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February 26, 2022

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Backyard birds, feeding fledglings, habitat, national parks, Native birds, Plants that attract wildlife

A day out at the pool with the kids

During most of spring we woke up every morning to the sound of sparrowhawks shagging. But for the last couple of months the alarm clock has been the crack of a whip.

An eastern whipbird pair have been whiling away time in our garden, offering their distinctive antiphonal duet – the male first with his whipcrack, followed up by his mate with a “chu chu”. But they’ve had an extra with them this year – a youngster, with a kind of squelchy call that reminds me a bit of the red-crowned toadlets that I’ve been hearing on the fire trails throughout this soggy soggy summer.

Recently fledged juvenile whipbird

The whipbirds have some interesting child-rearing habits, according to researchers Amy Rogers and Raoul Mulder. They usually lay a couple of eggs. Once the chicks fledge, the parents divide the task of looking after the kids quite formally between them. Each parent looks after one of the fledglings exclusively. You can imagine the therapy bills . There’s an exception – if only one chick survives, then it’s mum who’s in charge. So I guess it’s maternal care we’ve seen as we’ve watched the adult and juvenile slipping in and out of sight around the garden. There’s definitely a whip-cracking male around, but all thee have only been spotted together in the garden once – and I wasn’t there with my camera to catch it, so I question if it ever really happened.

Whipbird chicks spend about six weeks with their parents after fledging, sometimes even hanging around until the next season, and it’s been interesting watching the adult and its offspring interacting, as the young one slowly morphs from its slighty fluffy, brown “I just came out of the nest” look to something more like an adult appearance.

Adult whipbird with a juvenile following it

I think one reason the whipbirds make such regular appearances in our yard is the frightful mess it’s in. We’re not path sweepers or lawn groomers. More stick-pilers, fungus-harbourers and ignorers-of-organic-detritus. My efforts to promote biodiversity are not solely confined to a failure to rake, however. I’ve sunk the value of at least one of the kids’ kidneys into shrubs, vines and groundcovers, some of which have survived. While I have regularly seen the whipbirds in our kiwifruit arbor and the youngster has been spotted leaping about in a demented way amongst the ferns and vines outside our kitchen window, the native violets, which are threatening to overrun the house during this wettest summer in 30 years, seem to be a favoured spot.

Here we see chick watching mum head down bum up in the viola hederacea (you can just see the tail in the lower half of the first picture). Next it’s little one that has its butt in the air, retrieving something invisible but presumably tasty.

Juvenile whipbird watching adult hunting for food

Juvenile whipbird looking for tucker in the native violets

Juvenile whipbird with its find

Despite their furtive habits and preference for the undergrowth, it turns out whipbirds can be pretty assertive under the right circumstances. I was impressed by the use of eye contact in a show-down with one of our many resident brush turkeys over a bird bath.

Eastern whipbird and brush turkey eye to eye

Showdown at the bird bath

Whip bird and brush turkey good crop sized

Eastern whipbird and brushturkey drinking from the same bird bath

Eastern whipbird and brushturkey peaceably drinking

The best time to spot two generations of whipbirds is around lunchtime, at the birdbath. Mum arrives first, has a wash and then a bit of a groom, perched above on some wonga wonga vines.

Having a splash

If the coast is clear, the youngster appears.

Juvenile whipbird taking its turn in the birdbath

Juvenile whipbird and mum nose to nose 2 crop amended small

Juvenile whipbird and mum beak to beak

Awwwwww.

Having watched this scene of filial affection unfolding around the birdbath at home, I was quite delighted to catch what I thought were some similarly touching moments at a pool in a more natural setting.

Brown thornbill in a banksia serrata

Eastern yellow robin

Spinebill feeding from a banksia serrata

Grey fantail – perhaps a young ‘un with a bit of brown on the breast

Lewin’s honeyeater in a banksia serrata

Juvenile spinebill hanging

As a devoted parent, I’m always happy to drive my kids to music lessons… especially if the music teacher’s home happens to be right next to a national park. On a sunny late afternoon during one of these high-speed twitching sessions, I spotted some action high up in a Sydney red gum.

A hollow on top of a horizonal branch seemed to have formed a natural pool which was evidently a magnet for the local birdlife.

Rainbow lorikeet in an angophora

A drink from the loft pool

Two juvenile spinebills near the natural pool in the angophora tree

Juvenile spinebill hovering

Spinebill drinking

Juvenile spinebills playing, fighting or perhaps play fighting

I could see that there were some juvenile spinebills about, and some adults too. Squinting through my lens I wasn’t quite sure what kind of pool side action was going on up there in the canopy. Perhaps adults giving a tour to youngsters of all the best places to drink and bathe in their forest home? Showing them the ropes in this lofty aquatic environment – explaining the avian equivalent to those “no petting” “no bombing” rules perhaps?

When I got home and had a good look at the photos I found out otherwise.

Adult whipbird shirtfronting a juvenile by the angophora pool

Adult spinebill attacking a juvenile

“Keep away from the pool”

Adult spinebill after a celebratory bathe in the treetop pool

These poolside antics give “competitive dad” a whole new meaning.

Apparently, spinebills can have up to 5 clutches of eggs each year – almost as soon as one clutch are fledged, the parents start making a new nest ready, driving the older juveniles away. And no free pass for the pool it seems!

Much as I love the gorgeous spinebills, for human Sydneysiders with our eyewatering real estate market and clutches of offspring near at hand, somehow the parenting style of the whipbirds feels closer to home.

Adult male eastern spinebill in a hibiscus tree

More birds in our backyard

Cracking the whip in a messy yard

Blood feud in the dawn redwood

Death and sibling rivalry

Growing up is hard to swallow

Blue eyes and biteys

References

K. A. Wood (1996) “Bird Assemblages in a Small Public Reserve and Adjacent Residential Area at Wollongong, New South Wales Wildlife Research, 23, 605-20

Amy Rogers and Raoul Mulder (1996) “Breeding ecology and social behaviour of an antiphonal duetter, the eastern whipbird” Wildlife Research, 1996,23, 605-20

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mccnmatt

Posted on

January 23, 2022

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Backyard birds, Fire, Native birds, nesting, Plants that attract wildlife

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Hot property, water views

It’s been a good season for NSW’s floral emblem. The terrible fires of 2019-20 put some species of waratahs under threat. Others, subject to fires of lesser intensity, have regrown from the massive underground lignotubers, up to half a tonne in weight, that allow them to regenerate after a burn. 2021 was the first year when botanists predicted a big flush of flowers – and it happened between August and October this year. And people were out in the bush to appreciate them, thanks to the east coast lockdowns which meant that one of the few activities people could legally and safely do was bushwalk. Appreciate them and sadly, steal them. The floristry industry grows its own waratahs but last year so many flowers went missing thanks to visitors to national parks close to suburbia that rangers took to daubing the flowers with blue paint. Around my way there is much proprietorial concern about the local waratahs. Pictures of flowers and advice on walks to take to see them appeared on the local facebook group and there was much angst about stolen blooms. If the flowers are picked, waratas don’t produce seedpods. The high carb content of waratah seeds, making them a tasty snack for critters means its pretty unlikely they’ll find a spot so well hidden that they get a chance to grow anyway, but if the flower is sitting in a vase on someone’s sideboard, that’s certainly not going to happen.

