Arts said:

Some of you here might be interested in registering for this..

To get involved all you need is 20 minutes, your favourite outdoor space, and some keen eyesight or binoculars. It doesn’t matter if you’re a novice or an expert—we’ll be there to help you out along the way. Simply record the birds you know and look up those you don’t on our Aussie Bird Count app or the website (the field guide can be found under the ‘Submit your checklist’ button). You’ll instantly see live statistics and information on how many people are taking part near you and the number of birds and species counted across your neighbourhood and the whole of Australia!

Link

Can anyone here distinguish between a “Tree Martin” and a “Fork-tailed Swift”?

Am starting data analysis phase from the bird count. Biggest flocks for me this week in Melbourne:

300+ Silver Gull
200+ Sharp-tailed Sandpiper
170 White Ibis
67 Black Duck
41 Eurasian Coot
~40 Tree Martin (or Fork-tailed Swift)
31 Starling
26 Noisy Miner
24 Hardhead
24 Wood Duck
21 Black Swan
21 Spotted Dove
21 Raven
20 Pelican
19 Red Wattlebird
18 Pacific Gull

Any good excel templates for bird cataloguing about?

We registered last Monday and then I went to work for the week and promptly forgot about it. Did 20 minutes last night. And I see today is the last day (?) so maybe I’ll try for another 20 minutes today.
We tend to not take notice of the birds. I recall many years ago my father did a Walk Around Buffy’s Garden with the video camera….I asked him if he had dubbed the birdsong on. He hadn’t. It was just so normal I don’t notice it usually.

mollwollfumble said:

Arts said:

Some of you here might be interested in registering for this..

To get involved all you need is 20 minutes, your favourite outdoor space, and some keen eyesight or binoculars. It doesn’t matter if you’re a novice or an expert—we’ll be there to help you out along the way. Simply record the birds you know and look up those you don’t on our Aussie Bird Count app or the website (the field guide can be found under the ‘Submit your checklist’ button). You’ll instantly see live statistics and information on how many people are taking part near you and the number of birds and species counted across your neighbourhood and the whole of Australia!

Link

Can anyone here distinguish between a “Tree Martin” and a “Fork-tailed Swift”?

Am starting data analysis phase from the bird count. Biggest flocks for me this week in Melbourne:

300+ Silver Gull
200+ Sharp-tailed Sandpiper
170 White Ibis
67 Black Duck
41 Eurasian Coot
~40 Tree Martin (or Fork-tailed Swift)
31 Starling
26 Noisy Miner
24 Hardhead
24 Wood Duck
21 Black Swan
21 Spotted Dove
21 Raven
20 Pelican
19 Red Wattlebird
18 Pacific Gull

Now to separate species in Melbourne by commonness.

1. Nest in buildings and don’t stray far.
House Sparrow, Rock Dove.

2. Common as muck. All of the above (with the exception of Tree Martin), and
Masked Lapwing, Willie Wagtail, Grey Butcherbird, Teal, Little Wattlebird, Blue Wren, Magpie, Welcome Swallow, Blackbird, Myna, Crested Pigeon, Eastern Rosella, Galah, Purple Swamphen, Rainbow Lorikeet, Dusky Moorhen.

3. Very common.
Hoary-headed Grebe, White-browed Scrubwren, White-faced Heron, White-plumed Honeyeater, Corella, Straw-necked Ibis, Reed Warbler, Black-winged Stilt, Brown Thornbill, Bronzewing, Cockatoo, Tern, Goose, Egret, Goldfinch, Cormorants, Grey Fantail, Little Grassbird, New-Holland Honeyeater, Pied Currawong, Red-rumped Parrot, Red-browed Finch.

4. Less commonly seen (not necessarily less common).
Dotterel, Shelduck, Blue-billed Duck, Greenfinch, Yellow Robin, Horsfield’s, Kookaburra, Musk Duck, Pardalote, Swamp Harrier, Spoonbill.

> And I see today is the last day (?)

Keep looking, because I’m sure that the submission form won’t shut off for a while. It opened a week early on apple and android and two days early on web, so should stay open for a while longer. By 2 days before the official start, already about 1,400 checklists had been submitted. It’s now up to nearly 25,000 checklists. They ought to value rural/semirural locations like yours, Buffy, more than urban locations like mine. You could do a separate checklist for work and for home for instance.

