Wildlife reboot: birds 2.0

Another January, and another trip to Ganguddy, on the western site of Wollemi National Park.  Same marvellous geology, same refreshing dam water, same hot weather.

But some things were different this year.  After the stupendously dry winter, the eucalypt forest was parched, the undergrowth sparse and the leptospermum flowers of last year’s visit few and far between.  We found a patch of sphagnum moss perched in a bowl of sandstone boulders so dry it crunched underfoot.

A “green” satin bowerbird panting in the heat

We spotted plenty of lizards, and the diggers were out in force – lyrebirds wandering through the camp as they tried to scratching their way down to moisture and a wombat turning up to twerk on a picnic bench.  But up in “kingfisher alley”, just before the Cudgegong River disappears into the reed beds, there were fewer blue and green flashes by the water.

Around the camp site, the bowerbirds and treecreepers panted in the heat.  Apart from the ubiquitous reed warblers, there seemed fewer birds altogether.  No sign of the friarbird teenagers of last year, and even the baby swamp hens seemed thin on the ground.

You have to wonder what it takes to change ecosystems irrevocably.  How many dry winters before the old inhabitants decide living and breeding here is just too tricky?  And who would move in to fill their place?

Back at Berowra after the trip, there are changes in the garden too… surprising ones.

We knew we’d be losing the sparrowhawks soon enough, but the family has dispersed in an unexpected orderThe adults disappeared off the scene weeks ago, and by the time we made it home with our ridiculously overloaded vehicle and small and ancient fleet of boats, the siblings had parted too.  There’s just one young’un now.  He seems lonely.

There’s a constant plaintive calling from the trees out back, that seems to intensify when he has prey on hand.  I’m not quite sure if he’s warning his imaginary sibling off or calling him to come and share a meal.

And that’s not the only shift in the soundscape around here.  The sparrowhawks have cut a swathe through the bird population on the premises.  Baby brushturkey numbers have fallen from previous plague proportions, noisy miners are few and far between and the “house” birds of yesteryear – red and little wattlebirds – are now just occasional visitors.

But as the numbers of resident raptors has dropped, a new set of critters have settled in.  Lewin’s honeyeaters which we’ve only seen once or twice in the backyard over the last seven years, have made our backyard their new home.  And we also appear to have acquired some brown thornbills, a raptor snack food if ever there was one.  And the local eastern spinebills, another tasty morsel for a sparrowhawk, are spending more time around here too.

The only explanation I have for the change of personnel is that the hawks have bumped the notoriously territorial wattlebirds, leaving the field open for new arrivals.

I’m pretty happy to have a new set of birds in the garden.  My dream scenario, I have to admit, would be to order up some songbirds that are a bit easier on the eye.  My birdwatching brother puts Lewin’s in a honeyeater “bin taxon” of pretty similar and drab looking birds it’s hardly worth distinguishing between.  Cruel, perhaps, but fairly accurate.

So, why not some new holland honeyeaters, for instance – gorgeous looking locals.  Or (still, my beating heart!) what about some pardelotes?  Just one or two?

On the other hand, it’s possible that all the vibrantly coloured small birds in the neighbourhood have been made into multicoloured meals over the past three months by our family of raptors.  After all, there’s got to be some evolutionary reason for all those SBBs*.

*note: this is a throwaway remark absolutely unsupported by any science.

 

Previous posts about Ganguddy

A bit about Ganguddy’s history and geology – and a little Tim Low on the side

Snakes versus whining teenagers – last year at Ganguddy

 

More on our sparrowhawk summer

Death and sibling rivalry

The new generation of sparrowhawks emerges from the nest…

Baby brush turkeys versus nestling sparrowhawks… the battle of the backyard baby birds

The collared sparrowhawks return to our backyard… or are they brown goshawks?

