Bird 'watching' - then and now

In 1602, Shakespeare wrote in The Merry Wives of Windsor, "She laments sir... her husband goes this morning a-birding”, which probably meant he went hunting or trapping birds, or gathering their eggs. The term ‘birding’ is still used today in some places, mainly though for the peaceful pursuit of just watching birds.

John Gould named the Gouldian Finch, Chloebia gouldiae, in honour of his wife

In 1838, John Gould and his wife Elizabeth arrived in Australia and began to document the birds of this continent – mainly Tasmania, New South Wales and South Australia. Gould, who was formerly a taxidermist, ‘collected’ fresh specimens for Elizabeth to draw. According to his own accounts, Gould seldom turned down the chance to taste the flesh of his specimens.

Reed Warbler specimen - part of the Hume collection in the Natural History Museum

In 1885, British ornithologist Allan Octavian Hume, donated a collection of more than 60,000 bird skins and 20,000 bird eggs to the Natural History Museum in London. Hume’s collection was amassed while he was a civil servant on the Indian subcontinent.

In the 1950’s in the UK, the term ‘twitcher’ was used to describe a serious birdwatcher prepared to travel long distances to catch a glimpse of a rare bird. Twitchers are often dedicated list-makers. The term ‘twitcher’ has an interesting origin: a serious birdwatcher, Howard Medhurst, would arrive at a destination on the back of a friend’s motorbike and he was so cold and shivering his friends described him as twitching.

Ornithologists today are a little more commiserative.

The term ‘bird watching’, now interchangeable with ‘birdwatching’ apparently, first appeared in North America in 1901. The pursuit of birdwatching became increasingly popular as optical quality of telescopes improved and with the emergence of readily available field guides. Today, with the development of binoculars, phone cameras and apps, the average age of birdwatchers has plummeted.

Whether birding, birdwatching or twitching, observing and learning about birds is a mindful pastime, accessible to everyone. Birdwatching can be done in your own backyard, or as some do, you can fly overseas just to see birds. Birdwatching connects you to nature, lowers your stress and improves your well-being.

 

Birdsong

Vivaldi is the composer most thought of as the one that imitated birdsong in his musical compositions, especially in Spring – The Four Seasons, where he used a flute concerto to imitate the song of the Goldfinch. The songs and calls of larks, cuckoos, swans, linnets, orioles, magpies, etc., have all been the inspiration for many composers down the years.

Some recent research by French scientists using AI to analyse 100,000 songs from 3,000 bird species revealed they all consisted of 8 fundamental types of sound that are used in various combinations to produce the myriad of trills, whistles and harmonies that birds use.  

Listening to (some) bird’s songs has long been recognised as having many therapeutic benefits. 

Here’s some links to some favourite local birdsongs to help cope with our grey winter days …

Grey Shrike-thrush                           Grey Butcherbird                            Golden Whistler

 

Superb Fairy-wren                     Gang-gang Cockatoo                     Brown Thornbill

Willie Wagtail                             Eastern Whipbird                           Lewin's Honeyeater

         Grey Fantail                           Australian Magpie                       Laughing Kookaburra

There are numerous online sources for downloading birdsong. Many current bird apps have excellent birdsong features to help recognize which bird goes with which song. Be careful but, many birds, not just the Lyrebird, are good imitators of other birds and many have different calls for different reasons – territorial, courting, communicating, alarm, etc.

Wood wide web - fact or fallacy?

It has been long well-accepted that trees and fungi have a mutual partnership. Mycorrhizal fungi are able to act as an extension of the tree’s root systems. The fungi help provide the trees with minerals and water from the soil and the trees supply the fungi with sugars formed from photosynthesis in their leaves. This example of beneficial mutualism between the two species has been known since 1885 when the German scientist, A B Frank discovered the relationship.

A small mycelium network on the underside of a log - Bunyip SP

After producing a number of scientific papers in 2021, Canadian forest ecologist Suzanne Simard, published ‘Finding the Mother Tree’, a book in which she proposed that the mycorrhizal fungi can be used by the trees to share resources between one another, even that the trees can ‘communicate’ with each other by sending and receiving signals via the fungi.

It has now emerged that the speed at which Simard’s hypothesis has spread, has outpaced any science underlying it – it appears that more research is needed.

Spectacular Rustgill (probably!) - Thornell's Reserve

In 2023, Professor Justine Karst and two other scientists published a paper in the journal Nature, Ecology and Evolution with the wonderful title ‘Positive Citation Bias and Overinterpreted Results Lead to Misinformation on Common Mycorrhizal Networks in Forests’, a scientist’s way of saying ‘we think you are wrong’.

