Common Myna

MYNA

Of all the birds that visit my garden, the mynas are one of the most common.
 
Whilst the various field guides I have call this bird the Common Myna, as children we always called them Indian Mynas. My reading tells me they are native to Asia. I imagine that includes India.

Now I know they are not native to this country. I know they can drive away less aggressive natives. I know they can kill and eat the young of other birds in the nest. They might also eat small indigenous animals. I know they make a mess around my house, scratching leaves and compost all over my just swept paths. They also dig up many of my vegetable seedlings.





 
The "Birds In Backyards" website says this about mynas......

"The Common Myna's success is mostly
a result of its opportunistic behaviour and aggressiveness towards other species, bullying them around food sources and out competing them for nesting sites."

But they are a major part of my garden life so here they are.

Acridotheres tristis have been part of the Melbourne landscape since about 1850. Their name Acridotheres is from the Greek akridothera, loosely meaning locust hunter and tristis is a Latin word meaning "sad" or "foul smelling. What a lovely name! 

The Common Myna was introduced into the cane fields of north-eastern Queensland in 1883, to combat insect pests, particularly plague locusts and cane beetles. There you go!

Did you know?
A pair of Common Mynas (Acridotheres tristis) was first recorded at Ankara, Turkey, on 12.5.1996, and later proved to breed there successfully. This is the first documented record for Turkey.


 

Pardalotes

SPOTTED PARDALOTES Pardalotus punctatus

I have not noticed pardalotes in this part of Kilmore before. There are plenty just a little to the north over Green's Pinch. Over this ridge the winter tempertaures are always a degree or two higher and the summer dry off, begins a week or two before Kilmore. Plenty of pardalotes there, not so common here.



Yesterday I found these little birds behind the golf course. They were very busy amongst the cassinia shrubs and amongst the trunks of some small dead wattle trees. They like to feed on the trunks and amongst the leaves of trees, looking for lerps and other small insects.






They are very beautiful birds with their vivid white spots and brightly coloured tails. They have been called Diamond birds or Diamond Sparrows because of these spots.

Their name is derived of both Greek and Latin words. Pardalotus from the Greek, spotted like a leopard and punctatus, Latin for spotted.


They will often be found nesting in creek banks, making small tunnels into their nesting cavity. Those who like to encourage birds with nest boxes, will place a small tube protruding from the box to make the pardalotes feel at home.

Orange Winged Sitella

SITELLA  Daphoenositta chrysoptera

 

I was pleased to see this group Orange Winged Sitella as they hunted for food yesterday. They were on the edge of  the woodlands in the Mt. Piper Reserve, a few kilometres south of Broadford.

It was bright and sunny winter's day and many small birds were about.








Sitella are very active little birds and seldom stop in one place for more than a few seconds. The birds were busy pulling the dried bark of a dead Black Wattle tree, eating whatever insects they were finding as they went. Unlike other tree creepers, the sitellas, generally start their foraging from the  top of a tree and work their way down. This does make photographing them a little easier than trying to catch a bird before it moves up and away.

 

Australian King Parrot

KING PARROT

I was out in the garden today pruning trees and mulching the remains. There was a lot noise, chainsaws and mulching machines, but above the noise I could hear birds calling, voices I had not heard for quite a while.

As I emptied the drum of mulchings under the liquid amber tree I could hear the calls again. Looking up there was a family of young Australian King Parrots.



I live not very far from a settlement called King Parrot Creek. It is off the Seymour to Yea Road, the turn off is a little past Trawool.  We have become so accustomed  to the name King Parrot Creek, that we sometimes forget why it has been so named. We do not see the see these parrots around here very often.





And there they were. Four King Parrots, the full name is Australian King Parrots, Alisterus scapularis. They are generally found in humid and heavily forested hilly regions of the East coast of Australia. They like to feed on fruits and seeds both from trees and from the ground so I am not sure what it was that attracted them to my liquid amber tree.  They seemed to be picking the bark off dead twigs. I am nit sure whether there was something to eat there or whether they were just sharpening their beaks.

Whatever they were doing they were quite happy for me to be poking a camera at them. I had to go back to my work long before they were inclined to move.