The Royal National Park

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Spring is Sprung – Sounds of Songbirds Sweetly Singing

Posted by aussiebirder on September 3, 2020
Posted in: Australia, Australian Birds, Australian wildlife, Bird Book, Bird watching, Birding, Birds, Birdwatching, Fauna, National Parks, Nature, Nature Reserves, Outings, Rainforests, Royal National park, Sydney, Australia, Uncategorized, wildlife. Tagged: , , , , . 12 Comments

Spring has come after good rains that have helped wash away the 4 year drought. Daily temperatures are already climbing unseasonably, causing concern for the approaching bushfire season. The good news is that the forests are alive again with the sweet song of birds courting and nesting. Some calling in the hope of locating possible mates for the season while others preparing to nest, call to one another as they frolic in the sub canopy in the courting process. This locating call of the Golden Whistler was heard all through the forest as about six pairs were heard along the track in our local National Park during our early morning weekend walk. Some were still seeking a mate and putting out location calls, seeking love on the forest dating internet.

As it was early and still very cold as the sun had not yet broken into the forest, it was also poor light for capturing the already difficult to photograph Golden Whistler male and females on this occasion, though those who follow my blog have seen them on many occasions. You can see both male and female in this post.

The great gift granted us on this walk was to see one of the two birds we have been wanting to see all Winter, which appear this time of year, the other we have not seen at all. The bright male Scarlet Honeyeater appeared for a few seconds and fled on sighting us. This timid bird is usually difficult to catch a glimpse of because he spends most his time high in the dark upper canopy of the tall forest eucalypts. As you can see above, he stands out against the green background, as tiny as he is. The more timid female eluded is completely, as the more colourful male took our immediate  attention. My wife at first thought she could hear their sweet high pitched call and she was correct because soon after we saw him for a brief moment. The red colour helps them hide among the red native flowers when they forage low on native Bottlebrush and Grevillea. Numbers appear to be down from last year, possibly the fires.

Male King Parrot
Male King Parrot
Female King Parrot in nesting hole
Curious male KP
Male guards the nesting hole while the female nests
Male enters the nest out of concern
Female KP
Male KP
Male KP
Interesting female pose 1
Interesting female pose 2
Interesting female pose 3
Male King Parrots in flight
Female King Parrot

 

As you can see above, the Australian King Parrot is actively nesting. This is one of our most colourful birds, again the red stands out against the green, and the male is almost all red apart from his wings and tail. These birds have a similar call sound or chime to that of the Eastern Crimson Rosella (pictured below), another beautiful local bird. Here the male and female which pair for life are resting together.

Male and female King Parrot
Male and female King Parrot

Many mistaken the call of these birds with that of the chime of the Bell Miner (Bellbird). As I have shared previously, if you only hear one bird chiming and not too loud, it will most likely be the Rosella or King Parrot. Birds of the Parrot and Cockatoo families use holes in trees for nesting, which our local eucalypts provide in abundance.

As the sun shone into the valley and illuminated the tall palms we approached the the place of our last sighting of the Topknot Pigeon, and lo and behold, the flock were continuing to feed on the ripe palm fruits, we felt truly blessed to see them again and in such good light.

Topknot Pigeon
Topknot Pigeon
Topknot Pigeon
Topknot Pigeon
Check out the hair do
flying to ripe palm fruits
Topknot in flight
Check out the tail spread as it prepares to land
flying off

We just got a glimpse of this tiny Red-browed Finch.

We got excited for a few moments when we heard the call of several Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo in the trees on the hill above us, but could not see them, but for a few occasionally flying off. We thought they had all left, but for the continuous call of what appeared to be a young male having been left sitting alone in a tree. After much looking through branches we located it, but was in the bright sunlight which over exposed its beautiful tail.

We heard the constant song of a Superb Lyrebird for quite some time as we waited expectantly for it to emerge from the embankment below, but it saw us and went quiet, missing a visual opportunity. This what it sounded like.

There were many other birds we were unable to get good photos of, either due to the lack of light or too their fast flight from us, remembering that the bird brain sees, hears and responds much faster than ours. Because most shots are manually focused due to the bird size and surrounding vegetation, it is a challenge on every occasion to get one good photo, especially with my failing eyesight due to the hereditary eye condition of my left eye. It is both blessing and miracle on many occasions that I get a good photo at all, for which I am truly thankful. I feel very blessed for every day that God’s kindness sustains my sight.

