Get your lovely fruit and veg!
Almost a year ago, a post (click HERE to view) described the sighting of many cicada exoskeletons hanging off the vegetation. Well, it is that time of the year again. Recently moulted was this Greengrocer Cicada (Cyclochila australasiae). The Greengrocer is the green form of this species. Other coloured forms include Yellow Monday (yellow), Chocolate Soldier (tan), Blue Moon (turquoise) and Red Warrior (red). The Yellow Monday cicada lacks the turquoise pigment that combines with the yellow to form green. Similarly, the Blue Moon cicada lacks the yellow pigment. This species inhabits the temperate and coastal regions of southern Queensland down to Victoria.
Adult Greengrocers live for only six weeks. They feed on the sap of plants and on summer evenings the males ‘sing’ to the females. Unique to this species, the sound is made by rubbing a scraper on the wing over ridges on the collar-shaped structure at the back of the head. The song can be extremely loud. In fact it is one of the loudest insect sounds in the world. After mating, the female deposits eggs into the branches of food plants. Four months later the nymphs hatch and burrow into the soil, emerging after seven years.
When I go to the Queen Vic market to buy fruit and veg I have to escape after a short while because of the incessant yelling by the vendors. Maybe loudness is a characteristic of greengrocers the world over, irrespective of species.
P.S. The three eyes in the centre of the forehead are called ocelli. They are thought to be very sensitive light receptors. As the insects pitch and roll in flight the ocelli detect minute changes in light level and thus help the insect maintain flight stability.
A distinctive call
One of the distinctive sounds of the spring/summer period in this district is the far-carrying and repetitive call of the
Olive-backed Oriole (Oriolus sagittatus) which could be interpreted as a hesitant attempt to pronounce its name: “ori-ori-ole”.
[Click on the audio bar below to hear this call].
The similarity of the call to the name is coincidental rather than deliberate, since “oriole” actually comes from the genus name Oriolus meaning “golden (bird)”, a description more suited to other oriole species not found here: the Yellow Oriole and the Figbird.
The Olive-backed Oriole is a medium-sized arboreal bird that can be difficult to detect among green foliage and is usually heard before being seen. It feeds on fruit and insects. In autumn our orioles will head north for the winter.
As well as its usual contact call, it also has a softer warbling sub-song which can include mimicry of other birds. The other day we came across an oriole that broke into this sub-song but we can’t include it here because, of course, the recorder had been left at home! But it’s worth listening out for this song when you next hear the oriole calling.
If you go down to the woods today…
…you’re in for a big surprise. The woods in question are a stand of about two dozen Monterey Pine (Pinus radiata) trees at the back of our property. I look at them with despair trying to pluck up the nerve to cut them down but they have in the past provided shelter for a pair of Powerful Owls and more recently a recreation area for a ‘squadron’ of Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus funereus). The surprise is being clobbered on the head by a falling pine cone.
A recent glancing blow to the shoulder from a cone travelling at terminal velocity taught me that I would not want to get hit on the head with one. Small numbers (2 or 3) of the cockatoos often frequent the grove, nipping off the tips of pine branches and dismembering the pine cones in search of the seeds. Normally you can pick your path to avoid the falling debris but with more than a dozen birds, the bush is alive with the thumping of cones falling to earth.
The male cockatoo pictured at left can be identified by the black beak and pink eye-ring. The female has a pale beak and grey eye-ring. Bicycle helmets are becoming ever more popular as the fashion item to wear – against magpie attacks and now pine-cone bombing.
P.S. There is no need to be caught out by their presence. Their distinctive calls can be heard for miles, as you can hear by clicking on the audio bar below.
Wildlife health presentation
During 2011, Focus on Fauna held a series of evening presentations in Flowerdale and Strath Creek covering various nature topics. These proved to be very popular and the Upper Goulburn Landcare Network is keen to revive the program.
To start off we have arranged for Pam Whitely to give a talk at Flowerdale on 15th November about her work on wildlife health at the Faculty of Veterinary Science, The University of Melbourne. Find out what to do if you do see sick or dead native animals in the wild, and learn about diseases and viruses that may affect our native wildlife. Their health can be important for biodiversity and may even influence human health. Some examples of what Pam and her team deal with are:
- the decline of amphibians due to introduced chytrid fungus
- facial tumor disease in Tasmanian Devils
- psittacine (beak and feather) circoviral disease in parrots and cockatoos
Click on the flyer below to see full details of the presentation. If you plan to attend please email: focusonfauna@gmail.com
Birth notice
Self-appointed and proud grandparents Trudie and Len are pleased to announce the arrival of one (maybe two) Podargus strigoides, otherwise known as Tawny Frogmouths. A recent post (click HERE to view) featured the frogmouth nest in a tree outside Trudie and Len’s bedroom window. Mother and father are doing well. So far they have been observed to swap sitting duties at dusk.
The two photographs (click to enlarge) show a parent sitting on amorphous balls of fluff. You can just make out an eye of a chick in one image (above) and a beak in the other (right). Stay tuned for more photos in the near future when the chicks grow into something more than animated cotton balls.
