Need help with three birds.

• 1. I got within one metre of a bird, could see all of it easily, looked it in the eye for minutes, and still couldn’t identify it. It was clearly a baby, ‘cheep’ing for its parents, nowhere near old enough to fly for itself but out of the nest and near the top of a tiny tree. It was size of the body of a blue wren. Grey fluff over most of its body, with flight feathers just beginning to be big enough to show colour – striped colour on flight feathers. Not a blue wren because shorter tail slanted downwards, not a finch (red-brow, sparrow, goldfinch, greenfinch) because beak too sharp for that. Not a thornbill because beak too blunt for that. Not a noisy miner or myna because way too small. Help!

• 2. Bird in the reeds with a call exactly like water going down a big plughole. I mean like a plughole six or more inches across. Really low pitch. The best I can make approximating the call is to make a repeated ‘g’ swallowing noise deep in the back of my throat. Nine notes in a call slow and descending in pitch.

• 3. A hawk hovering over the median strip of a freeway. Pale brown like a kestrel. Tail lighter above and below but with a distinct black tip. Under-wing pattern V shape parallel to the trailing edges of the wings. I’m only familiar with a few hawks (black-shouldered kite, kestrel, whistling kite, swamp harrier) and it definitely wasn’t one of those. Closest match in the bird book is square-tailed kite, second closest is spotted harrier, but both are supposed to be very rare or nonexistent where I am.

mollwollfumble said:

Need help with three birds.

• 1. I got within one metre of a bird, could see all of it easily, looked it in the eye for minutes, and still couldn’t identify it. It was clearly a baby, ‘cheep’ing for its parents, nowhere near old enough to fly for itself but out of the nest and near the top of a tiny tree. It was size of the body of a blue wren. Grey fluff over most of its body, with flight feathers just beginning to be big enough to show colour – striped colour on flight feathers. Not a blue wren because shorter tail slanted downwards, not a finch (red-brow, sparrow, goldfinch, greenfinch) because beak too sharp for that. Not a thornbill because beak too blunt for that. Not a noisy miner or myna because way too small. Help!

• 2. Bird in the reeds with a call exactly like water going down a big plughole. I mean like a plughole six or more inches across. Really low pitch. The best I can make approximating the call is to make a repeated ‘g’ swallowing noise deep in the back of my throat. Nine notes in a call slow and descending in pitch.

• 3. A hawk hovering over the median strip of a freeway. Pale brown like a kestrel. Tail lighter above and below but with a distinct black tip. Under-wing pattern V shape parallel to the trailing edges of the wings. I’m only familiar with a few hawks (black-shouldered kite, kestrel, whistling kite, swamp harrier) and it definitely wasn’t one of those. Closest match in the bird book is square-tailed kite, second closest is spotted harrier, but both are supposed to be very rare or nonexistent where I am.
  

1 could be a lot of things a little help withwhere you found it and what colour are the striopes? what shape beak? general ID featres if you know them.
2 sounds like a brown bittern
3 is the swamp harrier.

roughbarked said:

mollwollfumble said:

Need help with three birds.

• 1. I got within one metre of a bird, could see all of it easily, looked it in the eye for minutes, and still couldn’t identify it. It was clearly a baby, ‘cheep’ing for its parents, nowhere near old enough to fly for itself but out of the nest and near the top of a tiny tree. It was size of the body of a blue wren. Grey fluff over most of its body, with flight feathers just beginning to be big enough to show colour – striped colour on flight feathers. Not a blue wren because shorter tail slanted downwards, not a finch (red-brow, sparrow, goldfinch, greenfinch) because beak too sharp for that. Not a thornbill because beak too blunt for that. Not a noisy miner or myna because way too small. Help!

• 2. Bird in the reeds with a call exactly like water going down a big plughole. I mean like a plughole six or more inches across. Really low pitch. The best I can make approximating the call is to make a repeated ‘g’ swallowing noise deep in the back of my throat. Nine notes in a call slow and descending in pitch.

• 3. A hawk hovering over the median strip of a freeway. Pale brown like a kestrel. Tail lighter above and below but with a distinct black tip. Under-wing pattern V shape parallel to the trailing edges of the wings. I’m only familiar with a few hawks (black-shouldered kite, kestrel, whistling kite, swamp harrier) and it definitely wasn’t one of those. Closest match in the bird book is square-tailed kite, second closest is spotted harrier, but both are supposed to be very rare or nonexistent where I am.
  

1 could be a lot of things a little help withwhere you found it and what colour are the striopes? what shape beak? general ID featres if you know them.
2 sounds like a brown bittern
3 is the swamp harrier.

Thanks. Anyone else want to take a guess?

