In early April
I became aware of a nearby clamouring to be fed. Upon investigating (any excuse
to stop work) I found a female Superb Fairy-wren feeding a fledged chick that
was two to three times her size. Jean took a photo and we concluded that it was
a Horsefields Bronze Cuckoo chick – one of our more commonly observed cuckoos
here. A bit of emerging bottle green on the back and a light hachuring of bars
across the front were its distinguishing traits. It revisited next day to the
same tree and vine tangle, with multiple wren attendants.
There was a moment when the male
wren appeared, looking disturbed and apparently about to start legal proceedings
related to paternity testing.
Our dam is a
shallow puddle again, having breached in the heavy rain of mid-February. It is
full of tadpoles etc. and attracting birdlife. There is a pair of White-faced Herons
and there has been a brief visit by a Great Egret (a rare sighting for us
here). I watched as a heron did its special dance of right foot, scratch-scratch-scratch,
left foot, scratch-scratch-scratch – probing for any subsequent movement, (all
to hokey-pokey rhythms that I could almost hear). Suddenly it became aware of
me and promptly vacated.
A pair of Plumed
Whistling Ducks was occasionally sighted near the dam since early March, being
very secre-tive. In early April, one adult started noisily carrying on, near
the house, in the early afternoon, with occasional muted responses from the
dam/gully area. Next day, by coincidence, I encountered the two Plumed Whistling
Ducks and five very small ducklings on our smaller but permanent dam on the
east side of our property. They had abandoned their puddle for a better piece
of real estate. What amazed me was the 700 meters of dense pasture they had to
negotiate en route.
We also had a
rare (for us) sighting of a pair of King Parrots drinking at the dam. Our
resident Pheasant Cou-cals have been most vocal recently and have adopted the
top of a maturing Silky Oak as their trysting perch. (As Uncle Remus said,
“Everybody got to have a singin’ tree!”)
In recent
years we’ve had occasional brief visits by Eastern Whipbirds. This year a pair
arrived in our gully and scrub patch in January and have been around (not all
the time) until almost the end of March. We’ve been so privileged to have those
iconic bush calls to start our days at dawn.
The Collared Sparrowhawk has
been working the house environs where we have several bird baths, looking for
any opportunities, even visiting the insect screens.
Double-barred
Finches, Speckled Warblers and White-browed Scrubwrens have all recently been
seen busy with nesting materials. So the rush is on, after a tough summer, to
produce a next generation before winter sets in. Grass seeds and insects are in
abundance following those February rains. Good luck to them!
Photos by Jean Gundry
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| Pheasant coucal |
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| Speckled warbler |
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| Plumed whistling duck |
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| Horsefields bronze cuckoo |
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| Eastern whipbird |
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