The flowering season is over now, but waratahs are still hot property as far as the local birdlife is concerned.

Over the summer, I’ve been wandering regularly down to a nearby creek (perhaps rivulet is a better word) to spy on LBBs. Under the twisted limbs of the angophoras, the little birds frolic through waist-high shrubs, and nest in the stands of saplings along the creek edge. It’s a little bit magical. I’ve been lured along that path by a bold grey strike thrush, who hopped along in front of me the whole way; watched the variegated fairywren blokes get hassle from their female companions; been serenaded by golden whistlers and caught one of the ubiquitous new holland honeyeaters sipping nectar from a mountain devil. Not to mention regular encounters with the local dragons.

saplings by the creek

golden whistler

Bauera ruboides

grey strike thrush

mountain devil

silhouette of a thornbill

Male variegated fairywren being sat on by females in his group

spring flowers by the creek

new holland honeyeater and mountain devil

A particular spot where the path crosses the creek has been my go-to since late last year, when I spent an hour watching a parade of little birds quarrelling over bathing rights in the shallows. It was so delightful I keep going back hoping for more.

Brown thornbill

Striated thornbill drying off

White browed scrub wren trying to have a wash

A pair of striated thornbills

So a couple of weeks ago, to stretch my legs after a day staring at screens, I headed down there. I spotted the construction in the waratah bush right away. A nest – exciting in itself, but there was movement. A live one!

New Holland Honeyeater standing on a nest in a shrub and peeping at the photographer

New Holland honeyeater peeping at the photographer

New holland honeyeater sitting in a waratah bush

New holland honeyeater snug in a nest

This new holland honeyeater seemed so at home, rummaging around in the bottom of the nest, and then sitting in the classic “bird in a nest” position, I assumed I’d met the author of this structure. But, apparently not.

Red browed finch arriving with nest building materials to find it is occupied by a honeyeater

I would love to hear the inner monologue of this red browed finch.

The finch took a pit stop in another branch of the waratah to recover itself.

Red browed finch with nesting material waits to eject the honeyeater in its nest.

Honeyeater in denial.

I was distracted by a passing dollarbird, and by the time I looked back things were looking very different.

Red browed finch surveying the scene

Ejected honeyeater

Once the nest was reclaimed, the finch and its partner kept on with the nest building.

Drawing though more casuarina needles

Reaching for materials

Nest building

Weaving the top part of the structure

A few days later, I went back to check out this waterfront property after the builders were done. No signs of the pair of finches. Perhaps they were tucked up inside? I hope they hadn’t miscalculated in picking this nest site, so close to a footpath.

What was this honeyeater interloper was up to? While brood parasites like koels and channel billed cuckoos (obviously) lay eggs in other birds’ nests, to the best of my knowledge stealing a nest from another bird isn’t a common thing, at least amongst smaller birds – although, dear reader, I’d be happy to be corrected on this. My favourite example of nest reuse (more accurately “protective nesting) is the story of various little birds – sparrows, swallows and starlings – finding spots to lay their eggs in the 3 metre pile of sticks that ospreys accumulate as they return to the same nest over the years. The raptors and their squatters seemed to breed happily side by side, with the insect eaters snaffling critters attracted to the rotting fish corpses in the osprey nest, using osprey feathers for nest lining and getting some protection from predators by cohabiting with great big raptors.

Nonetheless, even reusing your own nest from a previous season’s nest has some downsides. They often get a bit nasty, hoaching with fleas and other ectoparasites. Predators also get to know the location. Things are different when nest sites are hard to come by – hollows are often reused again and again – and there’s evidence of the same cliff side peregrine scrape in Tasmania being used for 13 thousand years.

If he wasn’t trying to steal the nest, perhaps the honeyeater was lost?? The red-browed finches’ nest at the time he popped by was a similar shape to the cupped nests that honeyeaters make. They’re fidgety birds that look like they have a short attention span but it seems a little bit unlikely.

new holland honeyeater perched on a twig

I’ll be back to the creek to keep tabs on this waterfront hot property – from a respectful distance, of course. The red splash of a waratah in spring is a rare treat but the red baby redbrowed finch or two would be a wonderful consolation prize.

Birdwatching moments down the road from our Berowra backyard

Not just splendid, better than superb

Warbling in lockdown

The very big fish

The trouble with the younger generation

The sacred comes to the neighbourhood

An eagle in suburbia

Thinking like a bird

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mccnmatt

Posted on

August 22, 2021

Posted under

Backyard birds, national parks, Native birds, nesting, Plants that attract wildlife, raptors, territoriality

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Loves and leaves

Burn-off sunset.

Yet more lock-down luck. Company, space, a rambling garden desperately requiring attention, three national parks in walking distance and enough devices to make home learning while working full time quasi-feasible – I already have plenty to be grateful for. And now, the collared sparrowhawks are back, getting friendly in the neighbour’s pine tree. They have perfect timing. It’s just at that point in the lockdown – eight weeks in – when even the most avid homebody/hoarder is running out of distractions. I’m not saying that trying to get a photograph of the local raptors having sex is my only reason to get out of bed in the morning, but it is a reason.

Sparrowhawk in profile

Morning does seem to be the time for it. No pictures – this is a family-friendly blog, after all (nothing to do with me being slow on the draw with the zoom lens). When the sparrowhawks are around, we usually hear them soon after sunrise. There’s relentless calling from near the top of a tree – mostly, I think from the female. The male perches, in a diffident kind of way, in a nearby branch. Then they’re at it, with a brief distinctive flurry of calls. Afterward, the male shuffles or flaps a distance away on the branch, studiously avoiding eye contact.