There are a bunch of these around Perth but I can’t find anything to quite match it in the online guides. Obviously some kind of columbimorph. Is it just some breed of rock dove?

Whatever it is it’s bloody huge!

Let me scale that down a bit

Yes it’s a Rock Dove. Introduced, feral.

Peak Warming Man said:

Any good excel templates for bird cataloguing about?

I haven’t used it, but there are two on http://birdlife.org.au/conservation/science/taxonomy

PS. Am a bit miffed that my mother has seen more bird species than I have, I have a copy of her checklist here: “A pocket list of Australian Birds” by Richard Schodde, published 1978 (first edition 1966) by the Canberra Ornithologists Group.

Jing Joh said:

Yes it’s a Rock Dove. Introduced, feral.

Confirmed that. It’s a fairly common colour variation.

On the topic of “Rock Dove. Introduced, feral”, I took three photographs of four white birds that flew in on the day before yesterday, thinking “is that a corella or a cockatoo” before realising they were “Rock Dove. Introduced, feral”.

mollwollfumble said:

> And I see today is the last day (?)

Keep looking, because I’m sure that the submission form won’t shut off for a while. It opened a week early on apple and android and two days early on web, so should stay open for a while longer. By 2 days before the official start, already about 1,400 checklists had been submitted. It’s now up to nearly 25,000 checklists. They ought to value rural/semirural locations like yours, Buffy, more than urban locations like mine. You could do a separate checklist for work and for home for instance.

No birds in my dark little consulting room. I had three kookaburras in the yard yesterday morning, but they weren’t there in the evening when I did the count. We know our birds quite well around here. Mr buffy said they are looking for the big white birds. We have sulphur crested and long billed corellas often (but not last night) and there are heaps of ibis and spoonbills. I might do a count in the park over the road instead of limiting it strictly to my own back yard.

Cheers.

I wonder what it is about Columba livia that has caused it to thrive so in cities.

Oh, and at work we only have feral pigeons, sparrows, and the occasional maggie that got into the shop over the road a couple of weeks back and needed the local ranger and his big net to get out. We thought they had a blackbird in there, and wondered why the ranger put on his big gauntlets…..then he came out carrying a maggie.

Oh dear….nearly missed something important! Last Monday we saw a pair of Brolgas as we were driving back from the bush block. Know exactly where and when…..I’ve gone in and put in a record of that too, as it was inside their timescale.

mollwollfumble said:

Can anyone here distinguish between a “Tree Martin” and a “Fork-tailed Swift”?

The fortk-tailed swift never is seen in trees.

buffy said:

Oh dear….nearly missed something important! Last Monday we saw a pair of Brolgas as we were driving back from the bush block. Know exactly where and when…..I’ve gone in and put in a record of that too, as it was inside their timescale.

I didn’t know they went that far south.

Peak Warming Man said:

buffy said:

Oh dear….nearly missed something important! Last Monday we saw a pair of Brolgas as we were driving back from the bush block. Know exactly where and when…..I’ve gone in and put in a record of that too, as it was inside their timescale.

I didn’t know they went that far south.

We have brolgas, you have sarus cranes. They look very similar.

buffy said:

Peak Warming Man said:

buffy said:

Oh dear….nearly missed something important! Last Monday we saw a pair of Brolgas as we were driving back from the bush block. Know exactly where and when…..I’ve gone in and put in a record of that too, as it was inside their timescale.

I didn’t know they went that far south.

We have brolgas, you have sarus cranes. They look very similar.

There are brolgas here every year.

Just did a 10 minute park walk. Those Pacific black ducklings are sooo sweet! Mum took them under the willow branches to hide, but Mr buffy and I went one on each side and I got a good look at them. Other birds more mundane (although the ducks are pretty mundane anyway), including a beautiful kookaburra sitting on a sign and eyeing us off, mudlarks (peewees to you lot), maggies, wattlebirds, our resident swallows, the usual ravens. Ferals included starlings, Euro finches and blackbirds. The sparrows seem to not be crossing the road. They are in my garden, but didn’t see any in the park. And the seagulls are all down at the barbecue area begging, because there is some sort of group gathering having lunch there today.

