This is a fairly typical photo of an eastern whipbird. Thanks to its cracking call, you know with absolute certainty that the bugger’s there somewhere, darting from bug to evasive bug. But up until recently all of my pics of them were abstract impressionist in style – an suspicion of a smear in the undergrowth.
Which is a pity, because even aside from their excellent call, these are fine looking birds. I am a fool for anything with a crest, no matter how run of the mill.
But my days of cursing invisible whipbirds are officially over. Because we now have a resident pair in our the garden.
My efforts at growing food in surburbia, or at least food for human consumption, have been largely in vain. Every now and then we get a few bananas or kiwifruit, tamarillos or jerusalem artichokes before the local possums, bowerbirds, cockies, bats and rats figure out they make good eating.
If I have singularly failed to feed us, I have been fairly successful in turning the garden into a tangled mess riddled with trip hazards. In other words, top drawer whipbird habitat.
And now they’re here, there’s a decent chance they’ll stay. Whipbird pairs are territorial, usually nesting each year within a few metres of last year’s spot. And it seems after their chicks are raised, they stick around.
I’ve certainly seen our pair doing their best to defend their territory by seeing off the impudent rivals they spotted in the mirror in the bottom of the garden. Judging from the time they spend singing into it, that mirror has had far more impact on the whipbirds than the horde of male brush turkeys it was intended to discombobulate.
Eastern whipbird having a lovely sing in the bath
Something I didn’t realise until recently is that the distinctive call of the whipbird is an “antiphonal duet”, just like the call of the koels (or “those bloody koels!” as they are known locally). The male of the pair produces the whipcrack, followed seamlessly by a “chew chew!” from its female partner. This kind of singing is usually done by established pairs.
Tactful ornithologists describe whipbirds as “socially monogamous” (a bit like National Party MPs?). Whipbird researcher Amy Rogers comments that, in general, duetting birds like these have “very low divorce rates” compared to non-duetting birds (Rogers 2004 433).
A juvenile bloody koel
Having spent years crouched in the undergrowth surreptitiously observing the sex lives of South Australian whipbirds, Rogers has has concluded that duetting is “acoustic mate guarding” – a way for females to keep close tabs on their other half. In the nests she tracked, twice as many female birds were born as males. Consequently spots with attractively tangled undergrowth were awash with unattached lady whipbirds seeking a mate and territory.
Whipbirds blokes seem to be a good catch, fetching plenty of food for nestlings, even if they don’t help incubate eggs. After the youngsters leave the nest, each parent exclusively feeds just one of the fledglings. You can only imagine young whipbirds end up spending a fortune in therapy.
So once a female has hooked up with a male and they’ve nabbed some decent territory, she keep tabs on him by finishing his sentences, as it were.
I reckon our place, with its undisciplined shrubbery, snake-friendly piles of sticks and vines that loop their way through the trees at perfect garotting height would be damn desirable breeding grounds. I’ve certainly seen the whipbirds gleefully leaping around our carport picking off the window spiders (3/5 for toxicity in the “deadly critters of Australia” book I gave my Scottish spouse to help him settle in when he first arrived).
It may be cockroach infested deathtrap but the whipbirds and the lizards seem to like it here. I’m not complaining either.
You’ve got to admire the ambition
References
Frith, C.B. (1992) “Eastern whipbird psophodes Olivaceus listens to fruits for insect prey” Sunbird 22 (2)
Guppy, Michael, Guppy, Sarah, Marchant, Richard, Priddel, David, Carlile, Nicholas and Fullagar, Peter (2017) “Nest predation of woodland birds in south-east Australia: importance of unexpected predators” Emu- Austral Ornithology Vol 117 Issue 1
Mennill, Daniel and Rogers, Amy (2006) “Whip It Good! Geographic Consistency in Male Songs and Variability in Female Songs of the Duetting Eastern Whipbird Psophodes olivaceus” Journal of Avian Biology, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Jan., 2006), pp. 93-100
Rogers, Amy C. and Mulder, Raoul A. (2004) “Breeding ecology and social behaviour of an antiphonal duetter, the eastern whipbird” Australian Journal of Zoology Vol 52 Issue 4 417-435
Rogers, Amy, Langmore, Naomi and Muldera, Raoul (2007) “Function of pair duets in the eastern whipbird: cooperative defense or sexual conflict?” Behavioural Ecology Volume 18, Issue 1, Pages 182–188
Toon, Alicia, Joseph, Leo and Burbridge, Alan H (2013) “Genetic analysis of the Australian whipbirds and wedgebills illuminates the evolution of their plumage and vocal diversity” Emu – Austral Ornithology Vol 113 Issue 4
More birds to be found in our backyard
A family of collared sparrowhawks – bickering as siblings do
Chilli loving satin bowerbirds, and migratory friends
Female eastern koels, battling over a bloke
Ageing romantic sulphur crested cockatoos