Sparrowhawk demanding attention

The one time I managed to watch the process from go to whoa, afterwards the female chilled out in more or less the same spot high in the pine tree, catching the morning rays, and keeping an eye out for small bird snacks.

sparrowhawk philosophical for close square

Meanwhile, what I think was the male (though this might be a gender stereotype), started attempting some DIY. Collared sparrowhawks build a shallow nest of stick, high in the canopy, and line it with fresh leaves each year. This pair seem to be using the same spot in the very top of the neighbour’s tree, notable for its inconvenient lack of a line of sight from my place.

Watching the male gathering construction materials, I’m once again reminded of the limitations of the sparrowhawk’s modest beak and delicate legs for this kind of building work. The bird seemed to spend a lot of time eyeing up flimsy looking twigs and then flailing around with its wings in an attempt, mostly unsuccessful, to break some bits off.

Sparrowhawk from below, perching on a twig

Sparrowhawk with wings out on a delicate branch

Sparrowhawk in profile in the dead branches of a pine tree

As you can see, this bird had a red-hot go at getting some twigs from dead branches on one of the usual pine trees. Eventually, however, the nest-building one of the pair got a bit experimental. The liquidambar in our front yard – stripped of its leaves by winter, and not so good for ambush hunting – got a visit, solely for construction purposes.

Sparrowhawk perched in a bare-branched liquidambar tree with a blue sky behind

Sparrowhawk trying to grab some twigs for the nest

However, some of the neighbour’s shrubs with thin whippy stems and fine needle-like leaves and seemed to be nest-material of choice.

The bush of choice for sparrowhawks but not bird photographers

Even so, the process was neither dignified nor ubiquitously successful. These photographs are both fails. Photographic fail – frustrated nest builders crashing around in the shrubbery are not an easy capture. Also, nest building fail – neither of these twigs made it back to home base. I did, however, see more success on another round of visits to this same bit of greenery the next day.

Failure to launch with this one

Reaching down for a twig

And they’ve kept at it, with occasional success.

Sparrowhawk with stick

Sparrowhawk taking off with nestbuilding materials

Watching the nest-reno in action has made me reflect on our luck in having these gorgeous critters hanging out nearby – and on what kinds of habitat create that kind of luck. Sparrowhawks need tall trees to nest in. This pair (assuming it’s the same one returning each year) nest in one pine tree, and use a sequence of three others nearby as regular hunting spots. Thanks to lots of greenery, we have loads of undemanding smallish birds on the premises of the right size for raptor snacks – little and red wattlebirds, chicks of the ubiquitous brush turkeys and, of course, loads of bloody noisy miners.

Little wattlebird facing off with a kookaburra

Red wattlebird in autumn leaves

I’ve definitely seen the sparrowhawks devouring birds that we don’t see at our place though – I’m sure they hunt in the national park that’s 500 metres down the hill. Here’s one of the fledglings from a couple of years ago, chowing down on what I think is a white cheeked honeyeater – I’ve never seen one at our place, but they’re pretty common in the bush not far away.

Juvenile sparrowhawk protecting its prey

Fledglings eating a new holland honeyeater

In the two seasons when they successfully raised chicks, the fledglings seemed to practice short hop flights from one pine to another. The liquidambar in our yard is an occasionally hunting spot in summer, and I do wonder if the cicadas that appear to feed on its sap in mid-summer offer useful meals for the chicks.

And then there’s the necessity for nest-lining trees with appropriately flimsy branches.

Sparrowhawks are generalists and live all over the place – everywhere except the most arid regions of Australia. So they’re obviously not too fussy about the finer details of their immediate environment. They’re pretty low key around people and don’t seem to mind suburbia. I wonder how much they need the bushland I’m finding so sustaining in lock-down.

The sparrowhawk pair isn’t the only birds aware of the value of this bit of floristic real estate, though. I’m pretty sure currawongs took some of the sparrowhawk’s nestlings in previous clutches, and I wonder whether the presence of these smart and social predators has kept the pair away for the last three years. But yesterday a bit of argy-bargy with another of the locals – a family of kookaburras. I’ve been seeing them around a bit more than usual this winter, surveying the scene from our dawn redwood and the remnants of our long-dead pine trees.

Kookaburra with lizard mouth open crop squaresmall

Yesterday I wandered up the drive to see if I could capture any trysts or DIY activity, and there was a cheeky kookaburra in the exact spot I saw the sparrowhawk chilling in the day before. And another, on a second favoured hunting perch, further up the tree. The sparrowhawks were in the vicinity, but as soon as one landed in that pine, the kookas were after it.

Here’s a deeply discombobulated sparrowhawk, catching its breath a few metres away. A minute later, the kookaburras were back and the pair of raptors hightailed it into the distance.

Sparrowhawk recouping after being chased by a kookaburra

I feel stupidly anxious about this, for some reason. Every year about this time, we hear the sparrowhawks and I’m always hoping they’ll hang around and try to raise some chicks again. For the last couple of seasons we’ve been disappointed. But this year, silly as it seems, it feels a bit more high-stakes, and not just because we’re stuck at home with near-infinite opportunities for bird watching. It feels symbolic even. If this avian couple’s romance and nestbuilding comes to fruition, somehow it signifies that my little family will stay safe here too, safe and sane and together. And if not… these things somehow seem less assured.

But of course, that’s a nonsense. Birdwatcher magical thinking. If the sparrowhawks find a better place to nest, and our trees get a different set of inhabitants, there’ll still be things to do, birds to listen out for, a different family to get to know.

Kookaburra family resemblances

The previous adventures of our local sparrowhawks

Sex, nests and dogfighting

Collared sparrowhawks vs Pacific bazas

Motherhood on a windy day – the sparrowhawk chick grows up

Death and sibling rivalry

Sparrowhawk summer

Battle of the baby birds

Welcome beautiful stranger

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mccnmatt

Posted on

February 6, 2021

Posted under

Backyard birds, brood parasites, feeding fledglings, habitat, Insects, Native birds

Growing up is hard to swallow

Juvenile koel sitting in a pittosporum tree

Juvenile koel in a pitto tree

It’s all about the young koels in our yard at the moment. We have at least two of them hanging around the back yard, begging for food and slowly destroying the mental health of their red wattlebird adoptive parents. Well, I hope for their sake there are more than one set of parents doing the provisioning.

