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Tag: Forty-spotted Pardalote

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Pardalote Parade – Australia’s Smallest Birds

The Spotted Pardalote is Australia’s smallest bird with a body length of only 8-10 cm (3.1-3.9 ins) and is one of the most difficult birds to observe since it feeds high inside the dark canopy of eucalyptus trees. Since its body is the shape and size of a eucalypt (gum) leaf it is able to camouflage itself from predation by […]

Australian birds 9

Hooks on Beaks – Intelligent Design III

Another interesting aspect to Intelligent Design in bird morphology is the appearance of hooks at end of particular species of birds and what they are used for. As is the case of meat eating raptors, which have a small hook on their upper mandible for tearing their prey into swallowable pieces because they lack teeth to chew their prey. You […]

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In Search of One of Australia’s Smallest, Rarest Endangered Birds

Last week my wife and I travelled to South Bruny Island, Tasmania in search of the tiny, rare endangered Forty-spotted Pardalote which is now only found in small groups in the far south-west of Tasmania, Australia’s island state. After catching the car ferry across from Kettering, south of Hobart we drove from the North Island onto the South Island to […]