Trevor's Birding

House Sparrows in the Sahara

No Comments »12th March, 2016; Category: Finches, Non-Australian birds

House Sparrow at Merzouga, Morocco

House Sparrows are an often over-looked bird species.

In my last post, I wrote about a visit a few years ago to the Sahara Desert in Morocco. In that post, I shared photos of the Eurasian Collared Dove I saw in Merzouga on the edge of the Sahara Desert. My wife, my daughter and I were on a tour of Morocco. The emphasis was on being tourists. Despite this, I was also on the lookout for opportunities to see new birds – any birds – and to get photographs of as many as possible.

After our camel ride into the Sahara Desert on sunset, we stayed in a Berber tent on Christmas Eve. Pre-dawn on Christmas Day saw the group staggering up a nearby sand dune to witness the sun rising over the desert, a truly wonderful experience. After riding out of the desert on camels again – such uncomfortable animals – we had breakfast. This sumptuous meal was in the grounds of a nearby hotel.

While having breakfast I was able to photograph a small number of birds nearby, including the female House Sparrows shown in today’s post. I found that this is a common species throughout Morocco. I recorded it in many places, including the bigger cities like Casablanca through to smaller rural villages.

I even noticed a small flock of them in the few trees near our campsite out in the desert. There was obviously enough food around to sustain a small population a considerable distance from houses. I find this is also true of this species here in Australia. I have seen quite large flocks – up to many dozens or more – quite some distance from human habitation, their preferred habitat. The small flock I saw in the desert had the advantage of plenty of grasses on and between the sand dunes nearby, as illustrated by these photos.

I am intrigued by the photo below. This shows two female sparrows at a hollow in the mud and straw wall of the building near where we had breakfast. I couldn’t tell whether they had made the hollow, or some other species had done it. It reminded me of the House Sparrows I encountered when I was a child. I grew up on a wheat and sheep farm in the Murray Mallee district of South Australia. The plentiful sparrows often made small nesting tunnels in the straw-thatched roof of the cow shed, as well as the roof of a hay shed.

House Sparrow at Merzouga, Morocco

Eurasian Collared Dove in the Sahara

No Comments »9th March, 2016; Category: Pigeons and Doves, Non-Australian birds

Eurasian Collared Dove at Merzouga, Morocco

On another of my sites (Trevor’s Travels) I have been writing about a tour of Morocco I undertook several years ago. I have, in recent days, finally got around to posting some of the many photos taken on that trip, along with detailed descriptions of what we did and saw. While looking at the photos I found some quite acceptable bird photos.Whenever I could get photos of the local birds, I took them. Identifying them has taken quite a while

Whenever I could get photos of the local birds, I took them. Identifying them has taken quite a while, mainly because I am not very familiar with the birds of Morocco. Over the coming days, I plan to post a few of these photos, along with some information about them.

During our tour, my family and I went on a camel ride into the Sahara Desert. This was at the locality known as Merzouga in the eastern part of the country. I must say that the desert is spectacular; I’ve shared many of the photos on my travel site. We rode the camels into the desert on Christmas Eve, staying in a Berber tent in the desert overnight. It was an unforgettable experience. I saw a few birds on the camels ride, but the moving back of such an animal is far from being an ideal photography platform. In fact, all my bird photos taken on the camel ride were too blurry and unidentifiable. Camel riding is also very uncomfortable! Enough said.

The next morning we rode (with more discomfort) through more spectacular sun dunes, deep red in the early morning sun. We ate a late breakfast at one of the local hotels. It was while having breakfast that I saw several species new to me.

The first one, featured today, was the Eurasian Collared Dove. This lovely dove is found extensively throughout Europe, Asia and has been introduced into North America. It is also found in the northern edges of Africa, including Morocco.

Further reading:

Eurasian Collared Dove – the excellent article on this species on Wikipedia.
Plants in the Sahara Desert
Common Redstart, Volubilis, Morocco
Grey Heron, Meknes, Morocco
White Storks in Morocco

Eurasian Collared Dove at Merzouga, Morocco

Hello little Canary

No Comments »6th March, 2016; Category: Bird Behaviour, Garden birds, Non-Australian birds

Canary

A few weeks ago my attention was attracted to a strange looking bird on the rainwater tank. I raced inside to get my camera and was delighted to find that it had flown closer. I immediately identified it as a canary. It was now hopping around on the paving bricks around the swimming pool. I stealthily took some photos, zooming in to get closer to my subject.

