Aussie Backyard Bird Count is here again.

Choose a location, any location with which you’re familiar, and spend 20 minutes observing birds.

Then submit either through the web (like me) on through the App.

It’s officially for 23-29 Oct but you can record for about a week before and a week after.

https://aussiebirdcount.org.au/

Will do

My chickens were carrying on the other week so I went out to see what is was all about and couldn’t see anything and told them off for making it up. I then heard a scrapping noise from the house behind me and a large bird was on the roof, I felt the need to apologise to them as they hadn’t made it up even though it wasn’t actually a predator just a weird looking bird.

Cymek said:

My chickens were carrying on the other week so I went out to see what is was all about and couldn’t see anything and told them off for making it up. I then heard a scrapping noise from the house behind me and a large bird was on the roof, I felt the need to apologise to them as they hadn’t made it up even though it wasn’t actually a predator just a weird looking bird.

Do they withhold their eggs if you don’t apologise?

The Rev Dodgson said:

Cymek said:

My chickens were carrying on the other week so I went out to see what is was all about and couldn’t see anything and told them off for making it up. I then heard a scrapping noise from the house behind me and a large bird was on the roof, I felt the need to apologise to them as they hadn’t made it up even though it wasn’t actually a predator just a weird looking bird.

Do they withhold their eggs if you don’t apologise?

Not so far but it is a risk

I’m sort of keeping track of my “bird of the day” and “non-bird of the day”.

Non-bird of the day today – close second was a drone that I spotted while looking for birds in the distance.
First place went to an unidentifiable bird call – it turned out to be a man walking towards me playing a toy whistle.

There have been quail up the backyard and in the front yard whenever I go for a walk. The baby sparrowhawks are on the wing early this year.

roughbarked said:

There have been quail up the backyard and in the front yard whenever I go for a walk. The baby sparrowhawks are on the wing early this year.

It’s interesting each year to see which bird I see in the biggest flock.
Two years ago there was a flock of 200 sharp tailed sandpipers.
Last year a flock of 700 silver gulls.
This year so far it’s a flock of 167 coots, with a flock of 130 white ibis in second place.

Well it all depends on the time of year and weather events as to which flocking of birds may be the biggest seen on any one day.
ie: I know weather is coming when white browed woodswallows fill the skies over me.
I know that the wheat harvests are on when there are 500 baby galahs in the yellow box out front.
It is a bit early yet to see the sixty odd Major Mitchell babies play with the young sparrowhawks. Though I think that this year the sparrowhawks have left the nest earlier than usual.

I’m having trouble with orange-bellied parrot AGAIN. Again in Melbourne.

Two years ago and last year I saw parrots with bright orange bellies and ID-ed them as orange bellied parrots. Last year I got confirmation (by photos) that they were in fact red-rumped parrots which, despite what all the bird books say, can have an orange belly.

Now this year again I saw two parrots with orange bellies, in a different location, feeding on the ground next to water. But this time the parrots clearly had pale blue wings, which red-rumped parrots do not. So what now? Orange-bellied, red-rumped or blue-winged?

Other birds known to be present at the new location include large numbers of new-holland honeyeater, goldfinch, greenfinch, brown thornbill, red-browed finch, white-browed scrubwren etc. as well as the common birds found elsewhere.

I think I may have a way of telling. Damnit, no. There is a bird list for this location (Henry Street Heatherton) on the web. http://www.birdlifebayside.org/BirdDB/location No parrots other than rainbow lorikeets on the bird web list for Henry St. Not even the galahs I know to be there.

mollwollfumble said:

I’m having trouble with orange-bellied parrot AGAIN. Again in Melbourne.

Two years ago and last year I saw parrots with bright orange bellies and ID-ed them as orange bellied parrots. Last year I got confirmation (by photos) that they were in fact red-rumped parrots which, despite what all the bird books say, can have an orange belly.

Now this year again I saw two parrots with orange bellies, in a different location, feeding on the ground next to water. But this time the parrots clearly had pale blue wings, which red-rumped parrots do not. So what now? Orange-bellied, red-rumped or blue-winged?

Other birds known to be present at the new location include large numbers of new-holland honeyeater, goldfinch, greenfinch, brown thornbill, red-browed finch, white-browed scrubwren etc. as well as the common birds found elsewhere.

I think I may have a way of telling. Damnit, no. There is a bird list for this location (Henry Street Heatherton) on the web. http://www.birdlifebayside.org/BirdDB/location No parrots other than rainbow lorikeets on the bird web list for Henry St. Not even the galahs I know to be there.