Just to hear the multiplicity of bird song was a shear delight, as the forest which for months was fairly quiet, came alive once more. The call of life, new relationships, renewed relationships and prospective new life was electrifying the air. As we joyfully made our way back to our car we passed under the Big Fig which is known for feeding many of the Satin Bowerbird families in the forest. Sure enough as I explained to a family sitting under the tree about the Bowerbirds, the buzzing sound occurred, and we were able to show them both female (pictured below)as well as the elusive male (pictured above), as several birds foraged for remaining figs, which are the main diet of these birds. Notice the satin blue plumage in the sunlight of what appears black in the shade.

Notice also the female plumage how she blends so well into the tree, another protective provision by Intelligent Design. The both sexes of her babies will look just like her for up to four years and males will gain their full satin colour at about six years. By then the males should have learnt how to build a bower, and furnish it, as well as have his courting ritual (dance and song) down pat. My recent book release “What Birds Teach Us” explains both in photo and text the Bowerbird courting ritual. The bower should look something like this, though usually it is less exposed and under thick foliage, which may allow the sunlight in on his bower at a particular time of day as below. The one below is in a rainforest under a very tall tree canopy:

Male Satin Bowerbird with his bower

If this is your first visit to my weekly birding blog and website, welcome ! 

If you explore my Home Page and Menu at top of page, you will find more helpful birding information, especially if you are considering it as a recreational hobby or pastime. 

As mentioned above, you may want to find out about my Beautiful Bird Book “What Birds Teach Us” where you will both see in beautiful colour and read in easy reading text about our unique Australian birds and what helpful life skills we can learn from them, since we know from recent research that birds are very intelligent.

For my Aussie followers, my book is now available in many towns throughout NSW as well as in most capital cities in Australia, and in particular places interstate, which are listed in the Bookstores page. I would be grateful if you recommended it to a visitor centre, book or gift store near you, that does not already stock it. 

Have a wonderful week, and stay safe. Our thoughts and prayers go to all our blog followers who are in lock-down and suffering loss and deprivation because of the current global crisis.

The beauty of the Bowerbird male is only realised when the sunlight shines into it’s plumage, otherwise it could be mistaken for a Raven or a male Koel, but for its eye and beak colour. The light gives beauty and value to the bird, especially when it performs its courting ritual before the prospective female while standing in its carefully decorated bower of blue objects, which he believes enhance his appearance. The light must shine on him to reveal his true glory and desirability as he dances before the bower.

For the Bowerbird it can differentiate mistaken identity from a distance when the sun shines off it. Light brings clarity and truth to everything it touches, exposing what otherwise remains hidden whether it be good or bad. So people who shine or are illuminated in both truth and integrity of being, Jesus says:

“Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be just as full of light as when a lamp shines its light on you.” – Luke 11:36 (NIV)

“The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him.  He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. ” – John 1:9-12 (NLT)

“This is the message we heard from Jesus[c] and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.” – 1 John 1:5 (NLT)

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” – 1 John 1:5

 

W. A. Hewson (Adv. Dip. Counselling & Family Therapy).

‘To introduce people to our unique Australian birds,

So we can learn from them how to live a healthy and happy life.’

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, 2019, 2020.

 

Down Among the Leaf Litter – A Walk in the Rainforest Part 3

Posted by aussiebirder on May 28, 2020
Posted in: Australia, Australian Birds, Australian wildlife, Bird Book, Bird watching, Birding, Birds, Birdwatching, Fauna, National Parks, Nature, Nature Reserves, Outings, Rainforests, Royal National park, Sydney, Australia, Uncategorized, wildlife. Tagged: , , , , . 19 Comments

Superb Lyrebird male

This week has been Wild Wet Windy Weather, and quite cold,  a good reason to stay inside. So I continue with a walk I did deep into the rainforest last week, where I went to clear my mind to walk and talk with my Father in his Rainforest Garden, in the Royal National Park. Last week I featured the female Superb Lyrebird, this week the male (above). The male with the beautiful tail. I saw both male and female Lyrebirds foraging quietly, and they allowed me to come close, which is unusual. I was only 2 feet away from one and it was not alarmed. How wonderful that they trusted me. These are birds that feed deeper in the forest away from most human traffic, and are more trusting. If you want to see Lyrebirds, find where visible recent scratchings are on the track and be in that area, early morning after sunrise when they are having breakfast.

The other two rainforest floor dwellers along with the Lyrebird, that I mentioned in the above video are the Bassian Thrush and the Australian Logrunner. These two are very secretive birds and difficult to both find and see as they are found on the dark forest floor among the leaf litter where they find their food. They have excellent camouflage and will stop dead still when they see you. Check them out and you will see what I mean. The Logrunner is a very small bird and often heard before seen, as it flicks the leaf litter with its legs, leaning back on the tail.