It’s tempting to go out to the bird hide at the swamp late in the afternoon to look for the lovely things that live out there. Includes a swamp harrier out there. But if we do that it will be with jeans and gumboots on and eyes peeled for slithery folks.

On my recent runs down at the local park I’ve been quite surprised to see Noisy Miners swooping. Not at me in particular, but at my dog, who is normally on a leash and running beside me.

Is swooping behaviour normal for a Noisy Miner? If so, I’ve just never noted it before.

sibeen said:

On my recent runs down at the local park I’ve been quite surprised to see Noisy Miners swooping. Not at me in particular, but at my dog, who is normally on a leash and running beside me.

Is swooping behaviour normal for a Noisy Miner? If so, I’ve just never noted it before.

Normal behaviour for lots of birds. It is not uncommon to see a willy wagtail harrassing an unconcerned cat that has probably just cleaned up the wagtails nestlings.

roughbarked said:

sibeen said:

On my recent runs down at the local park I’ve been quite surprised to see Noisy Miners swooping. Not at me in particular, but at my dog, who is normally on a leash and running beside me.

Is swooping behaviour normal for a Noisy Miner? If so, I’ve just never noted it before.

Normal behaviour for lots of birds. It is not uncommon to see a willy wagtail harrassing an unconcerned cat that has probably just cleaned up the wagtails nestlings.

Do you think a wagtail-led cat annihilation could work?

sibeen said:

On my recent runs down at the local park I’ve been quite surprised to see Noisy Miners swooping. Not at me in particular, but at my dog, who is normally on a leash and running beside me.

Is swooping behaviour normal for a Noisy Miner? If so, I’ve just never noted it before.

Yep it’s common for them around here, cheeky little buggers.
They love harassing crows, kookaburras etc, also dogs and cats but never bother humans.

dv said:

roughbarked said:

sibeen said:

On my recent runs down at the local park I’ve been quite surprised to see Noisy Miners swooping. Not at me in particular, but at my dog, who is normally on a leash and running beside me.

Is swooping behaviour normal for a Noisy Miner? If so, I’ve just never noted it before.

Normal behaviour for lots of birds. It is not uncommon to see a willy wagtail harrassing an unconcerned cat that has probably just cleaned up the wagtails nestlings.

Do you think a wagtail-led cat annihilation could work?

Will they accept iron as payment?

Peak Warming Man said:

sibeen said:

On my recent runs down at the local park I’ve been quite surprised to see Noisy Miners swooping. Not at me in particular, but at my dog, who is normally on a leash and running beside me.

Is swooping behaviour normal for a Noisy Miner? If so, I’ve just never noted it before.

Yep it’s common for them around here, cheeky little buggers.
They love harassing crows, kookaburras etc, also dogs and cats but never bother humans.

That could be it. I’ve never been swooped by a Miner. having the dog along has got me noticing it.

dv said:

roughbarked said:

sibeen said:

On my recent runs down at the local park I’ve been quite surprised to see Noisy Miners swooping. Not at me in particular, but at my dog, who is normally on a leash and running beside me.

Is swooping behaviour normal for a Noisy Miner? If so, I’ve just never noted it before.

Normal behaviour for lots of birds. It is not uncommon to see a willy wagtail harrassing an unconcerned cat that has probably just cleaned up the wagtails nestlings.

Do you think a wagtail-led cat annihilation could work?

not likely.

Good on you buffy. Don’t your snakes run away whenever you go stomping on the ground, the harder the better?

dv said:

I wonder what it is about Columba livia that has caused it to thrive so in cities.

It may the only Columba that nests in large buildings and sheds, ie. in columbaria. It never nests in trees.

As for the success of Sturnus vulgaris, it’s said to be the only bird that has muscles that will force open its beak, which makes it ideal for foraging in soft ground – insert beak in soft ground, open beak, grab grub.

