Grey Shrike Thrush

GREY SHRIKE THRUSH Colluricincla harmonica

Even on a dull day when there is not much activity in the bush, the Grey Shrike Thrushes are about.

Today I was walking around the base of Mount Hickey. Mt Hickey, between Kilmore and Broadford, is a sugar-loaf shaped hill, surrounded by 'pretty close to natural' bush. It is a beautiful place to visit,

Despite being overcast and being a little late in the morning, the shrike thrushes were busy foraging in the undergrowth and up and down tree trunks. I generally see them alone although I often hear hear them calling to and answering another through the trees.

My books tell me they are omnivores, eating  small arthropods, insects,berries, small molluscs and at times, young nestlings.

Their name, Colluricincla harmonica is derived from two Greek words, Collurio and kinkhlos, both of which refer to thrushes, although this bird is not related to the European thrush. The second word relates of course to their beautiful song, thought to be thrush like by early Australians.

I have included this older photograph,taken in March this year, to show the markings on the immature bird. The marked striations, beautiful dark on cream are very different to the adult birds' plumage.

Pied Cormorant

LITTLE PIED CORMORANT.

These little cormorants, Phalacrocorax melanoleucos,  have been around the Kilmore Golf Club reservoir over the last few weeks.

I saw this one this morning  sitting on the model railway bridge across the Kilmore Creek. This bridge is outside the Kilmore Leisure Centre. It is a very busy place with cars and  foot traffic accessing the Centre. There is also a kindergarten opposite.

This little fellow seemed quite happy to sit and amidst all the hustle and bustle and watch the world go past.  He was quite happy for me to get quite close before he finally flew to the second bridge along rhe creek

There were a number of other water birds about this morning, all enjoying the brief sunshine. Perhaps the numbers lead to a sense of security for them all.

It is good to see the birds about and to hear the frogs singing they are all good indications that our water-way is healthy.

It  is just a pity however to see the large carp swimming about in the water.

Silvereyes

SILVEREYE Zosterops lateralis

 

On these sunny late autumn days there are plenty of silvereyes about. They are generally in groups of ten or more and always seem to be very busy feeding. I can pick them out from a distance, by their bouncy flight as they move, talking to each other as they go from one place to the next.

 They are beautiful little  birds with strong yellow colouring.But of course the most obvious distinguishing features are their bright eyes; black pupils, white surrounds with a further black ring, before the yellow feathers covering the heads.We call them silvereyes but they are also known as white eyes. 

My books tell me that they are migratory bird, traveling in flocks, up and down the eastern coastline of Australia. Michael Morcombe's book Field Guide To Australian Birds, says that the birds move northward up the coast looking for  warmer climates. Large numbers, he says move across Bass Straight from Tasmania as the winter approaches, before moving back to raise their young in the late winter and spring. 

 

 They are such tiny birds. It is hard to imagine them flying across the windy stretches of Bass Straight.  

 

These were sighted along the railway line at Kilmore East. 

Eastern Yellow Robins

YELLOW ROBINS Eopsaltria australis

I set out for my walk this in the mist and fog morning. The fog often sits along the railway line at Kilmore East 'til late in the morning. The line runs between the hills and so provides a perfect corridor for low lying fog.

It was very quiet this morning as it usually is on these foggy days, the moisture holds the sound in.

As I walked, very quickly the mist began to lift. As it did so the birds awoke. Suddenly there was movement and there was the sound of birds calling. Within twenty metres of where I was standing, I could now see,  silver eyes, fairy wrens, red-browed finches, a scarlet robin and yellow robins. A little further out, there were magpies, corellas, cockatoos, crimson rosellas, tree creepers, shrike thrushes and others moving too quickly for me to note.

The yellow robins were particularly active. They are such beautiful birds. Their name, Eopsaltria  is derived from the ancient Greek and in translation means something like singer at dawn. How appropriate that was on this beautiful autumn morning. The name yellow robin was apparently given to these little birds by the early settlers of Australia. They are certainly similar to the British robins.

They are inquisitive birds and today they sat quite confidently, watching what I was doing. Such beautiful animals.

 What a beautiful morning it was!

Litytle Pied Cormorant

LITTLE LIED CORMORANT 

( Phalacrocorax melanoleucos)

It is a wonderful name, from the Greek phalakros bald + korak-, korax raven — plus from the Ancient Greek words melano- "black", and leukos "white". There you go!




It was a dull day today. A morning walk around the Kilmore Reservoir,  met with very little bird activity. The reservoir, now in the middle of the Kilmore Golf course, was once the water supply and the swimming pool for Kilmore people. It is still a beautiful place, very close to the town centre. It is pleasing to see it used by residents as a place to walk, summer and winter. There is a nice coexistence between golfers and others.



The bird life is plentiful. It changes from season to season to season. In summer the corellas live in the trees and cause plenty of damage to the golf fairways as they dig up the roots of the grass. In autumn and spring the area is visited by the migratory ibis. The reservoir provides a welcome rest place on the journey.Kingfishers, missing over the summer, will soon be back





Today, a grey day, was very quiet. At about 3 o'clock, the sun came out and a few heads appeared.

A group of pied cormorants were quietly warming themselves, drying their wings on a log in the shallows.



Usually they are very wary but today I was able to get a little closer than other times. They seemed quite content to preen themselves as I crept a little closer.