Nangara Reserve

Whatever. While the debate rages, I won’t be deterred from visiting some of my favourite forests and marvelling at the amazing diversity of fungi, trees and other flora and fauna that are under threat from climate change and other man-made activities.

 

 

Winter wanderings

Being out and about in cold weather apparently burns more calories as the body works harder to maintain core temperature. Cold weather walking can also boost the immune system, stimulate deeper breathing, boost vitamin D, and improves mood. While we don’t have snow on the ground, some days it has been pretty cold lately but there is still plenty happening in our parks and reserves.

At Golden Whistler Reserve, the Nodding Greenhood Orchids are putting on a great show at present. Listen for the tchew-tchew call of the Eastern Yellow Robin and noses to the ground for some interesting fungi.

A pair of Pelicans have arrived at McNeilly Park wetlands.

Down at Bellbird Park wetland, the Superb Fair-wrens have enjoyed our mulch-spreading and a couple of Swamp Rats were undisturbed by our working bee.

So, time to rug up and check out some nature on our doorstep! 

 

Our birds need some help

A posting on this site almost 2 years ago suggested that although not in Australia at that time, H5N1, a virulent strain of Bird Flu was surely going to come. Well, it is here. Three days ago, the Australian Government announced, “a detection of H5 high pathogenicity avian influenza was confirmed by the CSIRO Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness in single Brown Skua in Western Australia.” Further sick and dead birds are being tested at this time.

While migratory seabirds, other waterbird species and domestic poultry are the most significant natural carriers of the virus, it can spread virulently through other avian species and mammals.

Sick or dead birds, particularly waterbirds – swans, ducks, etc., raptors, gulls, terns, etc. – should be reported as quickly as possible.

Birdlife Australia has a useful H5 Bird Flu FAQ page (being updated) worth perusing.

Are we ready for the next El Niño?

Around 200 years ago, Peruvian fishermen recognized that from time to time, around Christmas, the oceans would begin to warm up. El Niño (the boy child) and La Niña (the girl child) are not new climatic phenomena. El Niño and La Niña are opposite climate patterns that arise from changes in the sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. El Niño and La Niña can affect weather patterns around the world.

Differences in sea surface temperatures June 2026 - WMO

We now have the knowledge and expertise to predict the oncoming of these events – although it can be complicated. There are strong predictions for an El Niño event for later this year, extending into 2027, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

Sea Surface temperature indices - BoM

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (YouTube) is expecting a transition to an El Niño a bit later this winter, which will bring hotter and drier weather to eastern Australia. The Black Summer Bushfires of 2019/20 (Wikipedia) - 24 million hectares burnt, 3000 buildings destroyed, 33 lives lost - were a direct result of the 2018/19 El Niño event. 

Shade trees reduce the urban heat island effect during periods of extreme heat

The ever-increasing frequency and strength of El Niño events, combined with global warming due to climate change, makes urban tree cover an obvious obligation!

Why is Australia’s crisis in nature invisible to many people?

Australia’s isolation for millions of years has produced a bewildering array of endemic species. More than 80% of our plants, our mammals, our reptiles and our frogs are found nowhere else in the world. Nearly 50% of our birds are only found in Australia.

Last year, 42 new species were added to the national Australian threatened species lists. In 2024, 54 species were added, and in 2023, a staggering 144 species were added to our threatened list. It is estimated that, in Australia, between 1 and 3 species of invertebrates become extinct every WEEK! Habitat destruction, invasive species and climate change are all contributors to this country having the highest mammal extinction rate in the world.

Southern Brown Bandicoot - Endangered (F&FG Act & EPBC Act)

Even the smallest amount of investigation of the subject will soon convince the researcher that Australia has a nature crisis. The decline is ongoing and accelerating. Disappointingly, we seem not to care.

The parade of recent federal Minister’s for the Environment, despite their heartening election pitches, seem able to achieve little to amend the situation. Environmentalist and conservation groups such as the Invasive Species Council, the Australian Land Conservation Alliance, the Australian Conservation Foundation, and the State and Territory Conservation Councils of Australia, were all highly critical of the recent Labor Government’s budget announcements.

Glen Nayook cool temperate rainforest community - Threatened (F&FG Act)

Even Labor’s much vaunted Nature Positive Plan introduced in 2022 by the then Minister for the Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek, has recently been watered down: environmental standards have been diluted; mining and business interests have successfully blocked the strengthening of the EPA powers; the use of biodiversity credits for offsetting environmental damage have been altered and remain highly controversial; and more.

