The Rainbow Beeeaters have arrived
Rainbow Bee-eater
Over the last few weeks the Rainbow Bee-eaters have be flying around our garden and mallee scrub. During the winter months they head north to warmer parts of the country, and every spring they head south for spring and summer.
It is always a delight when we hear them arrive. It’s a sure sign that spring has arrived. Almost every day for the last few weeks we’ve heard them around, or seen them overhead. Perhaps this year they will nest on our property like they did some years ago?
I find their nesting habit to be quite unusual. They make a short 30 – 40cm tunnel in a sandy spot and then construct a small nesting hollow at the end of the tunnel where they lay the eggs. Sometimes the burrow into the side of a road cutting, or the bank of a creek or river, providing the dirt is not too hard or compacted. I remember being fascinated by these birds as a child growing up on a farm in the Murray Mallee region of South Australia. That fascination has remained to this day.
Rainbow Bee-eater
Mallee Fowl losing its fight
In this week’s local paper, The Murray Valley Standard, there was a disturbing article about the imminent demise of the endangered Mallee fowl, once a relatively common bird in our district. In over 25 years of intensive birding in the district I have only ever seen two birds, both together. While I’ve found about five nesting mounds, only two of them are still actively worked by the birds.
Local experts are predicting the complete local extinction of the species in my area within 5 years, a sad thing to contemplate. You can read the whole article, which includes photos, by clicking here. One of the most recently active nests at Ferries McDonald Conservation Park, is shown in the photo below. This park is a half hour drive from my home. While the bird is reasonably secure in some other parts of Australia, local extinction is a worrying trend and is being mirrored elsewhere, hence the endangered status of this amazing bird.
Related articles:
Over the years I have written several extensive articles about this bird:
- Mallee Fowl – the incubator bird
- Malleefowl painting – Pinnaroo Primary School
- Malleefowl mound at Tintinara
Malleefowl, Innes National Park Visitor Centre
Malleefowl nest, Ferries McDonald Conservation Park, South Australia
Magpie nesting time in our garden
No Comments »28th September, 2011; Category: Baby birds, Garden birds, Magpies and Currawongs, Nests
Australian Magpie (male)
Over recent weeks we’ve been watching an Australian Magpie’s nest on our property (see photo below). This nest has been used by the same pair of birds over the last 4 or 5 years. Each year they just refurbish it a little before settling down to the important job of raising a family.
Last week we were working in the garden and watched with delight as the adult birds strutted around where we were working, looking for tasty morsels and then flying straight to the nest to feed the newly hatched young. Each visit resulted in excited squawks from the hungry young.
I was very surprised to find out a few days later that we actually had another nest with young magpies barely 50 metres from the other. To have two active magpie nests within such close proximity has never happened before on our property in the last 25 years. All I can surmise is that there has been a very drastic realignment of the local magpie territories over the last year.
And we are so pleased that none of them swoop us while they are nesting.
Australian Magpie nest
Australian Magpie (male)
Spring is on the way – and so are the cuckoos
Horsfield's Bronze-cuckoo
Earlier this week I was sitting on our back veranda doing some reading – and enjoying the lovely sunshine. After many weeks of gloomy, drizzling weather it was wonderful to soak up some warmth.
My reading was suddenly interrupted by the distinctive call of a Horsfield’s Bronze-cuckoo. I looked up and saw this bird perched near the top of a nearby mallee tree. (The branches are dead because they have been ring-barked and subsequently killed by two Galahs chewing the bark.)
I raced inside for the camera and managed a few reasonable photos before it flew off, probably looking for an unsuspecting host to care for its eggs and young. Like most cuckoos in Australia (and elsewhere), this species is parasitic, meaning that they lay their eggs in the nests of other species. Around our garden this probably means the nest of a thornbill.
The unsuspecting host pair hatch the cuckoo’s egg and then feed the young cuckoo. The young cuckoo will even tip the other young birds out of the nest – and thus get all of the food.
Since hearing this bird I’ve heard others in the district, so the spring/summer breeding season is definitely on the way.
Related articles:
Horsfield's Bronze-cuckoo
Some birds can be destructive
Female Australian Magpie gathering nesting material from a mat
From a human point of view, some birds are destructive. Sulphur-crested Cockatoos are well known for taking to woodwork around houses in some parts of Australia. Many species enjoy eating fruit in orchards (like the Mallee Ringnecks that eat our lovely pears – before they are ripe). Galahs, Cockatoos and Corellas can destroy an almond crop and Ravens and Crows steal eggs from chook yards. Honeyeaters, Silvereyes and Lorikeets enjoy grapes and the list can go on.
My recent experience is amusing rather than annoying. Little Ravens and Australian Magpies have been ‘borrowing’ fibres from a mat on our back veranda (see photo above). This mat is for wiping our boots as we come in from the garden. As you can see in the photo, the mat has definitely seen better days and is near the end of its useful life. It’s therefore good to see that it is being reused as nesting material. We’re really into recycling and reusing in a big way so obviously the magpies have been learning from us.
Good birding.
By the way: if you’d like to learn more about Australian Magpies, I can recommend an excellent book called The fearsome flute players. It is both informative and entertaining; you’ll laugh out loud at some of the antics these lovely birds can get up to and are recorded in this book. To order click here – and there is a special deal for readers of Trevor’s Birding.