A first glimpse of the sparrowhawks… and a beautiful white goshawk visits the washing line

 

Further reading

Stephen Garnett, Donald Franklin, Glenn Ehmke, Jeremy VanDerWal, Lauren Hodgson, Chris Pavey, April Reside, Justin Welbergen, Stuart Butchart, Genevieve Perkins and Stephen Williams (2013) Climate change adaptation strategies for Australian birds: Final Report, National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility

Office of Environment and Heritage, Premier’s Department (2011) New South Wales Climate Impact Profile Technical Report: Potential impacts of climate change on biodiversity

Things to do with termite nests

lizard in kingfisher nest better crop

Lace monitor in an arboreal termite nest

Happy New Year!

I don’t know about yours, but one of my resolutions for 2018 is to pay a lot more more attention to bugs.  Or rather, insects in general, and how they interact with all the other critters around them.

So the year was off to a good insect-oriented start when I took this photo  just down the hill from the spectacular lookout at West Head in Kuring-gai Chase National Park.

What’s this little monitor doing as she peeps out of this termites’ nest, a few metres up a gum tree?

What’s her story? And what’s she up to with those termites?

Lion island from west head

View north from West Head

 

At first, I thought she might have been after kingfisher eggs or nestlings.

A couple of years ago my bird watching brother told me to keep an eye out for termites nests in trees, pointing out that kingfishers often made the hollows in these “termitaria” to nest in.  Since then, I’ve seen plenty of arboreal burrows on my paddles around the Hawkesbury, and occasionally a sacred kingfisher lurking suspiciously nearby.

Many species of kingfishers, including (to my great surprise – I’m not sure why), kookaburras, often nest in termite mounds.  I had assumed that birds would choose abandoned arboreal termitaria, but in most cases where animals reuse mounds, it seems, the original builders are still in situ when the new residents move in.

Matching kookaburras

Synchronised kookaburras

Unlike other birds, such as the hooded parrots of Arnhem Land, kingfishers don’t wait to build until the mud of the mound is softened by rain.  They do construction the hard way, through sometimes lethal collision flights into outer wall of the nest.  Both members of the pair participate in this headbanging activity until a 25 cm tunnel is dug.  As you can see in the picture of the burrow above, the tunnel slopes downward a little, to help with keeping the it clear of the young’s faeces.  If only dealing with human children’s ordure was a simple as a gently sloping bedroom and hallway, eh?  Once the initial tunnel is dug, the kingfisher sometimes leaves the excavation for the termites to tidy up inside, sealing the interior walls of the nest.

Kingfisher lit profile sharp bigger crop better

New Zealand Sacred Kingfisher

But kingfishers aren’t alone in using termite mounds as a handy place to breed.  I’m not quite sure what was using this big nest near Port Stephens.  I suspect it’s not kingfishers.  Like many Australian birds, they are cooperative breeders, with their youngsters from previous broods helping raise the new babies, but they don’t seem to nest colonially.  As these burrowholes or just access points for some insect-eating predator to have a crunchy snack?

But back to our termite loving monitor lizard.  As a bird-savvy informant pointed out, had my lizard been munching baby kingfisher eggs, the parents would have had something to say about it.  In fact, what I saw wasn’t a nest-raid but most likely the aftermath of a hatching.

Monitor lizard face closeup

Another lace monitor in Kuring-gai National Park

Because, as it turns out, lace monitors  also lay their eggs in termite mounds, using the warmth generated by the insects to incubate their young.  Once the eggs are laid, the lizards lets the termites seal them in, safe from predators in their incubation chamber in the treetops. Or perhaps slightly safer.

No-one seems to research lace monitors – too damn common it seems.  But, researchers studying the related Rosenberg Monitors found that females defended the nests for a few weeks after the eggs were deposited.  Some hard core conflict was observed:

“The most aggressive fighting observed was between a defending female and a marauder, with females fighting males more than twice their body mass. Both attacker and defender sustained injuries, including dislocated or broken limbs; broken ribs; spinal injuries; and severe bites to head, throat, and abdomen” (Rismiller, McKelvey, Green, 2010).