Gang-gang Cockatoo - Endangered (F&FG Act & EPBC Act)

Perhaps though, we shouldn’t be blaming our politicians – entirely. Recent public surveys for example found that 20% of respondents believed that foxes were native to Australia and a straw poll at a barbecue, conducted by a journalist at The Age, found that no one knew what a Quoll was!

Cobra Greenhood - Endangered (F&FG Act)

And yet, in March last year, a survey of over 3,000 respondents by the Biodiversity Council, found that there is, “… a growing concern among Australians about the state and future of nature”. There seems to be a dichotomy here.

It appears that successive generations of Australians are losing touch with our native environment in a form of cultural amnesia. While we acclaim our gum trees, our kangaroos and emus, we seem to be very unaware of the harmful processes that are re-shaping our environment.

It’s already too late for some of our special species. Will we wake up in time to save the remainder?

 

 

 

Pin Oak

Some of Drouin’s Pin Oaks are looking their best at the moment

The Pin Oak, Quercus palustris, is native to North America but is grown widely around the world as a street and parkland tree.

In its natural state, the Pin Oak is a wetland tree. It grows best on poorly-drained soils and it doesn’t tolerate shading from other trees particularly well. Quercus means oak, and palustris means marshland or swamp giving rise to an alternative common name of Swamp Oak.

The classical pyramidal shape of the Pin Oak is a result of the branches growing in a distinctive pattern: upper branches tend to point upwards, middle branches are roughly horizontal, and the lower branches often droop.

Unlike many other trees in the oak genus, Pin Oaks tend not to be long-lived – little more than 100 years usually. The Jarupa Oak in California, Quercus palmeri, is a clonal plant thought to be 13,000 years old!

Of interest: Pin Oak Court in Vermont South, named for the trees that once defined it, has another famous name, Ramsay Street – ring any bells?

 

 

Thornbills - those little brown jobs

A decent bird field guide will inform you that Australia has ten or more species of those little brown birds called thornbills. They are perhaps the most frustrating bird to properly identify for a beginner bird watcher, hence the term LBJ: Little Brown Job.

Originally, variously called Tit, Tit-bird, Tit-warbler, and Tit-mouse, it wasn’t until the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union in 1926 officially listed them as Thornbills that they got their current moniker. Some references describe the origins of ‘thornbill’ for their tiny thorn-like bill, others say it is because they like to occupy thorn-bushes (which is not always true). Since they belong to the Acanthiza genus and acantha is Greek for thorn or prickle or prickly plant, the obscurity remains – for me at least. The taxonomy of bird names can be a never-ending pursuit. Here’s a link to the Wikipedia page for Acanthiza.

Whatever, our thornbills are endearing little brown (mostly) birds. They are not stunningly colourful, or melodic, particularly, but for many of us sad bird people, they are little charmers.

In West Gippsland, we have three thornbill species that can be commonly encountered; in order of most frequently seen – Brown Thornbill, A. pusilla (pusilla = small) Striated Thornbill, A. lineata (lineata = lined) and the Yellow Thornbill, A. nana (nana = dwarf).

Brown Thornbill The most common identifiers include: rufous crown with scalloping, red eye, dark striations on throat and belly.

Brown Thornbills have a surprisingly loud call for a little bird – a deep, rolling ‘pee-orr’, a high-pitched ‘seee’, and a harsh ‘tzzt’. Brown Thornbills are usually seen in small groups in the understory. Some lucky people have them in their native gardens.

Striated Thornbill  Obvious streaking around the eye, over the crown and down the throat and belly. Body colour can vary – lemony-yellowy-buff-brownish-greyish …

You need good hearing to hear their high-pitched, insect-like ‘tzz-tzz’ in the tree tops. Striateds are usually found in small groups high in the eucalypt canopy, where they can be remarkably faithful to their territory. Being so small and so high up, Striated Thornbills are probably more abundant in this district than we realise.

Yellow Thornbill  Yellow Thornbills are almost entirely yellow with some pale streaking around the eye.

They have a deep but soft ‘chidid-tz-tz’ call. Yellow Thornbills seldom inhabit eucalypts and are nearly always seen in the vicinity of wattles, casaurinas, and other trees with ‘feathery’ foliage. Like the striated, Yellow Thornbills can often be seen regularly in the same location containing their preferred habitat.

All three of these thornbills are small and active – good luck!

