, pigmentation and many more. These features are used to work through a scientific key to hopefully arrive at the correct identification. Use of the key requires beginners like us to learn a whole new glossary of terms, such as flagellum, iridophores, nares, papillae and spiracle.
The amazing metamorphosis from egg to frog, which can take months, has been divided by biologists into 46 developmental stages. The tadpoles we found seem to be of two or perhaps three species and were fairly well developed, with almost complete mouth parts and hind limbs emerging.
With little confidence we decided that the tadpoles we had would develop into Plains Brown Tree Frog (Litoria paraewingi) or Whistling Tree Frog (Litoria verreauxii), which have fairly similar tadpoles – and Pobblebonk, aka Banjo Frog (Limnodynastes dumerilii). We know from their calls that all of these frogs frequent the dam, but clearly we need more practice in tadpole ID!
Here come the clowns
I was driving deep in the heart of Flowerdale recently when I noticed sitting in the middle of someone’s lawn what we call in our household a ‘Clown bird’ (pictured left). It is in fact a Masked Lapwing (Vanellus miles) but with a face like that we prefer our name. I had seen them before but never around our neck of the woods. The bird pictured is of the subspecies novaehollandiae identified by the black marking around the breast.
Masked Lapwings are raucous birds and very territorial, particularly in nesting season. They will nest in highly open spaces. As I approached, 
camera in hand, the bird staggered off pretending a broken leg and leaving a clutch of three eggs and a chick (pictured right). The nest consisted of, well, nothing — barely a scrape in the ground. I wondered what evolutionary tactic has led this bird to lay eggs on the ground in such highly visible areas. The chick is normally well camouflaged against sticks, leaf litter and soil – but not on a lawn.
Chick. What chick?
The Masked Lapwing used to be called a Spur-winged Plover but the name was changed as it was shared by a totally different bird on the African continent. In the photo left you can clearly see the yellow spur protruding from the wing. The spur, which is non-venomous, is used by the bird when defending its territory or chicks. In fact the species name miles is Latin for soldier, probably referring to the weapon on its wings and its aggressive attitude. On a second visit the bird remained sitting on the ground and pretended there were no chicks for miles. However a close look underneath will reveal another pairs of legs. I wonder where the chick is?
It might look like a clown, but watch out if you get too close and there are young to protect.
At bay
Southern Boobook
Heading down to lock up the chooks before dusk, we were surprised to see this Southern Boobook (Ninox novaeseelandiae) emerge from a dense Sweet Bay tree not 5m from the house. After a brief spell in a Sweet Bursaria bush, it flew across to a Black Wattle where it perched for a while, arousing the interest of a curious Grey Shrike-thrush.
Then all hell broke loose as a raucous Red Wattlebird flushed it into a nearby Yellow Box tree. The wattlebird was then joined by a pair of noisy Grey Butcherbirds, who proceeded to pester the hapless little owl with dives and beak-clicking for a good ten minutes. All the while the wattlebird kept up a manic cackling as we watched from a distance.
The owl kept the birds at bay and was finally left in peace, except for the howling wind which was blowing, making photography difficult. This mobbing behaviour by other birds seems to be a common occurrence in the life of a boobook.
Tales from the woodpile #5
The results are clear. The most popular subjects on this blogsite are the warm and fuzzy ones. Phascogales, rakalis and owls are in. Creepy-crawlies that live in woodpiles are out. Having said that, here’s another Woodpile blog.
For all you fuzzy-philes, this picture (left) taken at our woodpile should satisfy you (or maybe not!). The Red Fox or European Fox (Vulpes vulpes) needs no introduction. Unfortunately they are a common sight in our district and there is a family of them, including four cubs, in our woodpile.
On a less cuddly note, a recent excursion to the woodpile turned up this Australian Wood Cockroach (Panesthia sp.), pictured below, 
different from the species of cockroach previously reported. The Aussie wood cockroach lives in family groups in rotten logs and the females gives birth to live nymphs. The families tell each other apart using chemical markers. Wood cockroaches are a key agent in the breakdown of wood, using specialised amoebae in their gut to digest the cellulose. Some species of Panesthia are wingless, but others, like the one pictured, shed their wings. If you have a close look at the thorax you can see the wing stumps (click image for larger view).
These wood cockroaches are not warm and fuzzy, but then again they do not spend their lives decimating native wildlife.
Focus On Fauna 