Toowoomba Field Naturalist: May 2020

BIRD SIGHTING ANECDOTES (while in relative lockdown) – 07 April, 2020 - by Ben Gundry

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

Pheasant coucal

Speckled warbler

Plumed whistling duck

Horsefields bronze cuckoo

Eastern whipbird

Photos by members

FROM LAUREN MARLATT

Seeds off a Brachychiton rupestris tree in a park in Hursley Street

White fungus found growing on the underside of a persistently wet cardboard

FROM DIANA BALL

Eudocima fullonia - common fruit-piercing moth caterpillar found crossing the road on Prince Henry Drive (Photo by Jim Ball)

Birds seen in a garden in Pechey area - by Tricia Allen

In the absence of an outing on 05 April, I decided to have an outing in our garden with our daughter Carolyn. This turned into two separate one-hour sessions. These are the birds seen and heard in order of their appearance.

Grey Butcherbird, Eastern Whipbird, Eastern Spinebill, Currawong, Magpie, Brown Honeyeater, Lewins Honeyeater, Yellow-faced Honeyeater, Kookaburra, Brown Cuckoo Dove, Striated Pardalote, Red-browed Finch, Brown Thornbill, Noisy Friarbird, Red-backed Fairywren, Superb Blue Wren, Eastern Yellow Robin, Scarlet Honeyeater, Pale-headed Rosella, Pied Butcherbird, Fan-tailed Cuckoo, Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo.

Carolyn's photo is of a scarlet honeyeater, which has run out of the red callistemon it usually frequents but seems perfectly happy in the salvias at our front door.

Lamprolina, a genus of Leaf Beetles in the Chrysomelidae family - by Glenda Walter

Although this insect season had a late start, I’ve been able to find quite a few leaf beetles on my walks around local parks. Some of these are brightly coloured to warn predators that they are inedible, but others with dull colours rely on not being noticed.

The common name of the Lamprolina genus is “Pittosporum beetles”, most feeding on plants belonging to the Pittosporaceae family including Pittosporum and Bursaria. At first glance many beetles in the Lamprolina genus look the same, but they can be differentiated by the black patterns on the pronotum and head. As I have only been able to identify L. impressicollis, I can’t say for certain that the spot and patch patterns are identifiers for separate species or if there are just local variations on one or more species. The fact that they are found on different food plants may indicate that those in the images below belong to at least several species. Experts on iNaturalist website including Martin Lagerwey, an acknowledged Leaf Beetle expert, are unable to help.

Members of the Lamprolina genus are said to be found in the East and North of Australia. As in many insect families, the taxonomy is in need of revision.

The colour of the elytra (wing covers) varies between dark blue, dark purple and very dark green, and head/ pronotum are shades of crimson to orange and yellow. The pronotum was differently shaped in some, and the beetles also varied in size.

Here is a list of those I have found in South East Queensland:

· Lamprolina impressicollis, with no spot or patch markings, was seen at Bellthorpe and at Stanthorpe.

· Species A – black patches on front of pronotum and back of head - Hartmann Reserve, Rogers Reserve and Withcott.

· Species B – two black spots on pronotum and large patch on head - Federation Park.

· Species C – large black patch on noticeably bright crimson pronotum, and none on head - Peacehaven.

· Species D – black patch at rear of head - Crows Nest National Park.

· Species E – blue elytra and yellow pronotum with grey marks - Lake Broadwater.

· The larva of an unknown Lamprolina species- Rogers Reserve.

Chris Reid in his paper A taxonomic revision of the Australian Chrysomelinae, with a key to the genera (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), published in 2006, says that there are 14 described species in the Lamprolina genus. (This number may have changed since 2006, and there may be undescribed species as well.)

Article and photos by Glenda Walter, April 2020