Baby rosenberg monitors dig their own way out of their natal termite heap, but everyone’s a bit vague about how the baby lace monitors escape their birthplace/prison.  Despite the female’s willingness to break a spine or limbs to ensure the safety of their young at the point eggs are laid, herpetologists don’t give goanna mothers a lot of credit for subsequent interest in their offspring.  Some researchers think that the mothers come back to dig their babies out of captivity when the right time comes.  Others seem to think they just happen to be digging randomly in likely-looking termite mounds when they accidentally happen upon their young (Kirshner, 2007).  This sounds all rather implausible to me .

Goanna whole against lichen

Lace monitor in Wollemi National Park

I’m still not 100% clear about what I saw up a tree at West Head.  Was the lizard I spotted was one of the little ones, lolling around in its birthplace after its mysterious liberation.  Or a female spending some time hanging out in the nest, having helped her young to freedom?  I’m just not sure.

One way or another, one of our common-as-muck goannas was doing its thing in its ordinary, fascinating way.  With the help of a multitude of insect Mary Poppinses.

lizard in kingfisher nest distant

The termetarium from a distance

Further references

Kirshner, D. (2007) Multiclutching in captive Lace Monitors, Varanus varius. Mertensiella (16): 403-421

Rismiller, P.D., McKelvey, M.W., Green, B. (2010) “Breeding phenology and behavior of Rosenberg’s Goanna (Varanus rosenbergi) on Kangaroo Island, South Australia” Journal of Herpetology 44(3):399-408. 2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snakes vs whining teenagers

 

Tiger snake curled face crop longThis is what people who hate camping think it’s all about, right?  I suspect spiders, high winds and rowdy neighbours also make that list.  Yep, a big tick next to them too – it’s all to play for when you camp in the summertime in Wollemi National Park.

But Ganguddy, or Dunn’s Swamp, to give its inaccurate and charmless non-indigenous name, was just as marvellous this January as it was when we first visited this time last year.

Sunrise corner sky

Ganguddy in early dawn light

view from pagoda.jpg

View from the pagoda lookout

Yes, there were more reptiles – lethal and benign – but to balance it out, there was also less torrential rain.  At no point this year did it seem likely that the full set of adult campers, each clinging to a leg of the kitchen-gazebo, would take off and fly over the pagoda rock formations like a quartet of grubby Mary Poppinses.  It rained, but not inside any of the tents.  And the whining teenagers weren’t my delightful children but the feathered offspring of the camp ground locals.

Noisy friarbird getting food crop

Juvenile noisy friarbird wants a snack

It seems a bit unfair for such giant children to be demanding food, although Gisela Kaplan in her fascinating book “Bird Minds” suggests some evolutionary advantages to having hungry teenagers hanging around.  Apparently adults noisy friarbirds only feed the young’uns for three weeks after fledging -hard to believe this galumphing one was so close to being a fluffster.

But you can see where all that food goes.  You reckon your adolescent’s feet are big?  What about junior purple swamphen‘s clodhoppers?

Unhygenic as it sounds, the drop dunny seemed to be a particularly popular spot for a snack.  The baby grey fantails spent a lot of time looking deliberately cute there in order to get a feed.  If you were still uncertain about the superiority of the earth toilet, this little guy is a clincher I reckon.

The white-browed scrubwren also enjoyed loitering out around the toilets.  I didn’t see any juveniles, but then this one looked so stern, perhaps they were there but just too nervous to beg for tucker.

white browed scrub wren crop.jpg

Grumpy looking white browed scrubwren

The suspiciously touselled looking eastern yellow robin – a juvenile perhaps – had worked out that the best place for tucker is definitely the barbecue.

I’m not sure if the adult reed warbler had gone into head down, bum up, to feed some chicks, or if it was just going to extreme lengths to avoid facing the long-lensed papperazzi.  I was rather pleased when after two years of trying I finally got a picture of one, without even having to visit the Rylstone Guns and Ammo for a flame thrower to thin out that pesky, snap obscuring habitat.

And, miracle of miracles, I found an azure kingfisher without ADD.  I reckon I can put away my paddle now – 18 months of kayaking have not been in vain.