The males have the orange belly.

roughbarked said:

mollwollfumble said:

I’m having trouble with orange-bellied parrot AGAIN. Again in Melbourne.

Two years ago and last year I saw parrots with bright orange bellies and ID-ed them as orange bellied parrots. Last year I got confirmation (by photos) that they were in fact red-rumped parrots which, despite what all the bird books say, can have an orange belly.

Now this year again I saw two parrots with orange bellies, in a different location, feeding on the ground next to water. But this time the parrots clearly had pale blue wings, which red-rumped parrots do not. So what now? Orange-bellied, red-rumped or blue-winged?

Other birds known to be present at the new location include large numbers of new-holland honeyeater, goldfinch, greenfinch, brown thornbill, red-browed finch, white-browed scrubwren etc. as well as the common birds found elsewhere.

I think I may have a way of telling. Damnit, no. There is a bird list for this location (Henry Street Heatherton) on the web. http://www.birdlifebayside.org/BirdDB/location No parrots other than rainbow lorikeets on the bird web list for Henry St. Not even the galahs I know to be there.

The males have the orange belly.

Thanks!

Got a clue. Only 100 metres away is Karkarook Park, and red-rumped parrots have been spotted at Karkarook, though only once in 8 bird outings by the local birding society.

Until I get a photo, I’ll put them down as red-rumped. Ta.

mollwollfumble said:

I’m having trouble with orange-bellied parrot AGAIN. Again in Melbourne.

Two years ago and last year I saw parrots with bright orange bellies and ID-ed them as orange bellied parrots. Last year I got confirmation (by photos) that they were in fact red-rumped parrots which, despite what all the bird books say, can have an orange belly.

Now this year again I saw two parrots with orange bellies, in a different location, feeding on the ground next to water. But this time the parrots clearly had pale blue wings, which red-rumped parrots do not. So what now? Orange-bellied, red-rumped or blue-winged?

Other birds known to be present at the new location include large numbers of new-holland honeyeater, goldfinch, greenfinch, brown thornbill, red-browed finch, white-browed scrubwren etc. as well as the common birds found elsewhere.

I think I may have a way of telling. Damnit, no. There is a bird list for this location (Henry Street Heatherton) on the web. http://www.birdlifebayside.org/BirdDB/location No parrots other than rainbow lorikeets on the bird web list for Henry St. Not even the galahs I know to be there.

Juvenile birds can be difficult to id because their plumage is often different ,or at odds with the adults until they reach maturity. I think the Orange-bellied Parrot is quite small.

Not putting as much effort in this year.

Birds this year not seen last year.
Koel, sharpie, hardhead.

Birds last year not seen this year yet.
Butcherbird, currawong, grey currawong, black cocky, fan tailed cuckoo, yellow faced honeyeater, white cheeked honeyeater, tree sparrow, pelican, sacred kingfisher, musk lorrie, little lorrie, crimson rosella, pacific gull, crested tern, darter, yellow robin, bifcus, shrike thrush, etc.

Others from two years ago not seen this year yet.
Shelduck, common sandpiper.

Long way to go.

mollwollfumble said:

Not putting as much effort in this year.

Birds this year not seen last year.
Koel, sharpie, hardhead.

Birds last year not seen this year yet.
Butcherbird, currawong, grey currawong, black cocky, fan tailed cuckoo, yellow faced honeyeater, white cheeked honeyeater, tree sparrow, pelican, sacred kingfisher, musk lorrie, little lorrie, crimson rosella, pacific gull, crested tern, darter, yellow robin, bifcus, shrike thrush, etc.

Others from two years ago not seen this year yet.
Shelduck, common sandpiper.

Long way to go.

I’m still lamenting whatever was done in this area by farming as all the dawn chorus I used to get here 20 years ago is gone. It simply doesn’t happen any more. More farms have been opened up and the canal has been revamped(which cost a lot of habitat), water is being put where no water was ever put and farmers are actively spraying and shooting birds.

All of life here is about making money. Sane people would not come here for the climate. If they’d listened to John Oxley, they should have left the place to nature and like him, never come back.

Much of the food production from here ends up on a tip in a major city anyway.

> all the dawn chorus I used to get here 20 years ago is gone.

I’m suspending judgement on that. My reason is that I heard the same complaint from a birder who lived south of here at a fantastic bird site. I came to the conclusion that his perception was coloured by increasing familiarity, he no longer head songs he’d become very familiar with. Coupled with hearing loss with age. Two bird species had disappeared, but that was all.

The real shocker this year, I just realised. No pigeons!. ie. Not one rock dove so far this year.