Red wattlebird with spider for its koel young

Red wattlebird ready to take off with its spider

Wattlebird feeding a koel chick

juvenile koel with outstretched wings being fed

koel mantling for a discreet meal

While I’m still hearing koels begging endlessly, I have a suspicion that the parents are trying to back off from supplying food. As a parent of teenagers I can certainly empathise. Wattlebirds normally feed fledgelings for two or three weeks after leaving the nest. The soundscape of our yard started to be dominated by the pleas of the koel youngsters around mid-January, so I think the parents’ patience is starting to wear pretty thin. I’m pretty sure that the koels are trying to push that envelope though.

I watched this rather grown-up looking chick sitting on a branch to beg relentlessly for at least half an hour without attention. It whined and shuffled, whined and groomed.

Koel impatiently grooming

It seemed to despair of getting any attention at one point and started rummaging around for its own tucker. Clearly this flaccid flower didn’t cut the mustard.

Desperation drives an attempt to eat whatever was within reach

Eventually the relentless moaning did result in a couple of snacks.

Koel fledgeling begging

Wattlebird coming in with food

A big mouth…

…being fed

While waiting …. and waiting, and waiting… (I was almost as impatient as the koel for this fledgeling to get a feed…) I spotted a second youngster lurking nearby. It looked a bit skinnier and its plumage a bit patchier and at first I wondered if it was a younger chick, hogging the attention of the exhausted parents. But usually female koels only lays a single egg in a nest – which make sense since the chick heaves competitor eggs and hatchlings out. Sometimes, it seems, koel females will return to lay an egg in a sequence of different nests so perhaps this second youngster was being fed by a different harried parent. I feel kind of relieved on their behalf.

Nestmate? Biological sibling?

One way or another, all that whining seems to be getting less of a response this weather. So our backyard koel chicks are having to forage for their own food. This nugget looks kind of unappealing, though perhaps no worse than the spider that I saw mum or dad retrieving a couple of weeks ago.

Koel chick with mysterious food

Our neighbour’s bangalow palm seems to be a favourite foraging ground.

Koel in the bangalow palm.

Juvenile koel eating bangalow palm berries

Koel in bangalow palm

Perhaps the temptations of the palms are a bit too great. Last week, I watched a youngster beg from a branch near our back verandah for a while. No parental attention was forthcoming, and I thought it had given up, as it went surprisingly silent for quite some time, hunching and looking pensive. Then this happened:

Juvenile koel waiting for…

this cameo appearance

from a bangalow palm fruit

and its subsequent disappearance

I think this mysterious fruit must have been stashed in the bird’s crop, . Certainly this same koel was stacking away the berries at an extraordinary rate on its visit to the bangalow palm, so the idea that it was tucking it away for a later snack seems pretty plausible. Having read a bit about the way birds use crops – a muscular pouch in the oesophagus that stores food – I am now tremendously jealous. What a terrific idea! Why the hell don’t humans have one? I suppose blokes can use beards, although that’s a visually disturbing alternative.

Koels – noisy, whiny parasites – get a bit of a bad rap around here, but I can’t help admire them – their chutzpah, their gorgeous feathers, and their admirable capacity to never, it seems, go hungry.

Juvenile koel perched on a bangalow palm with blue sky in the background

Koel posing

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mccnmatt

Posted on

December 31, 2020

Posted under

Backyard birds, breeding, cicadas, competition, Insects, mating, nesting, predation, raptors, territoriality

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Crested hawks for Christmas

Every birdwatcher has a list of sightings they dream about (if that sighting is accompanied by a National Geographic front-cover-worthy picture all the better). For the cognoscenti – sophisticated, proper twitchers – this list seems to feature rare, endangered or hard to spot critters, that may or may not be kind of boring to look at. But for the crass newbie like myself, bling is important. Flashy, that’s how I like my bucket list birds.

For a long time, a decent look at the gloriously multi-coloured (but annoyingly canopy dwelling) spotted pardelote was top of the list. A camping trip to the fabulous Wolgan Valley a couple of years back ticked that box. Worth sweating my way up a hill to look down on the magic of the diamond-bird.

Spotted pardelote

Obviously rainbow bee eaters were on also on the list, until my parents moved to Bingara in on the northern slopes of NSW, a town where grey nomads and bird nerds duke it out for dominance in the local economy.

Pair of rainbow bee eaters

Since then, my top two have both been raptors. There’s the black shouldered kite with its glorious red eye and hauntingly regular presence along highways. I see it often on long road trips, hanging out near boggy pasture land, but getting a photograph seems to require a willingness to pull the hand brake on at high speed in the middle of a major road. I’m not saying I won’t do that, but I’m still working myself up to it. And then there’s the absurdly excellent Pacific Baza.

Stunning golden eye – tick. Dramatic black-and-white belly stripes – tick. Elegant flight, even acrobatic during the mating season – tick again.

And, absurdly, a crest – its nickname is the “crested hawk”. Does it get any better than that? I think not.

I was hugely excited when I spotted what I thought was a baza in our neck of the woods a few weeks ago – zipping past and disappearing into the leafy top of a liquidambar tree. Birds seem to be attracted by a pheromone released by amateur photographers who are not carrying a camera. Certainly that was the case on this occasion. Lacking any visual evidence of the encounter, I figured it was a wish fulfilment sighting. Probably one of the collared sparrowhawks, also stripy chested canopy dwellers. They’ve been back on the scene at our place over the last month or two, hanging out in the top of the neighbour’s pine tree, bragging about their kills and having brief and frustratingly hard to photograph sexual encounters first thing in the morning.

Collared sparrowhawk hiding in the foliage of a liquidambar

But this week – a late Christmas present. My outstanding neighbours Laura and Steve texted to say that the mysterious bird they had previously seen lurking in a melaleuca tree had made at a guest appearance by another neighbour’s pool, and been IDed. It was a Pacific baza.

It’s a miracle that I didn’t get hit crossing the road as I raced over to their place.

Adult Pacific baza

The trip to casualty that could have ensued would have kept my from not just a single baza but a little family – a pair (I think) and a large and whiny fledged chick. Naturally, they were lurking in the very top of the tree, and of course, my skill-set with my flash new camera meant that my career as a natural history photographer is not going to take any great leaps forward.

