Garden Island wildlife

Garden Island carpet python in good hands.

If you need a good reason to join Birds Australia then the program of events organised by the Western Australian BA group is surely one of them.

Boyd Wykes of the Defence Support Group (Dept. of Defence) lead a trip to Garden Island on Feb 14, 2009. Thankfully the day turned out to be cloudy and not too hot. The birds were quiet, But we got to handle one of the local reptiles, a 2 metre long female carpet python. Also the insight into what the Defence people are doing in the area of environmental protection was well worth the effort of getting up at 5.00 am. Bird-wise is it encouraging to hear of the thriving Fairy penguin colony of 200 breeding pairs that have estabilished themselves there, amidst the Navy ships and submarines. Fairy terns are also breeding on the island.

The trip promo and plan for the day was:

"This is one of the few opportunities to look at the bird life on Garden Island. Meet at the Garden Island Causeway at 7:30 am. We will car pool from there to reduce the number of cars on the island. It is proposed that we visit the following sites: Bouche View, Beagle Road beach, the small boat harbour to see the penguin colony, some history and some forest at Stirling’s Well and Gilbert Point for waders and terns. We may be able to swim there. We will visit Point Atwick for Osprey. We will have lunch at Cape Markham where there is shade and toilets."

Honeyeaters in the bird bath

Singing Honeyeater nesting

This fuzzy photo is my attempt to focus on a Singing Honeyeater nest in our garden. It was taken a few weeks ago in early October when the nest was being built. At the time two birds were busily gathering twigs, leaves and cobwebs to build this beautifully constructed cup-shaped nest.

Now the egg(s) have been laid and the birds are incubating the eggs. One bird is spending most of the day sitting on the nest. It's so well hidden in the nest, you can just glimpse its black beak poking out.

There are two birds, but just one seems to be on the nest. She flies out for brief breaks throughout the day.

According to my Australian bird guide book the incubation stage for Singing Honeyeaters is 10-14 days. I'll keep a careful watch over the next few days, so as not to scare them off!

Starling nestlings in Launceston

Maarten Terwal took this series of amazing photos of a growing family of starlings in Launceston, Tasmania.

Luckily in Perth we never see this introduced species. I had my first really good look at starlings on a recent trip along the Great Ocean Road in Victoria where they appeared in huge flocks along the coastal cliffs.

I also came across them all over Europe, and one memory of the otherwise beautiful Mont Saint Michel was the smell of starling droppings.

Western Australia is doing its best to keep starlings out of the state, but they have already infested some areas of the south coast, around Esperence. The WA Department of Agriculture and Food describes them on the starling watch website:

"Starlings are an extreme threat to Western Australian agriculture, environment and community. They are listed as one of the world's worst invasive alien species. "

Birds Australia is doing its bit to help, with groups of local volunteers.

Help the Orange Bellied Parrots

Orange-bellied Parrots need your help!

There are less than 200 OBPs remaining in the wild, and unlike other critically endangered Australian birds, they don’t have their own sticker series!

The National Recovery Team for OBPs will make the stickers, but we need your help developing some catchy phrases. To rustle up some inspiration, we’re running a competition, with the HANZAB Parrots Volume awarded to the best Open entry, and a field guide and binoculars awarded to the best Under 16’s entry. The OBP Communications Team will judge the entries.

Keep your ideas short and snappy (just like the Hooded Plover sticker example below), and send them to:

Rachel Sims DSE, 8-12 Julia St. Portland , VIC 3285 OR email to Rachel.Sims@dse.vic.gov.au with ‘Sticker’ in the subject line.

Entries close June 20^th 2008, prizes awarded by June 27^th 2008.

THREATENED BIRD NETWORK

tbn@birdsaustralia.com.au

More info on the Birds Australia website

The North Beach osprey is still around

The North Beach osprey which I wrote about and photographed in December 2007 is still around in exactly the same area. It's fairly common for the young male ospreys to roam around the coast in their younger years, so I'm not sure if this one has a mate.

This morning he was having a great time feeding on what looked to be an Australian Herring (aka Tommy Ruff). Now that the Autumn waters of the Indian Ocean are cooling down, the Herring are running and the local fishermen are trying their luck.

Pied Cormorants on the beach