Location Marysville, Vic.

1. I snapped this bird not being sure whether it was a king parrot or not.

2. The second bird is tiny, the size of a thornbill, scrub wren or silvereye. There’s a fair bit of colour variation on the face and body but it’s predominantly brown. Could it be a thornbill, scrub wren or silvereye?

Is the first a crimson rosella?

This for instance is a juvenile crimson rosella:

http://www.chappo1.com/crimson_rosella.html

The second is too blurry for me to make a guess.

I’d think crimson rosella too for the first.
No blue feathers on the king parrots that visit here.

ruby said:

I’d think crimson rosella too for the first.
No blue feathers on the king parrots that visit here.

OK, I’ll buy that. I saw it in the same paddock as two obvious crimson rosellas.

Nothing to add other than Marysville is a beautiful piece of country.

Through circumstances beyond my control I was asked to provide a bird checklist to be distributed by the Marysville Tourist Information Office. I asked around among other tourists there in the hope of isolating the 30 most commonly seen birds in Marysville and surrounds (to as far as Eildon).

Because this area was savagely affected by bushfires in 2009, the bird species there haven’t yet settled down to steady state.

So far I’ve up with the following:

The most commonly seen birds, in no particular order – Wood Duck, Black Duck, Wedge-tailed Eagle, Masked Lapwing, Black Cockatoo, Gang-gang Cockatoo, White Cockatoo, Galah, King Parrot, Crimson Rosella, Kookaburra, Willie Wagtail, Magpie-lark, Magpie, Pied Currawong, Raven, White-winged Chough, Swallow.

But that’s only 18. Suggestions, please.

Please don’t suggest the following, they weren’t seen – Blackbird, Miner, Myna, Sparrow, Rock Dove, Butcherbird, Little Wattlebird, Rainbow Lorikeet, Starling.

Silvereye, Brown honeyeater, New Holland Honeyeater, Yellow rumpted thornbill, White browed scrubwren, Fairy wrens?. Wattlebird, Tree Martin and Singing Honeyeater.

I don’t know the area but these are some birds I seem to see everywhere.

headsie said:

Silvereye, Brown honeyeater, New Holland Honeyeater, Yellow rumpted thornbill, White browed scrubwren, Fairy wrens?. Wattlebird, Tree Martin and Singing Honeyeater.

I don’t know the area but these are some birds I seem to see everywhere.

Thanks for that. Have now added five of those to the list, silvereye, thornbill, white browed scrubwren, fairy wrens, and wattlebird. Nearly put in New Holland Honeyeater as well.

Double thanks for suggesting Tree Martin. I see it almost everywhere, but usually I’m the only person who does see it. I saw a bird in Marysville that may have been a tree martin, but without a clear sight of its rump I wasn’t game.

I’ve found out from Bayside Birds that there is a website that lists local observations of bird species. For Marysville it’s
http://ebird.org/ebird/australia/hotspot/L2552833
I’ve added the most reliable bird observations of my group to that list.

The ebird website looks to be the best place to go for a bird species list prior to any holiday.