> “we have brolgas” … “we have brolgas” … “we have brolgas”

Amazing, never seen a wild one, not even in the top end. I’ve had a brolga peck the end of my middle finger in the Phillip Island wildlife park. Like hand-feeding a cassowary and being mugged by a wallaby, it’s an experience not to be missed.

> Is swooping behaviour normal for a Noisy Miner? If so, I’ve just never noted it before.

Swooping as in attacking – yes, I’ve been attacked by noisy miners three times this week. Swooping as in flying in a series of swoops rather than direct flight, also yes, I’ve only just noticed it this week.

I’ve been looking at the Aussie Backyard Bird Count Statistics page and noticed that “white-headed pigeon” and “king parrot” have been reported by lots of Melbournites. I thought they never came here, I would have mistaken a “white-headed pigeon” for “Columba livia”.

mollwollfumble said:

Swooping as in attacking – yes, I’ve been attacked by noisy miners three times this week. Swooping as in flying in a series of swoops rather than direct flight, also yes, I’ve only just noticed it this week.

I’ve been looking at the Aussie Backyard Bird Count Statistics page and noticed that “white-headed pigeon” and “king parrot” have been reported by lots of Melbournites. I thought they never came here, I would have mistaken a “white-headed pigeon” for “Columba livia”.

This is a normal people clicky thingy. You can’t expect them all to know the proper names.

As for swooping. The worst I’ve had was when trying to collect the eggs from the mobile chook thingy that was parked on the edge of the Macadamia orchard this time last year. Fricking figbird wanted to really scare the washing machine into action on my pants.

sibeen said:

On my recent runs down at the local park I’ve been quite surprised to see Noisy Miners swooping. Not at me in particular, but at my dog, who is normally on a leash and running beside me.

Is swooping behaviour normal for a Noisy Miner? If so, I’ve just never noted it before.

They used to swoop our (late) dog.

They used to swoop our (late) dog.

probably hadn’t buried it deep enough.

JudgeMental said:

They used to swoop our (late) dog.

probably hadn’t buried it deep enough.

LOL!

mollwollfumble said:

Now to separate species in Melbourne by commonness.

1. Nest in buildings and don’t stray far.
House Sparrow, Rock Dove.

2. Common as muck. All of the above (with the exception of Tree Martin), and
Masked Lapwing, Willie Wagtail, Grey Butcherbird, Teal, Little Wattlebird, Blue Wren, Magpie, Welcome Swallow, Blackbird, Myna, Crested Pigeon, Eastern Rosella, Galah, Purple Swamphen, Rainbow Lorikeet, Dusky Moorhen.

3. Very common.
Hoary-headed Grebe, White-browed Scrubwren, White-faced Heron, White-plumed Honeyeater, Corella, Straw-necked Ibis, Reed Warbler, Black-winged Stilt, Brown Thornbill, Bronzewing, Cockatoo, Tern, Goose, Egret, Goldfinch, Cormorants, Grey Fantail, Little Grassbird, New-Holland Honeyeater, Pied Currawong, Red-rumped Parrot, Red-browed Finch.

4. Less commonly seen (not necessarily less common).
Dotterel, Shelduck, Blue-billed Duck, Greenfinch, Yellow Robin, Horsfield’s, Kookaburra, Musk Duck, Pardalote, Swamp Harrier, Spoonbill.

OK, have done a lot better than that now. I went through all displayed observations (at fixed resolution) in a wide area around Melbourne counting selected species (trying to avoid the most common and rarest). I’ve mapped locations for 19 species, let me know if you want to see the maps.

Summary from Melbourne and environs. From west of Geelong to east of Yallourn, from south of Inverloch to north of Craigieburn.

The website pre-summarised the data by automatically removing observation sites too close to one another, before I had a chance to look. So what we have here is the relative number of observations.

Selected species. Numbers of observation sites.

