In our early years of bird watching, becoming birders, my wife and I would excitedly seek out new species which birders term lifers (having been sighted in the wild for the first time). I like to distinguish for my own sake a true lifer from a species I might view for the first time in a zoo or avery. This was the case with the rare and elusive Regent Honeyeater pictured above, notice the leg band. Because many of the birds in the wild now are banded, being ex zoo release birds, it is difficult for you to know if I shot this in the wild, but no, this was shot at Taronga Park Zoo, Sydney. Click on photo to enlarge.
I had photographed this bird many times at Taronga Park Zoo in Sydney, where the birds are bred as a conservation effort in captivity, then banded, and released into the wild in their breeding areas. It was not till last year, that I photographed several non-banded birds in the wild that I was satisfied that I had a true lifer. See below…
As novices, my wife and I excitedly sought out holiday locations with the view of including birding as a vital part of our time-away. Many a committed birder knows the frustration of spending much time and money pursuing particular new or rare birds only to come home disappointed, this occurred many times with the above bird before I finally found it in the wild. Notice the more beautiful plumage and more classic bare skin around eye with the wild non zoo bred bird at the top of the page.
Our mission together was to passionately engage as many new species of our beautiful and varied Australian birds as possible, eventually covering most of our country and surrounding islands. One book initially assisted us in seeking good birding locations, a well written and easy to follow book a friend gave me as a gift one year: ‘Best 100 Birdwatching Sites in Australia.’ by Sue Taylor. This is a book we highly recommend to those, like us, pursuing birding as an enjoyable recreation.
Interesting enough, and long before I received this book, the front cover depicts the location and bird that originally hooked me into birding as a hobby and recreation. Yes, the Red-tailed Tropicbird (my trading logo and avatar) on Lord Howe Island, where I travelled to see this ‘backward flying bird’ as I first called it.
On a holiday to Western Australia, after visiting my son in Perth, we ventured down to the Margaret River region on the bottom South West tip of the continent. It was here that we started to realise and consider something we had not noted previously. My wife, the spotter (binoculars), would occasionally say to me, the shooter (camera), “Take this bird, I think it is different from ours!”. What she meant was the bird in question was also found in our local area, but it had some noticeably different characteristics to the trained eye, which she could observe better with binoculars. As you can see below it can be difficult to note any fine delineating characteristics between the south west WA race longirostris
and the eastern NSW, we see at home race novahollandiae
Back home, processing our birding treasures from the holiday, I discovered from consulting my field guides, my wife was correct. We had opened another exciting door and challenge to our birding experience, taking it to the next level. We had entered the field of seeking the various subspecies or races of particular Australian bird species. A race (subspecies) as it is termed in the ornithology books, is a morphologically distinct group of birds that can interbreed within the same species. This is where the captured still image is vital so morphological details of each bird can be studied in detail at home on the computer allowing race distinctions to be detected allowing correct classification.
These birds look very similar, sometimes identical, but there are differences in appearance, which are usually found groups geographically located by location. For example, I noted the race differences of the Masked Lapwing I featured from my recent Far North Queensland post comparing them to our local Sydney Masked Lapwing race. Primarily, the facial mask differed slightly in each of the two locations, northern Australia and southern Australia.
Good field guides list the various names of the current races, the morphological differences and their geographical location on the map of the country. Notice I used the word current, as ornithologists today are constantly reclassifying birds using more complex and scientific (genetic) means, than previously was the case. Older field guides will vary in the naming of some birds. In Australia several species of bird, found also in neighbouring countries, have been reclassified into new specifically geographic subspecies beginning with the name Australian or Australasian… Two recent examples as Purple Swamphen if found in Australia, is now Australasian Swamphen and the Darter in Australia is now called the Australasian Darter. The species Anhinga anhinga (specie name followed by subspecie/race name) has a subspecies (race) of Anhinga melanogester which is the Oriantal/Indian Darter BUT NOW Australia has its own subspecies Anhinga novaehollandiae. The Latin race name means New Holland (the Dutch name for Australia), since they were the first Europeans to discover it in 1606).