Adult Pacific baza avoiding eye contact with a juvenile

Blurry as it is, I interpret the body language of the parent here as indicating an unwillingness to provide further snacks. We saw both adults make a few short flights, and at least once definitely offer the youngster some prey. The juvenile whined without interruption, inching along the branch towards the adults, ducking its head and restively half-opening its wings. This parent avoided eye contact and eventually flapped off to a separate spot in the tree. A couple of weeks after they leave the nest, apparently, juvenile bazas stop getting food provided by their parents, so I guess this was what was playing out here. Baby Baza was certainly less than happy.

Juvenile baza (I think) in a huff

To say I was ecstatic to see the family of bazas within 100 metres of my front door would be to underestimate my degree of excitement. But then a troubling thought struck me… would the presence of the bazas harsh the buzz of the sparrowhawk pair that I’d seen canoodling on my side of the street? The pair appeared soon after a fierce storm that tore some big branches in our backyard and might well have trashed a nest somewhere down the road. Would the appearance of the bazas spoil the chance of a late-breaking bit of nest building?

Juvenile baza showing crest and aggro

Like Pacific bazas, sparrowhawks spend a lot of time in the treetops. They’re ambush hunters, lurking in amongst the leaves ready to burst out and pluck small birds from the sky.

Looking for prey

Sparrowhawk hunting from a pine tree

Sparrowhawk ignoring dregs of its last meal

They’ll take sparrows (perhaps unsurprisingly), mynahs and miners, mudlarks and wattlebirds, even birds as big as crested pigeons or crimson rosellas. Here’s a pic I took recently of a sparrowhawk trying to choke down the remnants of a leg of a bird. See the toes poking out of its beak? I watched it pacing up and down on the branch, wiping its beak repeatedly and generally looking a bit agitated. I note that the left over leg remained untouched and I can kind of understand why.

When something gets stuck on the way down

Maybe its not surprising after this kind of experience that a sparrowhawk might want to ring the changes, diet wise. And in fact, sparrowhawks won’t say no to a bug or two. A Canberra study found half of sparrowhawks’ prey, by the numbers, were snails, spiders or insects, with Christmas beetles and cicadas a particular feature. All those insects weren’t too filling – they made up only 2% of the biomass. But still, that interest in insects could them into competition with bazas, which eat fruit, frogs, lizards and snakes, grabbed from the foliage at the tops of trees, but especially like stick insects.

Yet another thing to inspire delight in bazas – an eccentric specialist diet. When I was looking at this critter in the Berowra train station, I wasn’t thinking “if only I ripped that to bits it would make a toothsome snack for my children”. But if I was a baza, I would have been.

Stick insect

However, larger insects are a favourite of Pacific bazas, while sparrowhawks seem to go for nothing bigger than a huntsman or a cicada.

Disappointingly, the bazas have disappeared from the paperbark in Steve and Laura’s drive, for all its proximity to a refreshing backyard pool and ample opportunities for hunting in the tops of tall trees, undisturbed by competition for their favourite phasmids. They’ll probably be nearby – these raptors aren’t migratory and Berowra sounds pretty close to their ideal habitat:

tropical and sub-tropical forests and woodlands, largely within 300km of the coast. In the breeding season they frequent tree-lined watercourses, rainforest, sclerophyll forest and tall woodland, but range widely following nesting to lower ground, when they may visit urban parks and gardens.

One birdwatcher in Queensland followed the reproductive fortunes of a pair of bazas as they nested in a series of different trees within a couple of hundred metres of his house on his property for a decade. So, no National Geographic cover photo as yet but I remain hopeful. 2020 really was a dud year but with the crested hawk in town, who knows what fine things could be in store for us in our backyard next year.

No, don’t look back to 2020 sparrowhawk! Forward, always forward.

Raptor encounters in our neighbourhood

Sex, nests and dogfighting – sparrowhawks set up house in our local pinetrees

Sparrowhawk sibling rivalry – baby serial killers learn to hunt

An eagle in suburbia – a wedgetail on Berowra Creek

The very big fish – sea eagle vs mulloway

References

Briggs, Allan (2018) “Breeding biology and behaviour of a pair of Pacific Bazas ‘Aviceda subcristata’ in central-coastal Queensland over 10 years”. Australian Field Ornithology, Vol. 35, 2018: doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.20938/afo35095101.
James, P. (2004). The breeding cycle of a pair of Pacific Bazas Aviceda subcristata in south-eastern Queensland. Australian Field Ornithology 21, 133–140
Olsen, Jerry, Judge, David, Trost, Susan and Stephen Debus (2018) “Diets of breeding Brown Goshawks Accipiter fasciatus and Collared Sparrowhawks A. cirrocephalus near Canberra, Australia and comparisons with other regions and raptors” Corella, 42

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mccnmatt

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March 4, 2019

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Backyard birds, Native birds, Satin bowerbirds, Uncategorized

The one-eyed butcherbird

Butcherbird in tree good eye gleaming 2

We had an unusual visitor this weekend – a cocky grey butcherbird, turning up first in the branches of the Japanese maple that reaches up to our back deck, and then hopping boldly onto the balustrade.

Our butcherbird showing off his hooked beak

Butcherbirds are just the kind of generalists – like fellow “corvoids”, magpies and currawongs – that do really well in urban areas. But we’re rarely had them turn up at our place before.

And this lovely lad (or lass – they look too similar for an amateur like me to distinguish) was notable in another way, too – it had only one fully functioning eye.

Looking side on you could see a glimmer of a right eyeball, but it was sunk back into the feathers of the head – on a front view only his inquiring left eye was visible.

Butcherbird on ground looking at me frontallycrop

Our one-eyed butcherbird

The wounded eye seemed to have healed long ago – this guy was distinctly perky and healthy looking, if a little edgy. And this was an adult bird – no sign of the brown and buff colours of a juvenile (like this one spotted at Narrabeen Lake a few years ago). So whether it had been injured as a chick or as an adult, it seems to have been getting along okay for quite some time.

Juvenile grey butcherbird

In the past, animal rescue organisations assumed that birds with serious injuries to an eye wouldn’t make it if they were released from captivity. Usually birds found wounded in this way were euthanised. But in Germany and the US, researchers and birdwatchers have reported hunting birds like owls and eagles surviving for years in the wild – and even successfully breeding and raising chicks – with only one functional eye.

On a first glance, it seems obvious that binocular vision would be important for judging distances when flying. An early twentieth century ornithologist proposed that “a bird is a wing guided by an eye” but it seems there’s a lot more to eyesight in birds than navigating through the air.