When I carefully opened the safety gate into the pool area it stayed in place. It was obviously very used to people, or it was just naturally quite tame. I was able to approach slowly to within two metres, getting some good photos along the way. I actually tried to catch it seeing that it was not at all scared of me. On my last attempt it flew off over the fence and into the nearby trees. I haven’t seen it since. I presume it has either been taken by a bird of prey – we have many hawks and kites around here – or it found its way home next door. Both of our next-door neighbours have large aviaries and we often hear their canaries singing.

Canaries are not native to Australia. They are, however, a commonly kept cage bird. I remember having a canary when I was quite young. In fact, I think that it was actually my mother’s pet bird. She was convinced that it was a male bird – until it started laying eggs!

Many people are of the mistaken idea that the Canary Islands are named after the birds. These islands in the Atlantic Ocean, are a part of Spainish territory off the coast of Morocco. The bird known as a canary does exist on the islands, but they are named after the islands. The name Canary Islands literally means ‘the island of the dogs‘ and was named by the early Roman explorers. (See the Wikipedia article for more information.)

Further reading:

Who has lost a canary? Another sighting of a canary in our garden some time ago.

Canary in our garden

Whistling Kite overhead at Pangarinda

No Comments »3rd March, 2016; Category: Botanic Gardens, Bush birds, Eagles Hawks and Kites

Whistling Kite

Last week I wrote about the Tree Martins I saw and photographed at the Pangarinda Botanic Gardens near Wellington in South Australia. We were having an afternoon relaxing in the gardens to celebrate my wife’s birthday. You can read about the Tree Martins here.

While we were having a cuppa and some birthday cake with our friends I was taking note of all the birds I saw and heard. It was a lovely sunny day with a cooling breeze making the afternoon very pleasant indeed.

During the afternoon we saw and heard many birds, including plenty of New Holland Honeyeaters, both Red and Little Wattlebirds, Rainbow Bee-eaters, White-browed Babblers and even several Brown Quail. Go to the reading list at the end of this post for a link to the article about the quail.

While we were sitting at the picnic table having our afternoon cuppa a Whistling Kite soared overhead a number of times. I managed to get one reasonable photo, the one shown above. I still have yet to master the art of taking photos of birds in flight. The other shots are either too blurry, or too far away to be useful.

Whistling Kites are quite common along the Murray River in South Australia. The botanic gardens at Wellington are barely 500 metres from the river and possibly even closer to some of the reed-covered banks nearby, so I was not surprised to see one overhead. In fact, this species is common throughout most of mainland Australia where suitable habitat exists. Their preferred habitat includes open woodlands usually near water, along creeks, rivers, lakes and swamps where there are suitable nesting and roosting trees. They occasionally can be seen in Tasmania too.

Further reading:

Tree Martins all a twitter
Calling up a Brown Quail
Birds and plants of the Pangarinda Arboretum (this was the early name for these gardens).

Topsy the Crested Pigeon

1 Comment »29th February, 2016; Category: Bird baths, Bird Behaviour, Garden birds, Pigeons and Doves

“Topsy” the Crested Pigeon

Over recent weeks my wife and I have been intrigued by one of our resident Crested Pigeons – shown in the photos on today’s post. We suspect that she is a female because another pigeon was displaying to her recently. We have given her the name “Topsy” because she has some extra-long feathers making up her crest. I am not sure what has caused this slight aberration, but it certainly makes her stand out from the other pigeons in our garden.

Like all of the Crested Pigeons and Spotted Turtledoves resident in our garden and on our five-acre block, “Topsy” comes frequently to our bird baths for a drink. Today, while I was having a cuppa after lunch she came once again. She spent a few minutes on a nearby branch preening before flying down for a drink. She then flew down to the ground and sat down in the sunshine. She immediately lifted up one wing and held it with the underparts exposed to the warm sun. “Topsy” then stood up, changed position and raised the other wing in the same manner.

While I haven’t seen this sunbathing behaviour in many species I have observed it in Spotted Turtledoves, Red wattlebirds, Noisy Miners and Australian Magpies. It is surprising that there is very little mention of this behaviour in the literature, but this article on the Australian Birdlife site gives the topic a good coverage. The article suggests that this sunbathing behaviour could be aimed at ridding the birds of unwanted lice.

Further reading:

Sunny side up – the article I referred to above
An Australian Magpie sunning itself – this is an old post written some years ago. It shows a series of 10 photos of a magpie sunning itself.

“Topsy” the Crested Pigeon