 

 

Autumn, the season of change

“Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away; Lengthen night and shorten day; Every leaf speaks bliss to me Fluttering from the autumn tree.” – Emily Bronte

The ‘season of change’ is one of the best times to explore some of our parks and gardens. Alex Goudie Park at present is a picture. The Honey Locust is turning gold, the Pin Oaks have carpets of leaves beneath them, and the Fly Agarics are popping up under the Norway Spruce.

Hot, dry summers can be very stressful times for many plants, and many Australian trees and shrubs have adapted to flower in autumn and winter when the soil is still warm, the temperature more benign, and the rain more predictable. Many Hakeas, Grevilleas, and Correas are at their best at this time of year.

There are of course, other autumnal connotations for some!

 

Avifaunal sexual dimorphism

… or, the difference between girl birds and boy birds.

Golden Whistler (dimorphic)

The visual difference between male and female birds is very obvious in some species. The sombre grey tones of the female Golden Whistler are so completely different from the visually striking gold, black and white of the male.

Chestnut Teal (dimorphic - and the female has two legs😊)

The female Chestnut Teal has mottled brown feathers with a grey edge, a pale white throat patch, and lacks the iridescent green head of the male.

King Parrot (dimorphic)

When the sexes are visually different in the bird world, it is mostly the male that is more colourful or at least visually brighter than the female (but not always – see later). Sexual dimorphism is the condition where different sexes of the same species exhibit differences in form, size, colour or structure. Sometimes the differences can be very minimal or subtle, and easily missed.

Crested Pigeon (monomorphic but some males might have a longer crest)

About half the world’s birds exhibit sexual dimorphism. The other half are monomorphic – the sexes are similar. Field guides will often describe monomorphic species as “sexes are similar” or sometimes, “sexes are similar, females duller”. In some field guides, no attempt is made to distinguish between male and female monomorphic species, just ‘adult’ and ‘juvenile’ differences might be explained.

Large-billed Corella (monomorphic)

A very few species of birds exhibit reverse sexual dimorphism (RSD) that is, the female is visually more colourful/brighter than the male.

Eclectus Parrot - Moonlit Sanctuary (reverse sexually dimorphic)

The Eclectus Parrot from Cape York Peninsula is a reverse sexually dimorphic species. The male is uniform emerald green with scarlet underwings. The female is a striking scarlet and blue bird.                                                                                                       

 

 

 

Sweet Chestnut

The Hundred-horse Chestnut (Wikipedia) is a Sweet Chestnut tree in Sicily that estimated to be between 2,000 and 4,000 years old. Almost at the beginning of the walking track in Golden Whistler Reserve there is a much younger version. At the moment – autumn – this tree is full of fruit.

The Sweet Chestnut, Castanea sativa, is native to Europe, Asia and Africa. Its true origin is thought to be Türkiye and/or the Caucuses but is now naturalised in many countries around the world.

The spiny fruit contains the nuts that are a favourite food raw, roasted or processed into a flour. Sweet Chestnuts are high in fibre and low in fat. They are gluten free and are rich in vitamins and antioxidants. The wood is valuable too – it is durable and resistant to rot.

There are hundreds of chestnut growers in Australia. About 75% of Australia’s chestnuts come from orchards in north-east Victoria. The tree was probably introduced to this country with the arrival of migrants for the 1850s gold rush.

Please note:

Sweet Chestnuts are edible, but Horse Chestnuts are poisonous (Plantura Magazine UK). The sweet chestnut fruit is brown when ripe and has numerous long bristly spines. It contains two to three nuts at a time, which are fairly small, flattened and triangular.

The Horse Chestnut fruit is thick and green, with small, short, more widely spaced spikes, and generally contain only one larger, rounded nut.

 

 

Australian Gypsywort

Australian Gypsywort, Lycopus australis, or Bugleweed, or Water Horehound, is an erect perennial herb that grows in moist to wet places around swamps, bogs and wetlands. It is a useful plant for binding the soil and providing food and habitat for a range of insects, frogs, etc.

Lycopus australis is native to Australia, quite common around wetlands in Victoria.  In Tasmania, Australian Gypsywort is a listed as ‘endangered’ in the Threatened Species Protection Act 1995. Good native nurseries often have Australian Gypsywort available for home gardeners to use in wet areas, frog ponds, etc.

There were several healthy populations of Australian Gypsywort at Thomas Maddock Reserve during a recent bird survey.

Bird migration

Q: Why do birds fly north in winter? A: Because it’s too far to walk!

There were some strange early myths (Audubon.org) about where birds went in winter: they buried themselves in mud; they turned into other species (when no one was looking); or like today’s Artemis II crew, they went to the moon!