Researchers think that binocular vision is more about being able to see what you’re doing with your beak than getting around on the wing. Birds that have to do tricky things with their bills – cormorants making sure the fins of the fish they’ve just caught are in the right position to slide nicely down their throats, for instance – need to see what they’re doing. Having your eyes at the front of your head means you’re less likely to spot a predator from behind, but it’s worth it for the tucker.

The injured eye

Keeping track of surroundings with one eye can produce neck injuries

A cocked head allows a good view of prey

It was interesting to watch our visitor managing life with a limited visual field. He could certainly fly, and RB saw him successfully catch something that was scuttling around on the deck. That said, when we (naughtily) fed him a few pieces of meat, he seemed to struggle a little to get a handle on it.

He was also pretty twitchy, reacting to every sound, looking regularly over his shoulder so he could keep tabs on his surroundings with his good left eye. Butcherbirds usually dive down on prey from above, and as he looked out for tasty treats below, he kept his head cocked to maximise his vision. As a someone with only one “good” ear, I recognise the advantages of that head tilt!

Our one-eyed bird keeping an tabs on surroundings with his one good eye

Our visitor also seemed to understand the possibilities of humans as a resource. At one point he flew right up to where I was sitting by the balustrade, looked me in the face and “spoke” to me in a mildly demanding way familiar to me from my teenaged childen. Later on, I went inside, leaving the sliding door was open, just a bit. The butcherbird hopped up to the door, and after a few moments of hesitation, continued straight through into the house.

Butcherbirds are smart and excellent problem solvers. They’re also creative, as my colleague, the violinist and composer Hollis Taylor found, when she started analysing their marvellous improvisational music making. Was our butcherbird visitor just curious, and yearning to see our interior decor? No matter how clever these guys are, that seems unlikely.

Butcherbird on chair looking at me blind eye visible crop tighter.jpg

I suspect that this guy was looking for friends. Perhaps some local folks who regularly fed him – maybe in a room with a sliding door, just off a deck? Did his human buddies take care of him after his eye was injured? I don’t know but I can say for sure he expected good things from us, and our kind.

Grey butcherbird expecting good things from humans

References

Brown, Matthews (2016) Clever crows: Investigating behaviour and learning in wild
Torresian crows (Corvus orru) and related Cracticids in a suburban environment, Doctoral thesis, Griffith University.

Hegemann, A, Hegemann, ED, Krone, O. (2007) “Successful rehabilitation and release with subsequently brood of a one-eyed Eagle Owl (Bubo bubo)” Berliner und Münchener tierärztliche Wochenschrift 120(5-6):1

Martin, Graham (2017) “What drives bird vision? Bill control and predator detection overshadow flight” Frontiers in Neuroscience 11

Tyrrell,Luke and Fernandez-Jericic, Esteban (2017) “Avian binocular vision: It’s not just about what birds can see, its also about what they can’t” PLOS One, Mar 29.

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mccnmatt

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February 24, 2019

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Backyard birds, evolution, habitat, migration, Native birds, predation, Uncategorized

The sacred comes to the neighbourhood

kingfisher in pine tree 2 long bright

I was just nipping back from depositing a small part of our egg mountain with our friends across the road last week, when something odd flew across the drive – something I’d never seen at our place before. It turned out to be this guy – a sacred kingfisher.

I don’t know why I was so surprised to see a kingfisher here, a kilometre or more and a couple of hundred metres up the hill from the creek. Possibly because I do regularly see these lovely birds on my paddles in the Hawkesbury – hunting in the mangroves lining Milson’s Point; regurgitating pellets in full view of the expensive holiday homes in Calabash Bay or this young ‘un, hanging out near the public wharf at the questionably named Dusty Hole.

Juvenile sacred kingfisher by Berowra Creek

Though I have repeatedly spotted them in bushland far from decent stretches of water, I managed to convince myself that they were fishing in the local tiny, slightly fetid pools. But of course, ten minutes of googling gave me the correct answer. Unlike the smaller azure kingfishers – the sacred mostly eat terrestrial prey – insects, skinks and even sometimes small birds. They rarely actually eat fish: there should be some kind of by-law, right?

Azure kingfisher chilling out in the winter fog

Our visitor hung out for quite a while in the neighbours’ backyard, giving me the chance to race off for my camera and get into a possibly compromising position with my zoom lens propped up on the fence, pointing in the general direction of their living room windows. The kingfisher was certainly aware a stalker was watching him from the bushes but didn’t seem too fazed.

Kingfisher looking at me close 2 crop square amended

“What are you looking at? Stalker!”

After my efforts to create bird habitat over the last few years, I felt a bit jealous that this gorgeous creature was choosing to hang out in our neighbour’s back garden. However, I have to reconcile myself that their densely-planted native garden has the low shrubs these birds like to perch on while they’re waiting to dive down onto their prey in the leaf litter, without the loud woodwork projects, inquisitive chickens, trampoline and horde of neighbourhood kids that ramp up the action in ours.

A wing stretch from our visiting sacred kingfisher

Sacred kingfishers are surprisingly mobile it seems. They are the only kingfisher in these parts that is migratory. Many (though not all) of the birds that live in the southern parts of Australia migrate each each to north Queensland and PNG – it’s a partial migrant like most other Australian migratory birds. I suspect that the local sacred kingfishers – or at least some of them – hang around in the winter. Peter and Judy Smith (2012), keeping tabs on the arrival dates of migratory birds in Blaxland in the lower Blue Mountains, for over 30 years never saw a sacred kingfisher in the winter, but I’ve seen a couple on the Hawkesbury in the colder months – hanging out in America Bay in April and basking in the late afternoon light by Berowra Creek in July, right in the middle of winter. Or “winter” as my British friends like to call it.

Sacred kingfisher in April in America Bay

An overwintering sacred kingfisher in Calabash Bay

When I visited Wellington a couple of years ago I was surprised to see something very familiar hunting in a suburban park. A sub-species, Todiramphus sanctus vagans, that looks very very like our locals lives in New Zealand/Aotearoa as well.

The New Zealand kingfisher

I started speculating on how the sacred kingfishers got over the Tasman but it seem their range is less about being blown off course on migratory treks than the epic distribution of another bird to which it is closely related – the collared kingfisher . It’s a one less frequently seen in Australia – found only on coastlines in the northern half of Australia – and never seen at all by me so no pics. I got nothing! Collared kingfishers (sometimes called the mangrove kingfisher) seem to be less generalist than the sacred, favouring mangroves and the forests immediately behind them – but has an impressive range.