I’m tending towards baby white plumed honeyeater for the first. I saw white plumed honeyeaters at the same location today.

Photos of baby white-plumed honeyeater from the web. It looks like these. It would have been younger than the first and older than the second.

I think that’s me done for ABBC.

A couple more places I’d like to try. (1 in Edithvale and 4 in Frankston)
(Scrubbing the Edithvale one because someone else just submitted there).

But I’m out of petrol and petrol prices have shot up from 105.9 to 147.9 c/litre.
And that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

47 lists submitted (incl. 4 with a reduced number of species so I don’t overlap with other people’s submissions).
76 species.
2393 birds.

The biggest chance for a major mistake by me is tree martin vs fairy martin. Easy enough to tell against a dark background, pretty well impossible when seen against the sky or clouds. I saw a massive number of martins this year, 148 birds (give or a take a few, you try counting them!). To put that in perspective, that makes them more than twice as common as magpies.

Nationally, 4.84 million birds seen and submitted so far.

mollwollfumble said:

I think that’s me done for ABBC.

A couple more places I’d like to try. (1 in Edithvale and 4 in Frankston)
(Scrubbing the Edithvale one because someone else just submitted there).

But I’m out of petrol and petrol prices have shot up from 105.9 to 147.9 c/litre.
And that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

47 lists submitted (incl. 4 with a reduced number of species so I don’t overlap with other people’s submissions).
76 species.
2393 birds.

The biggest chance for a major mistake by me is tree martin vs fairy martin. Easy enough to tell against a dark background, pretty well impossible when seen against the sky or clouds. I saw a massive number of martins this year, 148 birds (give or a take a few, you try counting them!). To put that in perspective, that makes them more than twice as common as magpies.

Nationally, 4.84 million birds seen and submitted so far.

Well done.

mollwollfumble said:

I think that’s me done for ABBC.

A couple more places I’d like to try. (1 in Edithvale and 4 in Frankston)
(Scrubbing the Edithvale one because someone else just submitted there).

But I’m out of petrol and petrol prices have shot up from 105.9 to 147.9 c/litre.
And that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

47 lists submitted (incl. 4 with a reduced number of species so I don’t overlap with other people’s submissions).
76 species.
2393 birds.

The biggest chance for a major mistake by me is tree martin vs fairy martin. Easy enough to tell against a dark background, pretty well impossible when seen against the sky or clouds. I saw a massive number of martins this year, 148 birds (give or a take a few, you try counting them!). To put that in perspective, that makes them more than twice as common as magpies.

Nationally, 4.84 million birds seen and submitted so far.

Isn’t it finished now? Today was the last day?

buffy said:

mollwollfumble said:

I think that’s me done for ABBC.

A couple more places I’d like to try. (1 in Edithvale and 4 in Frankston)
(Scrubbing the Edithvale one because someone else just submitted there).

But I’m out of petrol and petrol prices have shot up from 105.9 to 147.9 c/litre.
And that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

47 lists submitted (incl. 4 with a reduced number of species so I don’t overlap with other people’s submissions).
76 species.
2393 birds.

The biggest chance for a major mistake by me is tree martin vs fairy martin. Easy enough to tell against a dark background, pretty well impossible when seen against the sky or clouds. I saw a massive number of martins this year, 148 birds (give or a take a few, you try counting them!). To put that in perspective, that makes them more than twice as common as magpies.

Nationally, 4.84 million birds seen and submitted so far.

Isn’t it finished now? Today was the last day?

They still keep it open for submissions after the last day. For a week or a fortnight, I’m not sure which. In past years I have ducked down to look for more birds after the last official day.

Map of my birding sites. All of them.
Hampton to Springvale to Dandenong Sth to Sandhurst. Perry Rd on the top left of the second map joins to Perry Rd on the bottom right of the first map.

Compare the above to the map below from 2017. The 2017 map covers more area (compare distance from Waterways to Springvale). A lot more gaps of unfilled spaces back in 2017.

Back in 2017, I had submitted the same number of lists (46 vs 47) saw more species (80 vs 70) and had roughly the same number of birds. I ascribe the smaller number of species this time to my limiting my range to 15 km, rather than to any local extinction. Some years my range was 35 km.

mollwollfumble said:

buffy said:

mollwollfumble said:

I think that’s me done for ABBC.

A couple more places I’d like to try. (1 in Edithvale and 4 in Frankston)
(Scrubbing the Edithvale one because someone else just submitted there).

But I’m out of petrol and petrol prices have shot up from 105.9 to 147.9 c/litre.
And that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

47 lists submitted (incl. 4 with a reduced number of species so I don’t overlap with other people’s submissions).
76 species.
2393 birds.

