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Archive for March, 2007

White Browed Babblers and water

1 Comment »10th March, 2007; Category: Bird baths, Bird Behaviour, Garden birds
White-browed Babbler

White-browed Babbler

I’ve written a number of times about the birds that come to visit the bird baths in our garden (see the links below).

We are constantly delighted to see the stream of honeyeaters, pardalotes, parrots and many other species that come to drink. Some linger awhile to bathe. Some are tentative in their approach, others come in boldly, chasing away any who may linger too long.

White-browed Babblers

White-browed Babblers are frequent visitors to our garden. They come in their family group, scuttling through the low bushes, scurrying up the branches of the mallee trees searching for insects and spiders and filling the air with their cat like calls.

From time to time their foraging antics bring them close to the bird bath. Sometimes they get as close as a metre away. I have never seen them land on the bird bath, let alone take a drink or bathe.

I recently read a series of posts on the Birding-Aus forum that many species of birds do not need to drink, or drink very infrequently. They manage to gather enough moisture from the insects, beetles and spiders they eat.

Related Articles:

Updated November 2013, and September 2015

Birds in the News 73

No Comments »9th March, 2007; Category: Birds in the News

The latest edition of Birds in the News is available on Living the Scientific Life. It contains plenty of links to a wide array of articles about birds in the news.

Sections include:

  • People hurting birds
  • People helping birds
  • Endangered birds
  • Avian influenza
  • Streaming birds
  • Miscellaneous birds

If you don’t read anything else, have a look at the absolutely wonderful photo of the Puffins right at the top.

I and the Bird #44

No Comments »9th March, 2007; Category: Carnivals, Non-Australian birds

The latest edition of the carnival I and the Bird #44 has been posted at The Greenbelt. Here you will find plenty of links to birding blogs from around the world.

As usual, I have made a contribution to the carnival, but I only just made it to this edition. I must try to get my links in well before the due date in future.

Related articles:

Birding Bloopers #13

No Comments »9th March, 2007; Category: Birders, Birding bloopers, Owls Frogmouths and Nightjars

I was telling my wife about all these bloopers and she reminded me about an incident in 1987 when we were camping at Lake Hattah in the Hattah-Kulkyne National Park in Victoria.

We were very annoyed trying to get to sleep one night when we heard a low “ooom-ooom-ooom” sound coming from nearby. We thought that some inconsiderate campers had a power generator going. Power generators are not allowed in most National Parks.

Next morning we discovered the source of the noise – a Tawny Frogmouth perched on a branch above our tent.

Even though the frogmouth started calling again the next evening, we slept well.

To read more birding bloopers click here.

Question for readers:

When did you experience an embarrassing birding moment? Perhaps it was a mistaken identification. Perhaps you didn’t look carefully enough and were later proved wrong. Maybe the bird itself fooled you in some way.

I invite readers to submit their birding bloopers in the comments section below. If it’s good enough I might just feature it in a post of its own, with a link back to your blog (if you have one).

Lost bird is found: Large-billed Reed-warbler

2 Comments »8th March, 2007; Category: Birds in the News, General, Non-Australian birds

I find it exciting to see a bird I haven’t seen for some time, like the Restless Flycatcher that came to visit our garden recently.

It is even more exciting to see a rare bird, one that is not very common or even perhaps one on the endangered list. About the only one in that category is when I saw a small group of Black Eared Miners at Gluepot Bird Reserve in 2005.

Even more satisfying is to see a new bird, sometimes called a “lifer” because it is the first time you have ever seen that species.

Imagine then, the excitement of finding a bird that hasn’t been seen for 139 years. I just can’t imagine the feeling. Well – it has happened twice in six months, in different places but with the same species.

Ornithologists across the world are celebrating with the news that a wetland bird that has eluded scientists ever since its discovery in India in 1867 has been refound. Twice.

The Large-billed Reed-warbler is the world’s least known bird. A single bird was collected in the Sutlej Valley, Himachal Pradesh, India, in 1867, but many had questioned whether it was indeed represented a true species and wasn’t just an aberrant individual of a common species.

But on 27 March 2006, ornithologist Philip Round, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology, Mahidol University, was bird ringing (banding) at a wastewater treatment centre (the royally initiated Laem Phak Bia Environmental Research and Development Project) near Bangkok, Thailand.

But that is not the end of the story. In a bizarre twist, another one was found – this time a specimen in a museum.

But, in a further twist to this remarkable tale, six months after the rediscovery, another Large-billed Reed-warbler specimen was discovered in the collection of the Natural History Museum at Tring, in a drawer of Blyth’s Reed-warblers (Acrocephalus dumetorum) collected in India during the 19th Century. Once again, Professor Staffan Bensch confirmed the identification using DNA.

“Finding one Large-billed Reed-warbler after 139 years was remarkable, finding a second—right under ornithologists’ noses for that length of time—is nothing short of a miracle,” said Butchart.

This just goes to show that amazing discoveries are still being made.

Now – I wonder what amazing birds will turn up in my garden?

To read the full story click here.

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