 

Grey Fantail

GREY FANTAIL Rhipidura fuliginosa
 





On those grey days when many birds seem to be sitting quietly, not showing themselves, I can always find a fantail or two to watch.  Perhaps I should rephrase that statement a little. On grey days when many birds seem to be sitting quietly, the grey fantails will always be about looking to find an audience for their aerial antics.

They will flitter around before alighting on a branch to have a good look at what is going on. They will then  'show off' their aerobic skills,  twisting  and turning after insects around the tops of shrubs and trees. Returning to a twig they will chatter away, telling the watcher just how well they have performed. It is almost as though they are happy to have an audience to watch what they do.







They may be common little birds but are certainly one of the best known of the birds of the bush and in our gardens.

Corellas

LONG BILLED AND LITTLE CORELLAS

Kilmore has a love / hate relationship with corellas. Long Billed corellas,  Cacatua tenuirostris and the Little Corella, Cacatua sabguinea, are frequent visitors to the Kilmore Golf Course.

They spend early morning and evenings digging up the fairways and greens to feed upon the roots, bulbs and corms of the grasses. They congregate in large flocks and cause much damage to the course.

However when they are not feeding and  destroying the links, they provide wonderful entertainment to those of us who visit the areas around golf club.

In the mornings and evenings their calls are ear piercingly loud. They have a wonderful time swooping around the reservoir lake as they make their way to the tall trees for the night. We find it a wonderful concert  as we walk each evening.

In the morning, they reverse the procedures, beginning their day with raucous and resonant calls as they swoop around and around the water. My daughter complains constantly of the noise waking her far too early.

At the moment we seem to have flocks of both the Long Billed and the Little Corella. The long billed have distinctive pink bibs on their chests and a beak which is long and fierce looking. The beaks are, I am sure, specially designed by natural selection for digging up country golf courses.

Plovers

SPURWINGED PLOVERS

I have watched a flock of plovers, Vanellus novaehollandiae,  for several weeks now. They live around a small fenced dam next to the Kilmore Cricket club. On warm days, the birds move to the open area around cricket ground. Here they sit and enjoy the sun.

They are very, very wary. It is difficult to get near to them. I have tried many times, sneaking behind trees and bushes to get a little closer. There is always at least one bird standing slightly apart from the group. I can hide from the flock but every time, the sentry bird picks me out and lets out a loud karrek, karrek, karrek as it lifts from the ground. The others follow.

They do not move far, but when they do, they are even more wary and fifty metres is about as close I can get.

They are quite beautiful birds with strong black, white and brown plumage. But it is the brilliant yellow wattles which stand out, giving their faces a somewhat odd look.



Many of us have experienced the whoosh of wings, a strike from the spurred elbow and the 'karrek, karrek, karrek', when we have come too close to their eggs laid in an open nest.

I remember one year having to enter a holiday house from the rear, leaving our car out on the street, because a pair of plovers had nested in the middle of the bare gravel driveway.

Wombats

Wombats

I have lived in Kilmore for almost forty years and have not before seen wombats in the town area. There have been plenty out in the surrounding hills, but none close to the urban areas.

Last week, I was driving to the station at about 7.30 in the morning when a wombat trotted across the road from the adjacent racecourse and made its way into a flowery garden. I was a little surprised but the wombat seemed to know exactly where it was going..

The next day I was out for my walk at about 9.30, not too far from  town. I was walking along the Number Two  Creek, funny name isn't it. The creek is at the bottom of quite a steep gully, about five kilometres to the west of Kilmore. I out looking to see whatever birds were up and about. In the rushes I could hear a lot of noise and I supposed it might be a fox returning late from his nightly jaunt.

I stood still and waited a moment and  then I saw, sitting in the patch of sun outside a large burrow, two large wombats. Wombats are nocturnal animals so it is quite unusual to see them sitting out in the sunlight. 


I think wombats might be hard of hearing because  although I made a lot of noise coming through the thick, creek side growth, they hadn't noticed me at all. As well as being hard of hearing, I think wombats must be short sighted in strong sunlight. At least  these seemed to be.


Eventually I had to move and the two, moving very quickly for such round creatures, disappeared into one of the several burrows in the area.

About an hour or two later, on my return from my walk, I came across wombats once again, more of, or the same ones, I am not sure. One seemed to be an older fellow, he  was walking determinedly to wherever it was he was going. He was following a well used track and was striding along very quickly in the open. He eventually disappeared around a bend in the track.

I heard another wildlife observer say recently, that he thought the wild things were beginning to return to the towns. We certainly see many kangaroos, wallabies, hares, foxes birds, echidnas and  now wombats in and about our gardens now.

Sulphur Crested Cockatoos

Cockies

It is sometimes a little easy to look so hard for the more unusual birds on an area, that we forget the more common.

These Sulphur Crested Cockatoos,  Cacatua galerita,  are terribly noisy animals. They can give a person a fright when they screech overhead.

They seem to love my garden, especially the tall tulip tree. Here they sit for hours,  pulling the seed cones apart and dropping the litter on to the grass below. They seem too, to enjoy just nipping the new growth off the branches.

They also love the maples in the driveway. They sit there through much of the day hissing to themselves and snipping off the smaller twigs. What vandals they are!

Isabelle, the two year old who often comes to visit, thinks they are called 'Shoo cockies'. I wonder whom she has learned that from.

But oh so majestic at the same time. They have such lovely strong white plumage and brilliant crests. It is a pleasure to watch them. And the trees don't really seem to mind the constant pruning.