Wiily wag tails, butcher birds, maggies, kookaburras , one owl at least once that I can remember, lorries, indian mynors , eagles , cockatoos and that is all i can think of at this moment.

oh and a blackbird that has a loud call.

crested pigeons they often nest in the front garden hedge plant thing.

What is your bird counting modus operandi moll?

How do you define the area/s that you survey?

Ian said:

What is your bird counting modus operandi moll?

How do you define the area/s that you survey?

Officially or unofficially?

I go to any place that I’m familiar with: house, street or park.

The official bird counting method is to stand still for 20 minutes and count all the birds that are seen or heard from that location, including those seen flying.

I tend to go on a slow walk for those 20 minutes. The biggest area covered in any walk was (150 m) squared, but that’s really too large and I try to limit it to a maximum of half that. And when there are hardly any birds around I will sometimes give up after a shorter time, such as 5, 10 or 15 minutes. On one occasion I got an experienced birder to help, which is perfectly OK just input a single list compiled from all observers.

One slight problem with the survey is there’s nothing to stop two different people independently going to the same location. This year this happened at the Edithvale bird hide – and the resident single magpie goose for example ended up being duplicated. That magpie goose has been resident there for more than 10 years.

Another official rule is: if you can’t get a firm ID on the bird – omit it. Sometimes I’ll record a birdsong in shorthand and identify the call later from birdsong recordings on the web.

>count all the birds that are seen or heard from that location, including those seen flying.

It must be hard to ID some of those.

> And when there are hardly any birds around I will sometimes give up after a shorter time, such as 5, 10 or 15 minutes. On one occasion I got an experienced birder to help, which is perfectly OK just input a single list compiled from all observers.

Aren’t you skewing the random nature of the survey?

>One slight problem with the survey is there’s nothing to stop two different people independently going to the same location. This year this happened at the Edithvale bird hide – and the resident single magpie goose for example ended up being duplicated. That magpie goose has been resident there for more than 10 years.

Yeah. I wonder how they derive meaningful results.

>Sometimes I’ll record a birdsong in shorthand

What shorthand?

Ian said:

>Sometimes I’ll record a birdsong in shorthand

What shorthand?

Glad you asked.

> Aren’t you skewing?

The organisers of the survey are aware of this, and allow it on condition that the observation time is listed.

mollwollfumble said:

I’m sort of keeping track of my “bird of the day” and “non-bird of the day”.

Non-bird of the day today – close second was a drone that I spotted while looking for birds in the distance.
First place went to an unidentifiable bird call – it turned out to be a man walking towards me playing a toy whistle.

Non-bird of the day today went to a pair of Great Horned Owls.

I was counting pigeons (Columba livia domestica) alighting on a flat roof and happened to look across the street. On the flat roof opposite were a pair of horned owls looking down at me. “Who is feeding those?” was my first thought. Rushed off and brought back my camera. Slowly moved up closer taking pictures at high zoom when I realised that the surface texture of the owls looked like pottery or concrete. Great Horned Owls are native to America and nothing like them exists in Australia.

Had me fooled for a full 5 to 10 minutes.

Second place for the non-bird of the day went to a warbling call of a motorcycle alarm.

Was just walking through the garden just now and saw a white flash. Because it was silent and too high at about eye height to be a cat, it had to be an owl. No idea which onme but it at least had white underparts.

Only one more day to get my bird count in too. Goodness. Luckily my tawny frogmouth family decided to return. And the Grevillea robusta is in flower, so I can add about a bazillion lorikeets to my sighting.

3 tawny frogmouths, 1 little wattlebird, 2 magpies, 15 rainbow lorikeets, 2 noisy miners. Shame the king parrots didn’t come for a visit too.

Have lost some of the visitors I used to get to the garden, the blue wrens and finches and the crested pigeons…only the more assertive birds left.

mollwollfumble said:

Ian said:

>Sometimes I’ll record a birdsong in shorthand

What shorthand?

Glad you asked.

Near enough for jazz.

ruby said:

3 tawny frogmouths, 1 little wattlebird, 2 magpies, 15 rainbow lorikeets, 2 noisy miners. Shame the king parrots didn’t come for a visit too.

Have lost some of the visitors I used to get to the garden, the blue wrens and finches and the crested pigeons…only the more assertive birds left.

Tawny frogmouth – great. King parrot is sort of my nemesis bird – I’ve never seen one in Melbourne, only in the mountains.

