Bird Words: fledge, fledgling
- Fledge: a bird is said to fledge when it is able to fly.
- Fledgling: a young bird that is partly or wholly covered in feathers. It is also used of a young bird when it first begins to fly.
Fledgling birds can be very easy to see because they are still learning to fly and will hang around more than more mature birds. However, they are sometimes not as easy to identify because their plumage has not fully developed the adult colours.
Willie Wagtail (baby)
One big plus for identification is the feeding habits of the parents. If you remain quiet and still a short distance away, the parents will often come up to feed the new fledgling bird, making your identification much easier.
Except in the case of young cuckoos; that’s a whole new ball game.
New Holland Honeyeater (baby just out of nest)
Bird word: hackles
Hackles: long, prominent feathers on the throat or neck, as in ravens and crows.
In the Australian Raven, our largest species of corvids, the throat feathers, or hackles, are quite prominent. In fact, this can be very helpful when identifying this species. I do not yet have a photo of an Australian Raven. In the Little Raven, the common species in our district, the throat hackles are far less obvious, as you can see in the photo below.
Little Raven
Bird word: Field Guide
- Field Guide: a book giving details of all the birds found in a region or country. Field guides usually include colour illustrations of the birds, descriptive notes to help identify the bird and a distribution map.
When I was growing up in the 1950s the only reliable and comprehensive field guide to Australian birds was Neville Cayley’s “What Bird is That?” It wasn’t my copy, it belonged to my older brother but I tended to use it far more than he did. In my later teen years I acquired my own copy, the lesser quality but far cheaper paperback version.
When I first married and we started having family camping holidays, often in the Flinders Ranges, I bought the two volume “A field guide to Australian Birds” by Peter Slater. I used this guide alongside the beautiful, but cumbersome Reader’s Digest “Complete Book of Australian Birds.” This wonderful volume is not truly a field guide, because it uses photos instead of paintings for the illustrations and can be a little misleading as a result. Its strength is the text and I still refer to it frequently. Its major weakness is its size and weight; far too big and heavy to use as a field guide.
The 1980s saw the publication of Graham Pizzey’s “The Field Guide to the Birds of Australia” (illustrated by Doyle). This was, in my opinion, far superior to any previous publication and it has remained a favourite of mine ever since. It travels with me everywhere; in fact, it lives permanently in the car. It is also starting to fall apart despite several repair jobs.
In 1997 Graham Pizzey published a new, much revised version, this time beautifully illustrated by Frank Knight. This is a far easier to use, compact, easily carried in the field, well illustrated and with an authoritative text. It is the volume I now consult most frequently.
I do have an early edition of Simpson and Day’s “The Birds of Australia” but I find this volume sadly lacking in the text although the illustrations are quite good. I would not have bought this volume myself; it was a gift. The later editions (it’s up the 7th edition) may be much better but I haven’t checked it out.
More recently Michael Morcombe has produced a new field guide which I understand is quite good. I can’t really comment except to say that I’ve only briefly looked at it several times in bookshops. My thin wallet and my crowded bookshelf both say that I don’t really need another field guide.
For my trip overseas late 2005 and early 2006 I bought two field guides for the trip:
- The Birds of South-East Asia (for use in Thailand)
- A Field Guide to the Birds of the Indian Subcontinent (for use in Nepal).
Both proved very useful and studying them on the plane on the long flight over there proved useful in filling in the long hours. I had also been studying them for many months previous to my trip. (See my travel blog for details and photos of my trip.)
Bird Word: Extinct
Extinct: a species that has died out and is no longer in existence.
Sadly, some bird species have completely died out and no longer exist for our our enjoyment. Not only are we the poorer for this sad state, the environment is the big loser. Extinct Australian birds include:
- Kangaroo Island Emu (this island is off the coast of South Australia)
- King Island Emu (between Tasmania and Victoria)
- Paradise Parrot
For a complete list of extinct Australian birds go to the Birds Australia site here.
Bird Word: Feral
Feral: a domesticated species that has been released or has escaped into the wild and is now living independently.
From time to time members of a species of bird escape from aviaries or captivity, or are deliberately released into the wild for a range of reasons. If a group of these individuals becomes established and start breeding they can form a feral population of that species.
A classic case of this occurred in the USA some years ago. The Australian Budgerigar is probably the most popular cage bird in the world. Individuals that escaped or were released from captivity soon started breeding and eventually established large flocks in the wild where they continued to flourish for some time. Naturally, this deprived local natural species of both food and nesting sites and were therefore a pest species. In more recent years I understand this population has begun to die out.
Australian feral populations:
A number of species have established feral populations in parts of Australia. These include:
- various species of geese and ducks
- Red Junglefowl on some islands off the coast of Queensland
- Common Pheasant – various locations, including King Island, Bass Strait
- Wild Turkey – on Flinders and King Islands, Bass Strait.
- Indian Peafowl – various locations, including Flinders and King Islands (see photo below)
- California Quail – King Island.
- Mute Swan – in Western Australia.
- Ostrich – these were farmed for their plumes in various locations, mainly in South Australia, in the 1800s. They were released into the wild where they established small feral populations. Small groups were reported from the Port Augusta region until very recently. Some may still survive.
Further reading:
Indian Peafowl at the Western Plains Zoo, Dubbo