One of the first honeyeaters to be named (scientifically described) was the New Holland Honeyeater (discussed above) as it is one of the most prolific coastal honeyeaters in Sydney and all around the rugged Australian coastal scrublands of southern Australia. This species alone has 5 races within Australia in five geographical locations both on the continent and also Tasmania and its islands. This was the bird I wished I had photographed more when in SW WA, on my wife’s suggestion. Here are photos of three of the 5 races, see if you can see the distinguishing characteristics.
Australia has over 70 species of honeyeaters, more than anywhere else in the world, as well as the world’s largest in size. The great challenge at the next level is to track down and identify (using good observational skills) the various races within each of these species. Then of course, there are the many other bird species with subspecies. It must have been quite an exciting experience for the early European/English naturalists to find so many varieties of similar birds to their homeland birds which only have one species with no subspecies. Here are but a few…
Australia has 19 species of Robin of which these are but a few…
In some cases more than one race of a particular species may exist in the same location as another, making it all the more challenging. An example of this was in our recent trip to Far North Queensland where we saw two different subspecies (races) of Little Shrike-thrush in the same location. They looked quite different morphologically.
For example, when we were birding in Britain we saw A Robin, A Cormorant and An Oystercatcher just to name a few for example. In Australia we have several if not many different species of these birds with the same species classification, and some of these even have several subspecies. In the Cormorant family we share the the Great Cormorant (Black Cormorant) with Europe but in addition have four others unique to Australia, the Little Black, the Little Pied, the Pied and the very rarely seen Black-faced Cormorant from the wild Southern ocean.
To conclude, the scientific approach to birding is that nothing can be taken for granted (assumed) from a distance, only careful observation and attention to detail will reward the astute birder with exciting discoveries and findings at the next level. This observational skill, accompanied with the latest bird field guide will bring an added appreciation for the wonderful variety of creatures even within a single species and how Intelligent Design could only be the origin of such an interdependent complex and beautiful system by a thoroughly awesome and amazing intelligent Creator. Here then is my source of knowledge, wisdom and understanding, as I seek His embrace and His best for my life.
“How many are your works, Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.” – Psalm 104:24
“For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.” – Proverbs 2:6
Have a wonderful week birding! We did not do any birding this week but we do give thanks for the good rain that has blessed us this last few days and hopefully will bring our birds back to breed.
If this is your first visit to my blog, why not check out my birding website pages from my Homepage.
Also check out my book you can purchase here online with secure PayPal or at any of these places. Check out the promo below.
NOTE: All photos, videos and music used on this website are photographed, composed, performed by the site owner and remains his copyrighted property, unless otherwise stated. The use of any material that is not original material of the site owner is duly acknowledged as such. © W. A. Hewson 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018
Wow! Glad someone has been able to be out birdwatching. You really collected some great photos and videos this time.
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Thanks Lee, the weather was not good for birding last week so I had to make the most of what I had. Thankfully today was a beautiful day for us to bird and picnic in the warm spring sun. Have a restful weekend back home again:-)
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Such a wealth of knowledge in your posts, and what an incredible amount of paitence and persistence to photograph and notice the various differences. “How many are your works…” is certainly the truth! Such variety is astounding, and as you point out, in the same species.
I have been wanting to let you know I truly loved your book!! My only dissapointment is that I did not have it for my sons when they were young….but it will be read many times to any future grandchildren!! Honestly, I was sincerly impressed with how you came up with so many character traits from observing the birds. You covered character traits that are not always thought of and I hope your book touches many lives as it is truly a special book indeed. I am in the middle of writing a book review now and have already thought it will make a wonderful gift for some nieces and nephews. Thank you to you and your wife for taking the time to put together this book. What a wonderful legacy to leave for your own family.
Blessings to you both in your birding adventures! Have a wonderful week…so happy you got rain!
