A noisy time
From time to time special events are held on or near the River Murray here at Murray Bridge, South Australia. This weekend is a long weekend with a public holiday on Monday to celebrate the birthday of Queen Elizabeth. That will seem strange to those who do not live in Australia – celebrating the birthday of someone who isn’t an Australian and who rarely visits – but I won’t get into politics on this blog. Stranger, however, is the fact that her birthday is actually in April.
Back to the birds.
Well, actually – back to fewer birds.
This weekend the Water Ski Racing Championships are being held on the river in the centre of town. Exit most of the birds. We live about 5km from the river and we can hear the noisy engines of the speed boats from here.
Oh well, it was too cloudy, cold and miserable to be out birding anyway.
Mallee Fowl – the Incubator Bird
Malleefowl, Innes National Park Visitor Centre
In yesterday’s post I highlighted seeing six Mallee Fowl in a ten minute period one exciting day last year. This almost doubled the total number of this species I had seen in over thirty years of birding. Previous to that eventful day I had seen seven individual birds on five different occasions. (On two of these occasions I saw two birds at the same time.)
Mallee Fowl – Leipoa ocellata
Other names for the Mallee Fowl include Lowan, Incubator Bird and Malleehen. It looks like a smallish turkey and ranges in size from 55 to 61 centimetres in length. It is sparsely distributed throughout south western Western Australia, southern parts of South Australia, northern Victoria and south western New South Wales where suitable habitat remains.
Habitat
The Mallee Fowl has a preference for mallee scrub and eucalypt woodland habitats. Over the last century large tracts of this type of habitat have been cleared for cereal production and sheep grazing. The Mallee Fowl has been slow to adapt to these changes and is now extinct in some regions of its former range, and highly endangered in other areas. The widespread occurrence of the introduced fox has also had a devastating impact on the population.
Malleefowl nest, Ferries McDonald Conservation Park, South Australia
Nesting
Perhaps the most unusual feature of this species is its nesting habits. The Mallee Fowl is one of three mound nesting species in Australia. The male makes a nesting mound of earth, leaves, twigs and bark from nearby trees and bushes. These he scrapes together into a cone shaped mound. The rotting vegetation causes the mound temperature to rise, just like in a compost heap.
Eggs
The male maintains the internal temperature at about 33 degrees C while eggs are in the mound. The male excavates a hole each time the female comes to lay an egg, usually at intervals of 2 to 14 days. During the breeding season, which stretches from September to April, the female can lay anything from 5 to 33 eggs. Once laid, the male refills the hole and continues to monitor the temperature of the mound on a daily basis.
Malleefowl nest, Gluepot Reserve near Waikerie, South Australia
Nest Mounds
The mound can vary in size from about 2 to 5 metres in diameter and up to 1.5 metres high. In my searches through Ferries-McDonald Conservation Park some 20km SW of where I live I have found seven of these mounds, some still in active use. I have even sat quietly for many hours near a nest hoping to see the birds – to no avail. Finding the nests seems easier than finding the birds!
Chicks
When the chicks eventually hatch – often after more than 7 weeks – they struggle through the sand of the mound to the surface. This struggle can take hours. They then run off rapidly into the surrounding bush. They are not tended by the adults at all but are left to fend for themselves. The chicks can fly a few hours after hatching.
Amazing Bird
The Mallee Fowl is indeed an amazing bird in its habits and nesting methods. Its status is a major concern. The local zoo, Monarto Zoological Park used to have a special recovery programme. The keepers were given special permission to remove eggs from mounds in the district and incubate these eggs artificially. The chicks were raised by hand and released back into the wild. Some were fitted with radio transmitters and tracked. Most were taken by foxes within days of their release. Farmers in the district often have a baiting programme to kill the foxes (because they kill their lambs) but there are so many the Mallee Fowl is still extremely vulnerable.
I haven’t heard in recent years whether the zoo is still pursuing this breeding and conservation programme. There is currently no information in the conservation section of the zoo’s web page.
UPDATE: this article was updated with photos on 14th October 2011.
This article was updated on October 3rd 2015.
Galahs, Death and Country Roads
I recently had occasion to drive out to Karoonda, a small farming community in the Murray Mallee 65km north east of Murray Bridge. On the way one passes through wheat and sheep farming country with a little remnant vegetation on each side of the road. This mallee habitat is often surprisingly rich in birdlife.