Non-bird of the day is this one. I was walking in an area with nowhere to sit so when I saw a log set up invitingly as a seat I rushed over to it, then realised that it was already taken. This dragon lizard has a length of 8 to 9 inches and width near 2 cm. It’s not a breaded dragon or eastern water dragon, which are the only two dragons I know. What it is?

Birds of the day included grey butcherbird (at last !), dusky woodswallow, white-eared honeyeater, eastern yellow robin, bell miner and wedge-tailed eagle. A pair of spotted pardalotes watched me at close range for a full six minutes today – what patience they have.

Still missing pelican and pacific gull, among many others.

This dragon lizard has a length of 8 to 9 inches and width near 2 cm. It’s not a breaded dragon or eastern water dragon, which are the only two dragons I know. What it is?

———

Looks like a bearded dragon to me.

Ian said:

This dragon lizard has a length of 8 to 9 inches and width near 2 cm. It’s not a breaded dragon or eastern water dragon, which are the only two dragons I know. What it is?

———

Looks like a bearded dragon to me.

I found it in the book “Melbourne’s wildlife” where I should have looked first. It’s known as a “Jackie Dragon”, Amphibolurus muricatus. The colour doesn’t exactly match (has light stripes rather than light stripes of triangles).

“Up to 120 mm long snout-vent. Variable colouring. The most common and widespread species of agamid lizard in the Melbourne area. Active during the day and is often seen basking on logs or fallen branches. Habitat from schlerophyll forest to coastal woodland that contains native vegetation.”

“The dark patches are interrupted by pale blotches that often blend together to form a continuous stripe from above the arm to the groin. A dark brown bar is present between the eye and the ear, but no dark stripe is present between the nostril and the eye as in many other dragons. The lips and lower jaw tend to be of a lighter coloration than the rest of the head.”

Oh dear, this bird count has become ridiculous.

Last year I only had trouble with two sites with somebody else duplicating my birds.So didn’t visit those two this year.

This year, golly, about half my bird list locations are duplicates. I’ve counted ten duplicate locations already and more will appear as more people submit lists. And that probably means that a substantial percentage of the birds counted are duplicates. My policy is never to knowingly duplicate a bird – if there’s another list in a similar location (within 300 metres) then I remove all matching bird species from my list. Other people don’t.

The other extreme annoyance I’m having this year is more natural – it’s the golden whistler. I now have incontrovertible evidence that the golden whistler duplicates the calls of the rufous whistler, whipbird, brown thornbill, white-eared honeyeater, white-naped honeyeater, white-plumed honeyeater, fan-tailed cuckoo, and others. And this is probably only half its vocal range. Even by sight, I’ve been known to confuse the female rufous whistler with a thornbill, and the flash of colour as the male flies by can be mistaken for a goldfinch. Grrr.

Bird of the day – silvereye.

mollwollfumble said:

Oh dear, this bird count has become ridiculous.

Last year I only had trouble with two sites with somebody else duplicating my birds.So didn’t visit those two this year.

This year, golly, about half my bird list locations are duplicates. I’ve counted ten duplicate locations already and more will appear as more people submit lists. And that probably means that a substantial percentage of the birds counted are duplicates. My policy is never to knowingly duplicate a bird – if there’s another list in a similar location (within 300 metres) then I remove all matching bird species from my list. Other people don’t.

The other extreme annoyance I’m having this year is more natural – it’s the golden whistler. I now have incontrovertible evidence that the golden whistler duplicates the calls of the rufous whistler, whipbird, brown thornbill, white-eared honeyeater, white-naped honeyeater, white-plumed honeyeater, fan-tailed cuckoo, and others. And this is probably only half its vocal range. Even by sight, I’ve been known to confuse the female rufous whistler with a thornbill, and the flash of colour as the male flies by can be mistaken for a goldfinch. Grrr.

Bird of the day – silvereye.

Oh, and I’m almost completely sure that nobody really saw a ‘musk duck’ on the main road just 230 metres from my front door.

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

Oh dear, this bird count has become ridiculous.

Last year I only had trouble with two sites with somebody else duplicating my birds.So didn’t visit those two this year.

This year, golly, about half my bird list locations are duplicates. I’ve counted ten duplicate locations already and more will appear as more people submit lists. And that probably means that a substantial percentage of the birds counted are duplicates. My policy is never to knowingly duplicate a bird – if there’s another list in a similar location (within 300 metres) then I remove all matching bird species from my list. Other people don’t.

