Tag: birds

Winter 2025, South West WA (#3 in series: historically, rare in urban areas)

Published September 5, 2025 by Pelidoug

Winter 2025, South West WA (#3 in series: historically, rare in urban areas)

Urban-resident Australian humans who were born after 1970 may find it very hard to believe, but this post’s headline is accurate.

Relatively speaking, Threskiornis molucca – the Australian white ibis – is a newcomer to urban life.

However, the so-called “bin chicken” was already resident on the Australian continent long before Homo sapiens arrived – let alone post-1788 humans and rubbish bins.

It is absolutely not a “feral” bird.

Contrary to what many Australians believe, it and the so-called “Sacred” or “Egyptian” ibis are entirely different species; the latter has never called Australia home.

Still, the roof of a “Federation Era” house in any Australian city – such as the Subiaco one, above – almost certainly never felt the pitter-patter of Threskiornis molucca‘s not-so-tiny feet until the final quarter of the 20th century, or the first quarter of the 21st.

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“Roadrunner” fairy wren: is he being wily?

Published August 19, 2025 by Pelidoug

“Roadrunner” fairy wren: is he being wily?

The featured image (above) was taken at 2.51 pm on 18 August 2025, near Beedelup Falls, in southwestern Western Australia’s “Karri country”.

Although not a very fine photo, it does show some very unusual behaviour.

”Flaunting it” is something to which any male member of the genus Malurus – the eleven Australian species generally known as “fairywrens” – devotes a deal of his life.

Generally, however, these “show-offs” are very wary; as soon as a flaunting fairywren senses a human’s presence, he “disappears”.

Q: So why was the pictured individual right out in the open, on a sealed roadway’s surface, and utterly unalarmed by my very obvious, very close presence?

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“Old city”, Lahore (#9 in series: bird men, with bigger birds)

Published July 5, 2025 by Pelidoug

“Old city”, Lahore (#9 in series: bird men, with bigger birds)

This post’s “bird men” are not selling birds to “benevolent” customers; in this case the feathered captives have zero chance of being freed.

These “bird men” are in the tourism/entertainment business.

In every sense, Lahore Fort is the “big one” among the walled city’s architectural/artistic gems.

It sprawls across 20 hectares; one of its various “Mughal heritage treasures” is the world’s biggest picture wall/mural.

Inevitably, a few non-heritage, merely-opportunistic “attractions” have inserted themselves into this UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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“Old city”, Lahore (#8 in series: bird men)

Published July 4, 2025 by Pelidoug

“Old city”, Lahore (#8 in series: bird men)

Cruelty. Benevolence. Illegal. Tolerated. Prosecuted. Unpunished. Accepted. Condemned. Caged. Freed. Virtue. Wrongdoing.

Q: which of the above words apply to the way in which this post’s pictured persons earn their living?

A: all of them…and it is a very safe bet that none of the pictured persons are wealthy.

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Flinders Island, March ‘25 (#21 in series: big geese, taking off)

Published June 3, 2025 by Pelidoug

Flinders Island, March ‘25 (#21 in series: big geese, taking off)

It is very safe to assume that on 26 March 2025 the pictured grassy “runway” experienced more landings, take-offs and taxiings than did Flinders Island’s airport.

At the airport each such action was a “one at a time” affair; in the paddock, invariably, each such event simultaneously involved a pair of partners-for-life.

The featured photo and the one below were taken within a few seconds of each other, and they show the same couple.

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Flinders Island, March ‘25 (#20 in series: ‘til death do them part)

Published June 2, 2025 by Pelidoug

Flinders Island, March ‘25 (#20 in series: ‘til death do them part)

Cape Barren geese are monogamous, and a “breeding pair” usually forms a life-long bond.

During the breeding season the pair focus almost exclusively on each other, their nest and their eggs/chicks.

After breeding season (generally, in tussocky wild places on offshore islands) Cape Barren geese usually fly to grassy places.

These are often on south-coastal, mainland-Australian farmland, or paddocks on the larger offshore islands.

In “grazing mode”, the geese are more generally-sociable.

However, as you can see in the immediately-preceding chapter’s photo, even within grazing “flocks” the pair-bonds are conspicuously evident.

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Flinders Island, March ‘25 (#19 in series: still rare, no longer endangered)

Published June 1, 2025 by Pelidoug

Flinders Island, March ‘25 (#19 in series: still rare, no longer endangered)

The world’s rarest goose lives only in Hawai’i; click here to discover more about the Nene, aka “The Hawaiian Goose”.

The second rarest goose species – pictured above – lives only in certain southern Australian coastal places.

Like the Nene, the Cape Barren Goose (Cereopsis novaehollandiae) very nearly became extinct; by 1950, both species appeared to be “doomed”.

However, conservation efforts in the 20th century’s second half proved successful.

Neither species is now on the IUCN’s list of “threatened” species.

Certain key physical and behavioural features of Cape Barren geese are evident in the photo.

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Flinders Island, March ‘25 (#17 in series: Babel Island)

Published May 26, 2025 by Pelidoug

Flinders Island, March ‘25 (#17 in series: Babel Island)

This post’s photos were both taken from atop Red Bluff, circa midway along Flinders Island’s east coast.

No bird is visible in either image.

Both the wide angle and “normal perspective” images – respectively, 34mm & 58 mm – look to Babel Island, which covers just 440 hectares.

During one large seabird’s breeding season, this small island is home to a deal more than six million individuals!

You are looking at the site of the world’s largest shearwater “colony”.

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Flinders Island, March ‘25 (#13 in series: superb, sassy)

Published May 19, 2025 by Pelidoug

Flinders Island, March ‘25 (#13 in series: superb, sassy)

None of Australia’s 10 fairywrens are “true” wrens.

However, all are truly beautiful.

3 equally beautiful species: superb fairywren, splendid fairywren and lovely fairywren.

The last-named lives only in near-coastal parts of Queensland’s Cape York Peninsula; the other two have much wider ranges.

When southeastern Australians wax lyrical about “blue wrens” they usually have in mind the “superb” species, whilst a southwestern Australian is probably thinking of the “splendid” kind.

On Flinders Island all “blue wrens” are “superb”, albeit members of the island’s own subspecies of Malurus cyaneus.

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Deep South WA, Feb ‘25 (final in series: red-eared firetail)

Published April 29, 2025 by Pelidoug

Deep South WA, Feb ‘25 (final in series: red-eared firetail)

Three of Australia’s nineteen to twenty-one recognised “finch” species are “firetails”.

(Australia has the world’s most “collectible”/“beautiful” finch species, but some members of the human species do not regard Australia’s finches as “true” finches)

Arguably, the finest-feathered firetail is the one that naturally occurs only in a small portion of a single Australian State.

Within its range, this species is neither rare nor threatened.

However, remarkably few humans have seen this bird.

An even smaller number have ever managed to see one, properly.

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