The dominent species one observes along this road (and many others in the district) is the Australian Magpie. Little Ravens are also common as are Crested Pigeons. Flocks of Galahs are a common sight too, ranging in size from four or six through to hundreds.
Summer Road Toll
During summer, when the wheat trucks are carting freshly harvested grain, many Galahs are killed because they feed on the spilled grain on the side of the road. They gorge themselves on the bounty left by the trucks and are then sluggish in their attempts to fly out of the way. Because pairs bond for life, if one is accidently killed in this way, so, too, is the other of the pair eventually killed. The pair bonding is so strong that they stay with the dead one until they, too, fall victim to a passing truck or other vehicle.
Other Birds
Many other birds are encountered on this stretch of road. Mallee Ringneck Parrots cross the road like green and yellow arrows darting through the trees. Willie Wagtails flit to and fro catching the insects disturbed by passing vehicles. Welcome Swallows swoop across the road or skim the nearby paddocks looking for their meal. Red Wattlebirds and Singing Honeyeaters are observed checking out if any of the mallee trees (various eucalyptus species) are in flower. Sometimes one catches a glimpse of the bright yellow feathers of the Yellow Tailed Thornbills as they fly from one patch of vegetation to the next.
Larger Birds
From time to time one can see larger birds like the Little Eagle or the Wedge Tailed Eagle, or the smaller Nankeen Kestral and Black Shouldered Kite. Two other larger species in this area are the Grey Currawong and the White-winged Chough. This latter species is quite often seen walking along the side of the road or in the nearby scrubland. I have often been amused seeing them strutting along rather than flying.
Ian Roberts, Bird Artist
We stayed with our daughter in Clare in the mid-north of South Australia recently. While we were there we went to the nearby small town of Blyth, about twenty minutes drive to the west. We especially went to visit the Medika Gallery run by Ian Roberts. We have known Ian for some years through the Australian Plants Society. Ian has regularly grown plants for sale at our sales in Adelaide. He also exhibits his paintings at the plant sales.
Bird Paintings
Although we often visit Clare and have driven through Blyth many times we had never visited the Medika Gallery. Ian has converted an old church in the middle of the town into a wonderfully welcoming gallery displaying both his paintings and the works of several other local artists. Ian specialises in painting Australian birds. He has a wonderful gift of being able to capture not only the beauty but also the unique characteristics of our birds. He is also able to beautifully portray the birds in natural settings, highlighting many of our native Australian plants where the birds feed, roost or nest.
To view some of Ian’s beautiful paintings click here. You can also order his works through his site.
This post was updated on 23rd February 2017.
Spotted Nightjar
Spotted Nightjar
Last week when we were travelling back from Geranium to Murray Bridge I observed a bird species I have not seen too many times in my birding life, a Spotted Nightjar. In fact, checking my birding database I had only ever only seen this species once before. That occasion was on my brother’s farm in the Murray Mallee near Loxton.
Spotlighting
We were out in the paddocks spotlighting for rabbits and foxes at the time and we flushed the bird from the grass. It was quite easy to identify it in the beam of the high powered spotlight. I was able to follow the bird as it flew away because I was operating the spot on that occasion. There have to be some benefits to getting frozen on a frosty night on the back of a farm ute.
Car headlights
On this occasion, however, we were travelling at about 95kph along the Mallee Highway heading home. It was a still, quiet evening after the storms and rain earlier in the day. The moon had not yet appeared. As we came around a bend in the road a Spotted Nightjar suddenly flew from the middle of the road through the car’s headlights and off into the scrub lining the highway. It may have even flown over the trees into the neighbouring paddocks – it was hard to tell because we only had a fleeting glimpse as it flew off.
Nightjars
Nightjars are nocturnal. There are three species found in Australia; the Spotted, the White-Throated and the Large-Tailed. They are closely related to another species, the Australian Owlet-Nightjar which we often see or hear at home. The Spotted Nightjar is common and widespread throughout mainland Australia. It lives in a wide range of habitats, not just the mallee area where we observed it. These include dry eucalypt woodlands, mulga, pine scrubs and grasslands.