In an article offering a genetic analysis of this species and its descendants in Australia, New Zealand and various Pacific islands, Michael Andersen and his colleagues describe as it as “the most widely distributed of the Pacific’s ‘great speciators’. Its 50 subspecies constitute a species complex that is distributed over 16 000 km from the Red Sea to Polynesia” (Andersen 2015). The sacred seems to be one of the species that evolved from it. Intriguingly collared kingfishers are no longer a migratory species, but Andersen speculates that “the migratory nature of T. sanctus is an evolutionary vestige of the ancestral Todiramphus lineage still exhibiting the colonization phase” (Andersen 2015).

One way or another, I shouldn’t have been surprised to find the sacred in our neighbourhood. After all, I’ve always known you can witness sacred on the water, or in the forest, or in the suburbs. Not everywhere, but in more places than you would think – as long as you remember to look. In this case – in the bushes.

Further References

Andersen, Michael, Hannah T Shult, Alice Cibois, Jean-Claude Thibault, Christopher E Filardi, Robert G Moyle (2015) “Rapid diversification and secondary sympatry in Australo-Pacific kingfishers” Royal Society Open Science Feb 2(2)

Debus, SJS (2007) “Avifauna of remnant bushland on the Twee Coast of Northern New South Wales” Sunbird 37(2)

Lindenmayer, David B. , Michael A. McCarthy, Hugh P. Possingham and Sarah Legge (2001) “A Simple Landscape-Scale Test of a Spatially Explicit Population Model: Patch Occupancy in Fragmented South-Eastern Australian Forests” Oikos, Vol. 92, No. 3 (Mar), pp. 445-458

Loyn, Richard H., Edward G. McNabb, Phoebe Macak, Philippa Noble (2007) “Eucalypt plantations as habitat for birds on previously cleared farmland in south-eastern Australia” Biological Conservation 137 533–548

Smith, Peter & Judy Smith (2012) “Climate change and bird migration in southeastern
Australia” Emu – Austral Ornithology, 112:4, 333-342

Kingfisher light against pine background square

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February 17, 2019

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Backyard birds, Native birds, Uncategorized

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Not just splendid; better than superb

One of the brilliant things about living in deepest suburbia, in one of the very furthest places you can plausibly describe as “in Sydney”, is that a bushwalk is always around the corner. The direct route to the station might offer glossy black cockatoos hanging upside down above the mechanic’s car park, a mismatched pair of king parrots or a lyrebird, scratching around in the scrub behind the public library.

Female king parrot eating suburban garden weeds

A pair of galahs spotted on the walk to the train station

A male king parrot spotted on the school run

The library lyrebird

But if you’ve got a bit of time to spare, you can take that trip to the supermarket or the railway station through another world – no cars, no leafblowers and a whole heap of birds. A couple of minutes off the main road and you’re out of the ridgeline’s suburban streets and into the bush on the Hawkesbury sandstone slopes below. Okay, it might take an extra half an hour to fetch that litre of milk but you never know who you might meet on the way.

Monday’s 2k walk back from the station (via the first part of the Lyrebird track that connects to the Great North Walk) featured a surprisingly bold whipbird, a New Holland honeyeater, red-browed finches and a sacred kingfisher on the hunt.

Red browed finch I prepared earlier

New holland honeyeater from another walk down the Lyrebird Path

Sacred kingfisher

But the highlight of the detour was these guys – a posse of variegated fairy wrens.

Variegated male and female back to back square

Beautiful male variegated fairy-wren in breeding colours with a jenny wren

I wouldn’t have paid much attention to the flash of blue in the undergrowth, if I hadn’t had a heads-up from my birdwatching brother to keep an eye out for these fellas. They’re easily mistaken for the superb fairy-wrens, which are more commonly spotted in parks and gardens. Variegated fairy-wrens, it seems, prefer denser cover and a wider range of trees and shrubs in their hangouts. This patch was burnt off in the last couple of years, so the undergrowth thick but only waist high.

Superb fairy-wren I prepared earlier

Obviously when those obsequieous common names were handed out to Australian fairywrens, the variegated was indisposed. Seems a little unfair since, if anything, the breeding males of this species with their blue, chestnut and purple feathers are, if anything, lovelier, more superb and more exceedingly splendid than their flatteringly named relatives.

Two females and a male variegated fairy-wren

Until recently, I laboured under the impression that a group like this consisted of a harem of females with a dominant male. The interactions I saw on my micro-bushwalk, suggested that this might be less than accurate…

“That’s my spot”

“Get out of the way”

“I need this place”

A little bit tight

Pest removal is good but this is a bit ridiculous

No need for assertiveness training for this jenny wren at least.

Turns out, fairy-wren groups consist of a dominant pair and a handful of younger birds, including non-breeding males. Fairy-wrens, like many other Australian species, are cooperative breeders. While the breeding female builds the nest and incubates eggs, the rest of the group – often last year’s brood – chip in to feed the new chicks. The young males are apparently particularly good value on the snack provision front.

Nothing better than a good groom

Male variegated fairy-wren grooming a female

Superb fairy-wrens have been described as “socially monogamous and sexually promiscuous” (a bit like a National Party politicians!). Females sneak off to mate with the local male that wears his high-visibility, high risk blue plumage the longest (it’s not just the birdwatcher that find the iridescent blues and purples more appealing than the brown “eclipse” plumage that the male fairy-wrens sport in the off-season). Sometimes as many as 3/4 of chicks can fathered by a male outside the pair. Recent research suggests that’s less true of the variegated fairy-wren. Counter-intuitively, perhaps, variegated jenny wrens seem to be less likely to “play away” when there are lots of helpers close at hand to help raise the young.

Two males and a female – no idea what’s going on here.

I can’t say how unsufferably smug I am that I get to see these cool little birds on what is, essentially, the school run. They make a compelling argument for active transport. I’ve resolved to turn my back on the car and cram as much gratuitous walking as I can into my days. As you can see, the outcome can be lovely, splendid, superb or perhaps even variegated!

