PARDALOTE STRIATED 

Striated Pardalote Pardalotus striatus

 

One can always find pardalotes, no matter what the weather be. nor the time of year, at Kilmore East.

 

There is a colony which lives in, under and around a road bridge between Dry Creek Road and the Wandong-Broadford Road. Under this bridge are mud fairy martin nests and this is where the pardalotes lay their eggs and bring up their young.

 

 

 

 

At this time they re nesting. Both male and female appear to be feeding the young. One or other will approach the nest, landing on a tree branch five to ten metres out from the nest and chirp. Perhaps this is to make sure everything is clear, perhaps it is an attempt to make the nest site a little obscure for any watcher, or perhaps it is just a way of letting the mate know they are on the way.

 

 

 

Whilst pardalotes are known for living in holes in the banks of creeks, I have only ever seen these in and around the martin nests. No martins in these nests, although they are about the area. Have the pardalotes dislocated the martins?  I have no idea where the martins  nest now. 

At other times of the year the birds appear to be living in the scrubby growth along the creek. As soon as one approaches the site, the birds can be heard chirruping to each other. They are not timid at all about having someone with a camera, standing within a short distance, watching what they are dong. They are often sitting  their pairs, often in groups of ten or a dozen. 

 

 

BLUE-FACED HONEYEATER

Blue-faced  Honeyeater  Entomyzon cyanotis

 

 

I had a short while ago, pruned the ragged branches off a pittosporum tree overhanging the roof of my house.

The tree has always been a bit of a nuisance, dropping sticky seed pods over the pathways. After pruning it continued to be a bit of an eyesore and a further nuisance,, it bled runnels of sap down the trunk. Awful stuff  it gets on one's hands and clothes.  

 

However, the honeyeaters seem to like it. This pair seem to be a parent bird and a juvenile young. The adult bird has the brilliant blue face, while the younger bird retains the green - yellow facial skin. 

I have lived here in Kilmore for many years, but only in the last five to ten years have these Bluefaced honeyeaters become established. Now they are a common sight amongst the flowering flowering eucalypts around the golf course and in the established gardens of the housing areas.

 

Each day now, there are Bluefaced honeyeaters at the dribbles and puddles of sap. Where  a  branch has come away, there is a small cup in the trunk. I assume it holds a small pool of hardened sap. Perhaps it also contains insects. I  can't get up that far to see. Whatever, the honeyeaters like what is there. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They seem unperturbed when I am about. Under the tree I have my wood splitting block. The honeyeaters continue to feed as I split logs, not two metres under where they are feeding. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 It is lovely to have such  trusting, colorful and noisy neighbours whilst I work,

LITTLE BROWN BIRDS

Buff rumpedThornbills Acanthiza reguloides

 

 

Sometimes the little birds of our areas are overlooked in favour of their bigger, showier cousins.

I like little brown birds and there are many of them on the Monument Hill.

These are thornbills, Brownrumped Thornbills. They are amongst the smallest of our species, tiny cheeky balls of fluff.

They are easily found on the lower slopes of the hill, in and about the cassinia scrub. After several wet years there is a lot of cassinia so there is plenty for the small birds to forage amongst.

These are very curious birds. A person  has only to suck air in through one's lips for a moment or two, and the families of thornbills will come looking to see what is going on.

 

They can be found, hunting amongst the foliage of small trees and shrubs for small insects making much noise as they go, Up and down from scub to the ground, under logs and amongst the grasses and moss, all the while calling to each other..

Lovely things, little brown birds.

 

  

WINTER IN KILMORE

 DARTER   Anhinga melanogaster

 

 

When first seen, this bird was moving through the water. All that could be seen was the long, snake-like head, the body almost totally submerged. A very strange, smaller version of the Loch Ness Monster moving across the water.

 

 

 

 

 I have seen the darters in other places but not often on the Kilmore reservoir. Here we see plenty of cormorants, black and pied, but rarely the darter

This day the lone birdwas sunning itself, drying its wings, on the branches of a tree which had fallen  into the water. 

 

Darters feed mainly on fish, but will also eat  frogs, small snakes and other water dwelling creatures. The long narrow beak is used to spear prey whist the darter is swimming  under the surface of the water.