Kingfisher on stump 2 instagram square.jpg

At last – a sluggish azure kingfisher

The invasive gambezi minnows that fill this reservoir – built in the 30s as a water supply for a concrete works – seem to be an optimal snack size for the kingfishers – I saw plenty of them, along with a randy musk duck, the ubiquitous Eurasian coots and a pair of Nankeen night herons that alighted, mockingly, in the trees opposite the campsite, just after it got a tiny bit too dark for a decent photograph.  But there was nothing larger – no whistling kites, for one.  Judging from the frustration level of the fisherman in our party and the track record of these mosquitofish of outcompeting native rivals, I suspect there weren’t many more substantial meals to be had (on the bright side, possibly thanks to the fish, there weren’t too many mosquitos making meals of us either).

With all these LBBs – and all the fast moving ones I didn’t get a decent shot of – busy flocks of brown thornbills high in the canopy, white-throated tree-creepers spiralling their way up the tea trees, the baffling grey strike-thrush, the white-eared honeyeaters darting around in the dew drenched dawn – I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at the snake that sidled through the camp site or or the one slithered along the ironstone tops.  Let’s hope the top predators were more successful at catching the flighty little buggers* than I was.

Western country rocks

Rock formations near the dam

Sunrise over swallow rocks

Dawn over “Swallow rocks”

 

*Okay I know red-bellied blacks mostly eat frogs, which is why they were down by the reedbeds near the camp. But I bet they don’t object to the odd gormless yellow robin if it’s available.

* * *

There’s more info about the history and geology of Ganguddy in my previous post from here: In other sandstone country

In other sandstone country

Wiradjuri country that is, or Dabee country to be precise: Ganguddy, on the Cudgegong River, that flows west off the Great Dividing Range, not into the Pacific but into the Murray-Darling.  Not far from Berowra as the Australian Raven flies – straight across the Wollemi National Park – but a fair trek in the excessively laden ancient vehicle.

Still sandstone though – the older, niftier sandstone of the Narrabeen Group, as it resurfaces at the very edge of the Sydney Basin, with the even older coal measures being mined perilously close byLayers of ironstone make for fabulous rock formations (if slightly less way out than the famous pagodas of the nearby Gardens of Stone National Park).  And of course exceedingly soggy tent groundsheets when big rain sluices off the rocks faster than even sandy soil can soak it up.

Same old sandstone geology, plenty of still water, just like the Hawkesbury estuary down our way, but the critters are different.  The feathered food thief at Ganguddy isn’t a brush turkey, it’s the purple swamp hen.

The “house bird” is a cheeky superb blue wren, not a wattlebird.  Rainbow lorikeets – not a one.  And none of those aggressive urban generalists, the noisy minors or the magpies, either.  Instead crimson rosellas – a rarity in the northern suburbs of Sydney – lurk in implausible locations like the queue for the drop dunny for instance, or the reeds by the river bank.

The ubiquitous but largely invisible bird here isn’t a koel or a channel billed cuckoo but the aptly named clamorous reed warbler.  I was at times tempted to nip to the Rylstone Guns and Ammo for a small flame thrower so I could finally get that photograph, but then I reflected that a perfectly focussed snap of a tiny blackened corpse clinging in its rictus to a reed probably wasn’t in the spirit of the thing.

A fabulous place.  It’s tempting, what with proximity to World Heritage listed Wollemi National Park and all, to think of it as a wilderness.  But no.  Its gorgeous waterways are the product of a 1920s dam built to to supply a cement works, its teeming fish the introduced gambusia affinis – the “plague minnow” – that outcompetes the locals, though it does seems to keep the mosquito population down.  As a camper it’s hard to argue with that, although we didn’t see a single bat, micro, macro or meso, during our five day stay.

There’s something to be said for human intervention, as Tim Low says.  In the absence of railway station eves or even a well put together shed, the welcome swallows in desperation had to resort to nesting on the natural stone outcrops.  But the local water dragons and turtles seemed to relish the fetid smelling pond downstream from the dam.

A tranquil place with a violent past.  A “natural” place shaped for a very long time by people in ways that you see and ways that you (or at least I) don’t know enough to notice.  A familiar story, on sandstone and otherwise.