57 Laughing Kookaburra
37 King Parrot
33 Grey Fantail
18 Eastern Spinebill, Pied Currawong
16 Pardalote (mostly spotted), Red-browed finch
12 Silvereye
8 Skylark
6 Satin Bowerbird
5 Gang-Gang Cockatoo, Jackie Winter, Swamp Harrier
4 Shelduck, Musk Lorikeet, Bellbird, Cape Barren Goose, Greenfinch, Nankeen Kestrel, Black Kite, Dotterel (combined), Spoonbill (combined)
3 Tree Martin, White-headed Pigeon, Kingfishers (combined), Goshawk & Sparrowhawk (combined), Eagle (combined), Red-capped Plover
2 Pipit, Song Thrush, Blue-winged Parrot, Tawny Frogmouth, Grey Currawong, Black-shouldered Kite
1 Golden-headed Cisticola, Brolga, Magpie Goose, Little Falcon, Ruddy Turnstone, Oystercatcher
0 Bulbul, Whistling Kite, Peregrine Falcon, Zitting Cisticola

Comments on the above.

Of the most common birds above, the most common I have never seen in Melbourne are the King Parrot and Silvereye. I’ve only seen one Skylark here.

A pity about the Cisticolas because I’m almost certain that I heard both species in the reeds.
The one Magpie Goose is in addition to the one I saw.
The one Brolga was seen at Point Wilson.
The one Ruddy Turnstone was seen at St Leonards (east of Geelong).
The two sightings of Tree Martin includes mine.

Some birds could be described as “locally common”, particularly the Satin Bowerbird, which is common only near Healesville. The Cape Barren Goose is limited to Phillip and French Islands. The Red-capped Plover was only seen on Phillip Is and Cape Schank. The Black Kite is locally common near Geelong. The Grey Currawong was only seen due East of Melbourne. The Lyrebird would be considered locally common, too.

The King Parrot and Grey Fantail were seen everywhere in equal numbers, but never at the same observation point. Weird.

The Kookaburra is completely absent west of the longitude of Melbourne City Centre. Weird.

The Red-browed Finch is seen equally often in urban and rural areas. Ditto the Kookaburra. The Pied Currawong prefers urban areas. The Greenfinch enjoys inner Melbourne.

Raptors are rare.

From the latest Readers Digest.

English-speaking societies are running out of swear words. There are times when @#$%^& just won’t do. For some reason known only to the Universe, the names of birds make satisfying curses: you Lazy Cisticola, Tufted Titmouse, Brown Trembler, Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker, Rough-Faced Shag, Blue-Footed Booby, Spangled Drongo… you get the picture.

But if you really want an insult, skip the expletives and say the most horrible curse of all: “May faulty logic undermine your entire philosophy”. Now that’s nasty.

mollwollfumble said:

From the latest Readers Digest.

English-speaking societies are running out of swear words. There are times when @#$%^& just won’t do. For some reason known only to the Universe, the names of birds make satisfying curses: you Lazy Cisticola, Tufted Titmouse, Brown Trembler, Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker, Rough-Faced Shag, Blue-Footed Booby, Spangled Drongo… you get the picture.

But if you really want an insult, skip the expletives and say the most horrible curse of all: “May faulty logic undermine your entire philosophy”. Now that’s nasty.

I always thought the bustard fitted all those categories.

mollwollfumble said:

Can anyone here distinguish between a “Tree Martin” and a “Fork-tailed Swift”?

Breast colour?

Fork taylor swift

Noticed in RACV magazine. “In 2014 they got 800,000 birds. Trying for 1,000,000 birds this year”.

Well, they got 1,131,931 birds of 621 species this year. Though that includes mistakes like my bird list submitted to the wrong location, and two species I didn’t see.

It’s rather startling that 621 species is very far short of the 828 species that are supposed to be in Australia.

From an email:

Thanks a million to everyone who took part in the 2015 BirdLife Australia Aussie Backyard Bird Count!

More than 38,000 Australians spent National Bird Week in their backyards, schoolyards, parks and favourite outdoor spaces counting over 1,000,000 birds!

So what happens next?

Until Sunday, the app and website will be open for you to submit any backdated checklists. After this time we will be collating, vetting and analysing the data. As you can imagine this is quite a lengthy process, so we plan to have the results ready by late November.

When the final results are ready you will receive an email from us, but also keep an eye on the Aussie Backyard Bird Count website and BirdLife Australia’s social media for updates.

The winners of our fantastic prizes will be announced on 6th November.

(Prizes, what prizes?) – checks link – http://aussiebirdcount.org.au/prizes-2/