Early aviculturists noticed that some caged bird species would get restless in autumn and even all fly to one end of their enclosure. In 1822, some German villagers shot down a White Stork that had a spear made from an African wood impaled in it – some early physical evidence that birds flew between continents.

Much more is known these days about where birds go, thanks to bird-banding, mist-netting, satellite telemetry tracking, and sound monitoring.

The term migration describes periodic, large-scale movements of populations of animals. Movements of a smaller scale are often referred to as dispersal, nomadism, or vagrancy. Bird movements at all levels are a response to seasonal changes, weather patterns, food availability, day length, even genetic makeup – usually a combination of several factors.

Australia is the destination of some of the world’s longest bird migrations. Many of our shorebird species fly thousands of kilometres annually to spend summer here and when autumn/winter arrives, they fly north as far as Alaska and Siberia. A Bar-tailed Godwit holds the record for the longest non-stop flight of any bird, with a 13,560km continuous flight from Alaska to Tasmania (ABC News).

L: Eastern Curlew, Port Albert (Russia/East China)
R: Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, Hollands Landing (Siberia)

Most of Australia’s migratory shorebird species use the ‘East Asian – Australasian Flyway’ (EAAFP explanatory YouTube video - 6min).

While we do not get long-distance shorebirds in West Gippsland, we do get Latham’s Snipe that spend our winter in Japan – they will have left here by now. Other things are happening right now in our district too: the Pied Currawongs, Scarlet Robins, and Flame Robins are beginning to arrive from their summer lodgings up in the high country; Rufous Whistlers and Australian Reed Warblers have gone north; Silvereyes and Pardalotes have dispersed; etc.

Birds on the move. Top row: Scarlet Robin, Australian Reed Warbler, Rufous Whistler
Bottom row: Silvereye, Spotted Pardalote, Flame Robin

Here today, gone, back tomorrow (notwithstanding climate change).

 

Nature needs a hand

The loss of biodiversity is a global phenomenon (The Guardian). Around the world, climate change, loss of habitat, unsustainable use of resources, pollution, and invasive species are impacting the health of a broad range of terrestrial and marine ecosystems.  Much of Australia’s unique natural environment is in decline. A committed and cooperative approach is needed to repair fragmented ecosystems, protect habitat, and to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Toorongo River Noojee

We need nature’s natural resources. Nature provides us with clean air and water. Nature provides industries like fisheries, forestry, agriculture, manufacture, and tourism with the resources for economic sustainability. Our own health and wellbeing are enhanced by spending time in nature.

The Gurdies NCR Grantville

There is an obligation by all of us – federal, state and local governments, volunteer groups, and individuals – to sustainably manage our natural places. We have to all work together to enrich our towns with nature and to inform and educate the community on the values of conserving and protecting our precious natural ecosystems.

Gang-gang Cockatoo (now 'threatened'), Thornell's Reserve Drouin

And somehow, we must convince the biophobes (British Ecological Society) in our community to become biophiliacs (Earth Day).

 

Big bolete beats birds!

During a recent bird survey at McNeilly Park in Drouin, we came across a classic example of a member of the boletus family of fungi. The boletus genus has at least 100 species. The fertile underside of boletes consists of a fleshy-pore surface rather than gills. We think this one is the Salmon Gum Mushroom, Phlebopus marginatus, however the correct identification of many fungi is a minefield for the untrained amateur.

Bolete sp at McNeilly Park 24th March

Most references suggest this species can grow to have cap diameters up to 1m. Apparently, Victoria’s largest recorded mushroom is/was a 29kg bolete.

Same mushroom 4 days later

Note: Largest ‘mushroom’ is not the same as the largest ‘fungus’. The ‘mushroom’ is just the fruiting body of the ‘fungus’ whose main part consists of the mycelium network under the ground (or in the rotten log, etc.). The one fungus can have many mushrooms. The largest ‘fungus’ in the world is believed to be an armillaria species in Oregan, USA, and it covers an area of more than 9km²!

The soft fleshy cap of Phlebopus marginatus is a popular habitat for fungus gnats in which to lay their eggs. After hatching, the maggot larvae dine on the mushroom’s rotting flesh.

Gnat/fly larvae in rotting bolete flesh

Another, smaller yet more striking member of the bolete family is the Rhubarb Bolete, Boletellus obscurecoccineus. Like marginatus, obscurecoccineus, grows in ground litter in eucalypt woodlands.

Rhubarb Bolete at Edward Hunter Reserve, Moe

BTW, the bird survey yielded 33 native species – and yet no herons, cormorants or raptors.