Little Aussie battler
A small excavator operating beside Rosemary’s house near Strath Creek recently turned up an unusual find, a newly-hatched Eastern Snake-necked Turtle (Chelodina longicollis) together with a clutch of about 6 or 8 eggs, some apparently unhatched, set in a clod of hard-packed clay about 20 cm below the ground surface. The bobcat operator showed the turtle to Rosemary who transferred it to an adjacent large ornamental pond which has lots of rushes and other water plants that will hopefully provide cover and food and ensure the survival of this little battler.
When we later inspected the remaining eggs they all appeared to be either broken open or unfertilised, and certainly no embryos remained. So this seems to have been the last straggler from the clutch. It was surprising how hard the soil was – it would have taken quite some digging to lay the eggs as deep as they were.
Click HERE to see a post from last year about another young turtle near Strath Creek, together with more information on its life cycle.
And if you’re wondering why this is called a turtle and not a tortoise, ‘freshwater turtle’ is now the preferred term to distinguish it from its sea turtle cousins and from the true tortoises found on other continents which are wholly terrestrial and have domed shells.
Longicorn beetle larvae, watch out!
This colourful critter is a wasp from the Braconid family, more specifically a White Flank Black Braconid Wasp (Callibracon capitator).
Braconid wasps are black, white, orange and red. They are shiny to look at but are covered in pale hair. The female is distinguished by a large ovipositor (the long ‘sting-looking’ part at the tail). Generally regarded as the gardeners’ friend, braconid larvae parasitise the larvae of other insects — moths, flies, sawflies and beetles. The female wasp uses the ovipositor to lay eggs just under the skin of the food host. The wasp larvae hatch and feed on the living host, eventually breaking through the surface of the skin and spinning cocoons. The host, still alive, will carry the cocoons around until the adult wasps emerge. Then the host dies.
And if you want to see what the preferred food of this wasp is click HERE to view.
Pied Currawong—a delicious pastry?
Pied Currawong (Strepera graculina) – Yum!
Have you ever wondered where the word ‘pied’ comes from? Is Pied Currawong a recipe used by the early settlers when food was short? The index of Pizzey and Knight’s Field Guide to the Birds of Australia lists eleven birds (Butcherbird, Cormorant, Little Cormorant, Currawong, Harrier, Heron, Honeyeater, Imperial-Pigeon, Monarch, Sitella and Stilt) with the pied descriptor. A veritable smorgasbord of tasty treats.
The term was originally coined by that famous cataloguer of Australian birds, John Gould. The English word ‘pie’ comes from the French word of the same spelling, which is the old name for the European Magpie (Pica pica). The European Magpie is a member of the crow family and is unrelated to the Australian Magpie. The French word is derived from the Latin word pica, which is the Latin name for the bird. So ‘pied’ literally means ‘like a European Magpie’—in other words, black and white.
The meaning of pied has changed with time. Modern dictionaries define pied as meaning ‘of two or more colours’. But in Gould’s 1848 book the term strictly meant black and white.
So for those thinking about supplementing your diets with some local pastries, think again.
The next generation
In our last post we mentioned a poll held by BirdLife Australia to find Australia’s favourite bird. On reflection, we ended up voting for the Brown Thornbill – not the most colourful or striking of birds, but a small bird with a feisty personality and a wide range of calls and song. Also we thought it would probably be the underdog in the poll and would need support. The Brown Thornbill has been a constant companion around our property, being one of the few birds observed every single month since we started keeping records 15 years ago.
The little chap pictured here is a fledgling that became disoriented in a recent wind-storm, and after trying several times to fly through the glass door, took refuge under the verandah, which was a good place to be since it had started to hail!
Where is the SES when you need it?
During my time in Flowerdale I have witnessed some pretty ferocious displays by Mother Nature including highly localised tornadoes sweeping up our valley. It was always of some comfort to know that in case we lost a roof or all our windows the SES was never too far away (well, in Kinglake anyway). Think of those without such a service. In the middle week of September there were a couple of days of heavy drumming rain. Most creatures took cover in holes and under logs. But the driving rains simply washed the top off our local termite mound.
Termites, sometimes incorrectly referred to as ‘white ants’, are social insects that live in large communities (called mounds if they are above 
ground). The nests are built from a combination of soil, mud, chewed wood or cellulose, saliva and faeces. Termites are delicate insects that need to stay moist to survive. The temperature and humidity inside a mound, as well as the oxygen to carbon dioxide ratio, is controlled through a network of tunnels and galleries. Any breach of the outer walls disrupts these environmental conditions and prompts immediate action to repair the damage. In addition, exposure of the nest renders the termites susceptible to attacks from predators such as ants and birds.
Job done!
So it was that hundreds of termites (Nasutitermes sp.) were seen repairing the rain-damaged mound. In the picture above (click to enlarge) the workers have the pale heads and the soldiers have the dark-brown heads. By the next day the work was done, with not a tarpaulin or insurance assessor in sight.
Focus On Fauna 