Variegated wrens male + 2 long crop tighter

Chestnut shoulders on display – male and two female variegated fairy wrens

Additional references

Diane Colombelli-Negrel (2016) “Female splendid and variegated fairy-wrens display different strategies during territory defence” Animal Behaviour 119 99-110

Allison E. Johnson and Stephen Pruett-Jones (2018) “Reproductive promiscuity in the variegated fairy-wren: an alternative reproductive strategy in the absence of helpers?” Animal Behaviour 139 171-80

Red backed fairywren male good but fairly distant over shouldercrop

Your bonus fairy-wren for reading to the end – a red-backed fairy wren spotted at Oxley Common in Brisbane

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mccnmatt

Posted on

January 28, 2019

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Backyard birds, mating, Native birds, Satin bowerbirds, Uncategorized, Waste

The bowerbird bachelors

You know life has been intense when an incident from the backyard in spring doesn’t make it to the blog until the tailend of summer. Our backyard re-enactment of “The Bachelor” had to be at least four months ago because satin bowerbirds only do their courtship routines from April for September. The bowerbird dating show was a while ago now, but it was a truly memorable occasion.

A couple of times in the past we’ve found some blue items – pegs, bottle tops – in the bottom of the garden, collected together and rearranged over a period of days in a mysterious and seemly significant way. But this time the assemblage was visible from our back verandah. We had ringside seats for the show.

Though he was decked our in the iridescent black of a mature male – something that only happens when satin bowerbirds are at least seven years old – our bachelor seemed to be new at this. There was no signs of a bower per se, just his collection of pretty objects in an unsalubrious corner of the garden. I spent a day on the deck “working from home”, watching him shuffling them around. The milkbottle/yellow leaf combination seemed to be a particular favourite.

Satin bowerbird with milk bottle trophy

A dangerous blue toy

A favourite combo – yellow leaf and milkbottle

After quite a bit of this faffing around, he had a visit from a female.

Female satin bowerbird comes to look around

Cue bending, twisting, flapping of wings, along with some impressive eye bulging.

Courtship behaviour of the satin bowerbird – bowing

Flapping…

…and eye bulging

Well, impressive to me but possibly not to the visiting female. I know it’s anthropomorphic but this face screams “get me out of here!”

“I’m a satin bowerbird… get me out of here!”

And indeed, within minutes, a second male arrived on the scene, having surveyed the situation from afar. He had a look around, somewhat dismissively it appeared, and then abruptly flew off with the female in tow. I almost heard him muttering out of the corner of his beak “C’mon babe”.

Second male looking on from the distance

Second male not very impressed by our bachelor’s display

Our bachelor, thwarted, seemed to decide that inadequacies in his collection of blue objects was the key problem. My kids had helpfully (if problematically from a plastic waste point of view) scattered some colourful gee-gaws around the back patio. Our guy seemed concerned that one of the “house” wattlebirds might have an eye on the azure ornaments that were key to his sexual success. It was on.

Showdown between bowerbird and wattlebird

“Mess with my blue things and I mess with your foot!”

One distinctly irked bowerbird

Having put the little wattlebird firmly back in its box, our lovelorn male returned with additional trinkets to pimp his bower. But to no avail.

More courtship display

Unimpressed female bowerbird

There were other visitors that afternoon, but despite sustained and prurient interest, I saw no signs of sexual congress and the next day there was no repeat performance although the blue objects remained in their inauspicious arrangement by the woodpile.

However, a couple of weeks later the abandoned pile of treasures received another inspection from a “green” – presumably a young male who hadn’t yet earned the glossy violet-black feathers of a grown-up.

Juvenile male pimping the bower

“And these sticks should go… there!”

He seemed to be practising his courtship display, favouring golden twigs rather than the milk-bottle/leaf combo. He had that eye-bulge down pat already though. I wonder if we will see him back – perhaps in the mottled black-and-green plumage – for the next season of the Bowerbird Bachelors.

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December 17, 2018

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Backyard birds, breeding, hawks, nesting, predation, Predators, raptors, Uncategorized

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Motherhood on a windy day

Kid with mum distant 2 wide crop

Last year two collared sparrowhawk fledglings made it out of the nest high in our neighbour’s pine tree. This year it was just one. It’s been a lot quieter around here. No squabbling over snacks. No shuffling along branches side by side or pratfalls high in the canopy. No hightailing it after a sibling chasing a feed.

There’s been more adult and parent bonding, though. I rarely saw the adults and offspring together last year. But a few weeks ago, in windy weather, I got to see them hanging out low in the trees by our drive, sheltering from the tossing branches.

The juvenile looked, by turns, absurdly sleek and adult, and fluffy and completely gormless. Mum (or dad) seemed to be wrestling with the same conceptual problem – how grown up is this chick really?

Typically when the sparrowhawks catch a juicy white-faced honey eater or wattlebird chick, they call out, over and over again. I’m not sure if this the dinner bell for partner or offspring, or just triumphant territory claiming. They swiftly pluck the small bird they’ve caught and then gorily and fairly rapidly consume it.

But on this particular day, the adult hawk sat very still, prey gripped tightly, not taking even a bite. The youngster lurked awkwardly nearby, apparently not sure what to do next.

Kid with mum lower

Eventually mum (or dad), probably irked by the local amateur photographer, flew to a higher perch in the trees. But her prey, plucked, pink and gleaming, was still untouched.

Mum with prey 2

She was waiting. Eventually Junior flew up to join her.

Mum and kid with prey 2 story eye glint amended

He still seemed clueless about what she wanted him to do – as indeed I was. I’m willing to have a guess, though.

Adult sparrowhawks start by feeding their young little shreds of meat – the avian equivalent of pulled pork, I guess. I have heard the adults teach the fledglings to catch little birds mid air by dropping little snippets of prepared flesh to them on the wing. This youngster was definitely not in possession of that skillset.

Mum and kid with prey high 3

But I think dad (or mum) was trying to give the not-so-little little one a low-stakes chance to prep the dish for her (or him)self. But it certainly wasn’t happening on this occasion. Young blood had a good look, then stumbled past and took off, not even having a tiny go at flesh-tearing.

Juvenile from behind looking over shoulder crop

To be honest, I’m really pretty worried about this young one. I’ve been working from home a lot lately, and every morning, I hear sparrowhawk calls, and I race up the drive with my camera.

But it’s just the adult I see, calling and calling and calling.

Further references

Barnes, C.P. and Debus, S. (2014) “Observations of the post-fledgling period of the collared sparrowhawk (Accipeter cirrocephalus)” from The Sunbird (2014) 44(1): 12–23

More sparrowhawk stories from our backyard

The end of the brush turkey plague? The battle of the baby birds….

There’s a collared sparrowhawk nesting in our garden…. or is it a goshawk…?

Our sparrowhawk summer

The teenagers start hunting for themselves… Sibling rivalry amongst the young serial killers….

Sex, nests and dogfighting