The other extreme annoyance I’m having this year is more natural – it’s the golden whistler. I now have incontrovertible evidence that the golden whistler duplicates the calls of the rufous whistler, whipbird, brown thornbill, white-eared honeyeater, white-naped honeyeater, white-plumed honeyeater, fan-tailed cuckoo, and others. And this is probably only half its vocal range. Even by sight, I’ve been known to confuse the female rufous whistler with a thornbill, and the flash of colour as the male flies by can be mistaken for a goldfinch. Grrr.

Bird of the day – silvereye.

Oh, and I’m almost completely sure that nobody really saw a ‘musk duck’ on the main road just 230 metres from my front door.

It’s not a contest…

dv said:

mollwollfumble said:

Oh, and I’m almost completely sure that nobody really saw a ‘musk duck’ on the main road just 230 metres from my front door.

It’s not a contest…

If it’s not a contest, why do they have prizes?

I now think it ought to have been “musk lorikeet” not “musk duck”. (ps for dv, have finally drawn “orthokeets”, but am not completely happy with the result)

Saw only about half as many birds this year as last year, due to time pressures and overcrowding by other observers. eg. 123 magpies last year, 69 magpies this year. Here’s a more direct partial comparison, 2016 first picture, 2017 second picture, in alphabetical order. The “black-winged stilt” in 2016 is an oops, I meant pied stilt. Final tally for me this year is 46 checklists, 81 species and 2,260 birds.

I did not even know they had prizes

mollwollfumble said:

Oh dear, this bird count has become ridiculous.

Last year I only had trouble with two sites with somebody else duplicating my birds.So didn’t visit those two this year.

This year, golly, about half my bird list locations are duplicates. I’ve counted ten duplicate locations already and more will appear as more people submit lists. And that probably means that a substantial percentage of the birds counted are duplicates. My policy is never to knowingly duplicate a bird – if there’s another list in a similar location (within 300 metres) then I remove all matching bird species from my list. Other people don’t.

A quick back of envelope calculation gives 18 lists per square km in city centres and 8 lists per square km in city suburbs.

That gives a b.o.e calculation of about 300 metres between lists in city suburbs and 200 metres between lists in city centres. This is way too close.

I guestimate about a 5% bird duplication level, 5% of the birds in the count are duplicates, the exact same bird recorded by independent observers.

I suppose before the website map vanishes (possibly as early as 5 Nov) I’d better make a record of what places were NOT recorded in lists.

Not recorded.
1. Capital golf course, next to Moorabbin Airport – this is not free entry but used to contain a menagerie including emu and canada goose.
2. Three adjacent golf courses – Victoria, Sandringham and Royal Melbourne. Saw good birds on Victoria two years ago, failed to gain entrance to Sandringham.
3. Beaches at Elwood Canal and North Brighton.
4. Rippon Lea – not free entry
5. Caulfield Racecourse – saw only one good bird there last year
6. Huntingdale golf course – two years ago saw nothing of value there
7. Corner of Victory and Peace in Dingley – saw some good birds there, big flock of straw-necked ibis, last year
8. Eastern end of Henry St, Dingley – I recorded the western end only this year – great birds.
9. Farm dam just N of Capital golf course – good place for reed warblers last year.
10. Eastern side of Moorabbin Airport – not much there because of industrial growth.
11. Spring Valley Park, Springvale. Never visited
12. Caribbean Gardens – good birds last year – free entry on only one day of the week – nearly got locked in last year.
13. Tirhatuan wetlands. Never visited
14. The park area of Churchill National Park north of Lake Lysterfield. Good for shrike-thrush and have seen black cockatoo, but not hugely productive.
15. Melbourne Water Recreation Area, Dandenong. Never visited.
16. Eastern Treatment Works. They only allow access one day a month, and even then only to the official bird recording team.
17. Langwarren Flora and Fauna Reserve – SE corner. I only know the NW part and that’s already taken.
18. Buckley, Kangerong, Main Ridge (and Sunny Ridge farm) and Emu Plains conservation reserves, Mornington Peninsula. Never visited.
19. Ashcombe maze, Mornington Peninsula. Never bird-watched there.
20. Ace-hi ranch, Mornington Peninsula. Never bird-watched there.
21. Warringine Park and Jacks Beach, south of Hastings. Have seen an unidentifiable bird there.
22. Lilly James Flowers, Western Port. Never visited.
23. Moonlit Sanctuary, Westernport. Was shut last year so bird-watched from car park.
24. French Island Westernport. Three bird lists there already but that still leaves a lot of open space. Biking is an essential, start by heading north, then east.

That just about wraps up everywhere within range that doesn’t have any bird lists. Further out is Pakenham South (bupkis there), Bunyip State Park, Sugarloaf Reservoir, Laverton North.