Scarlet Robin

SCARLET ROBIN Petroica boodang

There are robins about this week and their bright red chests make them easy to spot. Last week it was Flame Robins, today Scarlet Robins. The males show a brilliant scarlet chest whilst the females wear a rather subtle red bib.

I watched several pairs today as I walked along the edge of a blue-gum plantation at Kilmore East.

There was quite a wind blowing and the birds were wary. It was difficult to get very close no matter how carefully I crept along in the shadows.

The blue gum hillsides are rather sterile places for birding. Today there were just a few magpies and crows about at the very tops of the trees. I could hear parrots away in the distance but only the robins were out to play.

Flame Robin

FLAME ROBIN Petroica phoenicea

I was out at the sewerage treatment plant to the west of Kilmore yesterday  morning. It was cold but there was plenty of sunshine. I had gone to see what might be visiting the settling ponds but things there were very quiet. Only a small number of shelducks were about.
























I walked past the ponds to a bushy area set aside by Trust For Nature. Here there were plenty of mature trees and young saplings of grey box, yellow and peppermint gum. The birds were a little more active here.
 

This male Flame Robin was sitting on a fence moving between the wires and the ground as he hunted for insects amongst the grass. He stood out against the trees from over a hundred metres away. The bright red, almost orange colouring on this robin, covers the body all the way from just under the chin to the legs. This fellow was sitting up very straight, showing his chest to the whole world and I was able to approach quite close before he would move further along the fence.

There were several female robins also working the ground with this male. They show no red colouring at all but wing markings are similar to those of the male.

Wiikipedia tells me, 'The name is derived from the Ancient Greek words petros "rock" and oikos "home", from the birds' habit of sitting on rocks.^[5] The specific epithet is also derived from Ancient Greek, from the adjective phoinikes "red" '.

Ravens

AUSTRALIAN OR LITTLE RAVENS

In my first year as a primary school teacher, I worked with the children of my small rural school to  present a Christmas play called 'Crows'. I have no idea of the connection of this short musical play to Christmas, but it is what we performed anyway.



 
 It told the story of a country boy who became lost in the outback. As he wandered about, looking for his way home, crows followed, watching and waiting. It now seems a very gruesome story for young children. Even now I remember the words of one song the children sang.





'Three black crows
Caw diddle daw,
Sitting in a ghost gum and very bored.
See the boy fall off his horse,
It amuses them of course.
Three black crows,
Caw diddle daw.'

 The implication of course was that the crows were waiting to see what might happen to the boy. Corvids are highly visible birds with their glossy black plumage and their white and blue eyes. They have a reputation for evil, and usually disliked. That is not surprising as many regard the sight of a crow as an omen of death. They are great scavengers and so have a valuable part to play in the natural world but it is a part that many people do not find pretty. I wonder if the word ravenous comes form the name raven.





As children, we always called black birds crows. Big or small, crows or ravens, we labelled them all the same. They are corvids, the Latin word for crows.

We do have crows in Australia but there are found in the drier parts of the continent. Those that we see around the southern coast of the continent are usually ravens, and these I think are Little Ravens, Corvus mellori. The beard of the Little Raven is described in The Australian Bird Guide as having bifurcated tips when looked at alongside the Australian Raven. I think these have bifurcated tips to their beards!

Occasionally we put the tail-end of a stale bread loaf outside the door. The ravens come along and with their big beaks manage to pick up the whole lot. The 'poor' sparrows don't get a look in. The ravens then take all they can mange to the bird bath, where they soften the hard scraps in the water before flying off with it. It is fascinating to watch them although they do leave an awful mess in the bird bath. 

Fox

Fox on A Sunday Afternoon

Sunday afternoon 2.00pm.

About 500 metres from the centre of Kilmore, there is a paddock attached to Assumption College. It is across the road from the Blue Cross Nursing home and adjacent to the Fire Station.



This fox was having a wonderful time hunting in the long grass, quite undisturbed by the cars, walkers, dogs, trucks and photographers close by.



I have seen a number of foxes over the last few weeks. All have had beautiful thick winter coats and all looked well fed.



Beautiful as they are, I know how they are detested by those who have poultry around the town. We often hear stories of families waking to find all the chooks in the chook pen dead. These cute animals will often kill every chicken in a group before making off with just one or two in
their mouths.

The local sheep farmers also will tell anyone who will listen just how destructive foxes are during the lambing season.

 Beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder.

 

A Frosty Morning on the Kilmore Creek

WATER BIRDS SHARING THE WINTER SUNSHINE

A Little Pied Cormorant plays the lifeguard down at the pool

It was very cold the other morning, minus two degrees at eight o'clock and the ground was thickly covered in frost. It was beautiful.

Dusky Moorhens Gallinula tenebrosa

The sun, low in the sky, was beginning to warm the open patches between the trees.







There is a weir on the Kilmore Creek which holds back the water to and allows it spread out into a small reservoir. There are always a number of water birds gathered here, some foraging for something to eat, some preening and others just soaking up the sun. It is a lovely place to walk past.

Pacific Black Ducks  Anas superciliosa

Black Duck and Wood Duck share the morning.

 

 

 

A water rat was busy hunting amongst the birds

 

Eurasian Coots Fulica atra

 

 

 

 

Foxes

FOXES ON THE MOVE

There is always something to see when out walking with a camera.

I saw these foxes a couple of days apart, both at about ten o'clock in the morning. Perhaps they were on their way home after a night's hunting.

They both have full winter coats. Each looked stunning in the morning sunshine, so thick and red. They wee very easy to spot in the daylight.

Very often all I see of a fox is a quick flash of a red tail as it disappears into a hole  or scrub.





The fox on the open hillside has had his tail broken somewhere along the way, it has quite a kink in it.















I watched this one as it moved leisurely out of a creek washaway, and then made its way through patches of gorse and blackberries. In the open area I watched as it leap upon something it found in the grass with that funny little jump and pounce action foxes have. It could not have found too much; a quick swallow of whatever it was, perhaps a cricket or a beetle, and off it went.