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Thanks so much dear Jen for your amazing review of my book, I give thanks to our Lord for his generous wise heart in entrusting me with his truth and dropping it into my spirit, and for people like yourself who validate God’s anointing on it. I am so touched that the book has blessed you and yes like yourself, I only wished there were more books of this nature around when we were raising our children. My children grew up with the TV series ‘Little House on the Prairie’ which Laura Wilder wrote from her life experiences, and I have often asked: “Where are the books and wisdom to the young like this today?” Many parents complain that children fiction is so crazy and far fetched today it does not prepare them for life. I will embark fully on my next book, when the Lord allows me the time. where I will use the birds to bring encouragement and teaching to young families, again integrating my family counselling skills and research to take it to the next level. From our early Knowledge years, through our mid Wisdom years to now our final Understanding years. As Solomon said it is good to gain knowledge, and knowledge applied in life brings with it wisdom a great treasure, but the greatest treasure is from our applied wisdom, which brings with it understanding. Not just to know the what, or the how but the why, and this brings with it the peace and security we gain in our latter years in the Lord. This is why teaching falls far short when it is only facts or ideas of men but has no understanding of truth to back it up, and it remains never taught. Why? because for all the information this technological age places at our fingertips, there is a dire lack of wisdom, due to lack of understanding due to believing the lie Romans 1 as to Who were are and Where we come from… yes lack of understanding. My wife has been a backbone for me in the book process, I felt like giving up several times, but she believed in me, and encouraged me to press on, over the many hurdles and brick walls that were put up against us. Sorry I climbed onto my soap box for a moment. Thanks again it is greatly appreciated, may you and the family have a wonderful weekend also.
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Feel free to “soap box’ all you want! I love Little House on the Prairie, and also, The Waltons, which my younger son and I still enjoy! I’m so glad you wife was there to encourage you to finish…you two are a good team! And I agree, our culture is so smart yet so unwise. 😦 I keep praying for God to open the eyes not just in my country but the world at large. Sadly, I fear it may take calamaty to bring people to seek him, and I do hope that is not the case. We truly live in the time the Bible talked about when what is wrong is seen as right and vice versa. Keep up the good work on your end…you never know who it will reach. I will finish my review in a bit…I feel like posting anything right now is almost disrespectful to my loved ones and others battleing out the hurricane at the moment. They remain my top concern but look forward to finishing the review when the time is better. Blessings to you and yours!
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Wow, what a post full of gorgeous captures of very beautiful birds, Ashley! Going deeper in levels on bird species is so confusing at times for me, I get frustrated because I don’t sit still long enough to learn just a little more to help me. I want to get outside and photograph more! But I did sit still here and noted how differences did show in your specie levels and it’s quite fascinating the slight differences. Glad to hear you had great rains, so exciting when breeders return! Have a great week, Ashley!
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Thanks Donna, you are a birding photoholic, like myself, I could learn much more also but we both love being out there in the fresh air where the action is. We are back to dry weather for a while, but the heavy rain was a welcome change from the drought.Birding has not been good here this last week, but work is still keeping me busy as they want me to stay and train new staff. No one knows if they can keep me part time yet, as they want me full time, but they are vying for me to stay part time. It will be interesting to see what God has up ahead for me. I want to get into writing my second book, but I need time to do it. As I do the art work myself, I need time to work on it. I have put the bird guiding on hold till I know where my future employment will be, they should be able to tell me soon. My first book is selling so well and getting great reviews which is very pleasing, especially when I ring around and find that most places have sold out of it. Thanks again for your always welcome encouraging comments, you are greatly appreciated my friend. Have a wonderful week also!
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Best wishes in your endeavors, I am sure God has an awesome future planned for you! 🙂
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Thanks so much dear blogging friend you are a blessing:-)
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Hi Ashley, hello from lovely Launceston! Sorry I’ve been away for awhile, but now catching up on what everyone has been up to. What an interesting read this post has been. Great photos too. I’m going to go check out that book on the best birdwatching sites that you mentioned, and get my new bird guide too that I’ve been meaning to get. Hope you have a great week! 🙂
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Greetings Sue, I did wonder how you were going, and hoped your move is going well. I hope you are settling well in Tassie, and been able to start getting close to the peculiar wildlife and birds of the island state. I tend to use both bird guides now (Michael Morcombe’s and recent The Australian Bird Guide) as they both have some different descriptions. The new one includes recent subspecies reclassification. Have a great week exploring!
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It’s amazing the amount of bird species that you can photograph! Great job Ashley. 🙂
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Thanks so much HJ, we are so blessed with such a large variety of birds in so many different locations in our large continent. There is always new birds to be pursued, which keeps the excitement and expectation high. Have a great week!
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