The biggest chance for a major mistake by me is tree martin vs fairy martin. Easy enough to tell against a dark background, pretty well impossible when seen against the sky or clouds. I saw a massive number of martins this year, 148 birds (give or a take a few, you try counting them!). To put that in perspective, that makes them more than twice as common as magpies.

Nationally, 4.84 million birds seen and submitted so far.

Isn’t it finished now? Today was the last day?

They still keep it open for submissions after the last day. For a week or a fortnight, I’m not sure which. In past years I have ducked down to look for more birds after the last official day.

Map of my birding sites. All of them.
Hampton to Springvale to Dandenong Sth to Sandhurst. Perry Rd on the top left of the second map joins to Perry Rd on the bottom right of the first map.

only put in 4 or 5 records. One of them was only a 5 minute one, because I heard the yellowtailed black cockatoos and wanted them in.

buffy said:

only put in 4 or 5 records. One of them was only a 5 minute one, because I heard the yellowtailed black cockatoos and wanted them in.

I like that. If I heard a yellow-tailed black I would have done exactly the same.

5 million birds in all Australia this year. Wow.

Newman and Meekatharra have bird reports now, as well as some even more distant near the WA-NT border. The Gibson desert is well circled.

The biggest gap in data is now the Nullarbor / Great-Victoria. Apart from that, everything is well-covered.

I’m looking forwards to an Australia-wide species total, in previous years I’ve been disappointed in the large number of species not seen.
Hold on, can I calculate that now. Total species seen Australia wide in ABBC is … 678 species.
“Australian species of birds are quite well known and thus the number of described extant species is stable at around 828”.
So what happened to the missing 144 species? They can’t all be out-of-town seasonal migrants.

That’s actually not as bad as I feared. Sean Dooley managed “over 700” in his big twitch year around Australia. I had been hoping for 700 from the ABBC, and 678 is not too far off.

.

mollwollfumble said:

buffy said:

only put in 4 or 5 records. One of them was only a 5 minute one, because I heard the yellowtailed black cockatoos and wanted them in.

I like that. If I heard a yellow-tailed black I would have done exactly the same.

5 million birds in all Australia this year. Wow.

Newman and Meekatharra have bird reports now, as well as some even more distant near the WA-NT border. The Gibson desert is well circled.

The biggest gap in data is now the Nullarbor / Great-Victoria. Apart from that, everything is well-covered.

I’m looking forwards to an Australia-wide species total, in previous years I’ve been disappointed in the large number of species not seen.
Hold on, can I calculate that now. Total species seen Australia wide in ABBC is … 678 species.
“Australian species of birds are quite well known and thus the number of described extant species is stable at around 828”.
So what happened to the missing 144 species? They can’t all be out-of-town seasonal migrants.

That’s actually not as bad as I feared. Sean Dooley managed “over 700” in his big twitch year around Australia. I had been hoping for 700 from the ABBC, and 678 is not too far off.

.

I was a bit disappointed in our backyard maggies…they failed to turn up during the times I was recording. Neither did the mudlarks show themselves at appropriate times. I guess it doesn’t matter too much, other people recorded them around here.

buffy said:

mollwollfumble said:

buffy said:

only put in 4 or 5 records. One of them was only a 5 minute one, because I heard the yellowtailed black cockatoos and wanted them in.

I like that. If I heard a yellow-tailed black I would have done exactly the same.

5 million birds in all Australia this year. Wow.

Newman and Meekatharra have bird reports now, as well as some even more distant near the WA-NT border. The Gibson desert is well circled.

The biggest gap in data is now the Nullarbor / Great-Victoria. Apart from that, everything is well-covered.

I’m looking forwards to an Australia-wide species total, in previous years I’ve been disappointed in the large number of species not seen.
Hold on, can I calculate that now. Total species seen Australia wide in ABBC is … 678 species.
“Australian species of birds are quite well known and thus the number of described extant species is stable at around 828”.
So what happened to the missing 144 species? They can’t all be out-of-town seasonal migrants.

That’s actually not as bad as I feared. Sean Dooley managed “over 700” in his big twitch year around Australia. I had been hoping for 700 from the ABBC, and 678 is not too far off.

.

I was a bit disappointed in our backyard maggies…they failed to turn up during the times I was recording. Neither did the mudlarks show themselves at appropriate times. I guess it doesn’t matter too much, other people recorded them around here.

Looking at the statistics for our postcode -3289 – I think most of our usual suspects are there. Ducks are probably under represented. And there are usually egrets around which I see no-one reported. I was hoping to hear one of the owls one night, but they must be elsewhere at the moment too.

buffy said:

buffy said:

I was a bit disappointed in our backyard maggies…they failed to turn up during the times I was recording. Neither did the mudlarks show themselves at appropriate times. I guess it doesn’t matter too much, other people recorded them around here.

Looking at the statistics for our postcode -3289 – I think most of our usual suspects are there. Ducks are probably under represented. And there are usually egrets around which I see no-one reported. I was hoping to hear one of the owls one night, but they must be elsewhere at the moment too.

Oh, owls. If you hear one call me over. I never have, unless I was in primary school before I started to take any notice.

Notably not seen by me this year, mostly because I only had a limited distance to look in:

• Kookaburra, grey fantail, pied stilt, sharpie, golden whistler, yellow-faced honeyeater, black cocky, white-cheeked honeyeater.

Notably seen here in much larger than usual numbers.

• Martins, hardhead, white-plumed honyeater, blue-billed duck.

> Looking at the statistics for our postcode -3289 – I think most of our usual suspects are there

Ones that you have and I don’t:
Australian raven – very rare around here, have seen here only once, several years ago.
Crimson rosella – would have to head up Mt Dandenong for that.
Grey shrike-thrush – not closer than Police Paddocks national park, I haven’t seen it for many years.
Spiny-cheeked honeyeater – never seen.
Striated fieldwren – never seen.
Yellow-rumped thrornbill – ditto.

mollwollfumble said:

buffy said:

buffy said:

I was a bit disappointed in our backyard maggies…they failed to turn up during the times I was recording. Neither did the mudlarks show themselves at appropriate times. I guess it doesn’t matter too much, other people recorded them around here.

Looking at the statistics for our postcode -3289 – I think most of our usual suspects are there. Ducks are probably under represented. And there are usually egrets around which I see no-one reported. I was hoping to hear one of the owls one night, but they must be elsewhere at the moment too.

Oh, owls. If you hear one call me over. I never have, unless I was in primary school before I started to take any notice.

Notably not seen by me this year, mostly because I only had a limited distance to look in:

• Kookaburra, grey fantail, pied stilt, sharpie, golden whistler, yellow-faced honeyeater, black cocky, white-cheeked honeyeater.

Notably seen here in much larger than usual numbers.

• Martins, hardhead, white-plumed honyeater, blue-billed duck.

> Looking at the statistics for our postcode -3289 – I think most of our usual suspects are there

Ones that you have and I don’t:
Australian raven – very rare around here, have seen here only once, several years ago.
Crimson rosella – would have to head up Mt Dandenong for that.
Grey shrike-thrush – not closer than Police Paddocks national park, I haven’t seen it for many years.
Spiny-cheeked honeyeater – never seen.
Striated fieldwren – never seen.
Yellow-rumped thrornbill – ditto.

I’ve seen the tawney yellow breasted ditto.

mollwollfumble said:

buffy said:

buffy said:

I was a bit disappointed in our backyard maggies…they failed to turn up during the times I was recording. Neither did the mudlarks show themselves at appropriate times. I guess it doesn’t matter too much, other people recorded them around here.

Looking at the statistics for our postcode -3289 – I think most of our usual suspects are there. Ducks are probably under represented. And there are usually egrets around which I see no-one reported. I was hoping to hear one of the owls one night, but they must be elsewhere at the moment too.

Oh, owls. If you hear one call me over. I never have, unless I was in primary school before I started to take any notice.

Notably not seen by me this year, mostly because I only had a limited distance to look in:

• Kookaburra, grey fantail, pied stilt, sharpie, golden whistler, yellow-faced honeyeater, black cocky, white-cheeked honeyeater.

Notably seen here in much larger than usual numbers.

• Martins, hardhead, white-plumed honyeater, blue-billed duck.

> Looking at the statistics for our postcode -3289 – I think most of our usual suspects are there

Ones that you have and I don’t:
Australian raven – very rare around here, have seen here only once, several years ago.
Crimson rosella – would have to head up Mt Dandenong for that.
Grey shrike-thrush – not closer than Police Paddocks national park, I haven’t seen it for many years.
Spiny-cheeked honeyeater – never seen.
Striated fieldwren – never seen.
Yellow-rumped thrornbill – ditto.

We have barn owls and boobooks. When we were living in Hawkesdale one night when I was outside I turned around and an owl was sitting within a couple of metres of me on the clothesline, just staring at me. It was a nice experience. And I can vouch for the fact you cannot hear their wingbeat. They completely silent when they fly. We also have tawny frogmouths at times. I spent some time one night walking around the paddock in Hawkesdale trying to find the source of the deep “ooom” sound that carried such a long way. We’ve had them here too, in the tree right outside our bedroom. The same one the noisy Koalas use for recreation/procreation purposes at times. Country living can be noisy at night sometimes