Australian Logrunner (male and female)
Bassian Thrush

If you do hear a Logrunner calling and communicating with partner it may sound like this:

If it is a territorial dispute it will sound more like a squeaky toy (a rubber ducky being repeatedly squeezed quickly).

The so called Naturalists from the early European settlement here in the 1800s, invaded our forests with rifles in the name of science (or today scientific research as with the whales Ha Ha). The so called bird lover John Gould dined on Australian birds and bragged about it, as he claimed fame for his 7 volume work on our birds  in 1848. They killed thousands of Lyrebirds to stuff for display back in the homeland, eat, extract their tails from for display and just for the fun of it… don’t that make you a little upset ?

Eventually the Conservation Movement stopped the meaningless slaughter of these and many other native species, some now extinct. Now the ferule cats, domestic cats and foxes continue the slaughter, both here and in the forests near Melbourne, especially Sherbrooke Forest where the population was almost decimated by domestic cats. Local residents by Law now must keep their cats caged.

Last week, my wife and I also visited one of our western Sydney birding spots, as we delivered a book shipment to a warehouse nearby, but most of the birds were gone, that once were in abundance. I have noticed that many left during the months of bushfire smoke late last year. Here’s what we found.

The New Holland Honeyeater is found in abundance in the southern Sydney National Parks and Reserves, especially along the coastline heath. This bird is featured in my book: “What Birds Teach Us” for its Diligence, here is a sample page:

 

The good news is, the final part for my lens has arrived and the camera should be ready by Saturday and this era of movie filling up my website storage may end.  It has been like having a best friend in hospital, and you can’t visit, having my lens out of action for four months. Though my wife has enjoyed having her photos receive encouraging remarks for my dear blog followers.

Thank you to those of you who have purchased my recent release 2nd Edition of “What Birds Teach Us”, some purchases are still making their way through the slower than usual Corona time, especially in the USA, but we are keeping track. We are working at present on new Promo videos and preparation for a book launch at a group of private schools.

Koorong Books has the 2nd Edition now in stock and is available online and in store. Koorong have stores all over Australia, mainly in the larger cities.  Sadly, my previous best sellers, NSW National Parks Visitor Centres are still closed due to Covid.  However at present the best price is to buy here online.

“We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, so that what you hope for may be fully realized.” – Hebrews 6:11

Have a wonderful week birding… and…. 

My Mission: To encourage all people to make good life choices, using birds to teach important life skills.

W. A. Hewson (Adv. Dip. Counselling & Family Therapy).

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, 2019, 2020.

When the Lyrebird Goes Quiet – A Walk in the Rainforest: Part 2

Posted by aussiebirder on May 21, 2020
Posted in: Australia, Australian Birds, Australian wildlife, Bird Book, Bird watching, Birds, Birdwatching, Fauna, National Parks, Nature, Nature Reserves, Outings, Rainforests, Royal National park, Sydney, Australia, Uncategorized, water birds, wildlife. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . 14 Comments

Last week my wife and I went for a longer than usual walk into the rainforest in the Royal National Park. We have been enjoying these long walks in the fresh sunny Autumn weather, and it has been therapeutic emotionally and physically as I continue to come to terms with social distancing, accepting retirement, my camera still being repaired and my book promotion put on hold. 

 

Continuing from my previous post we left early in search again for the female Superb Lyrebirds nesting, as Autumn is the time when she builds the nest and lays her eggs, while the male continues to do his song and dance performances to woo his female fans for mating. Click Here for some of my previous footage, which some of you have seen, to give you an idea how they dance to their own beat, and use their repertoire of mimicry to impress the female.

Male Lyrebird performing mimicry
Male Lyrebird dancing to his own beat.

Like the Bowerbird, the males spend most of their life, and time practicing their performance for that short period of several weeks when they mate. Notice the female photo above (again the work of my dear wife, who wants to thanks those who complemented her for her beautiful Fairy-wren photo featured last week)) has an ordinary feathered tail and a rufous throat, unlike the beautiful male tail. As we walked deeper into the forest we noticed increased scratchings by the track, and soon we started finding the females preparing their nests and just very quietly foraging for food.

It was not long before we found what we were looking for, a female collecting sticks and moss for the nest. Again, she was very careful to not give away the location of the nest. I watched how particular she was collecting the correct stick. She would stop, add to the bundle, pick it up and move to her next pick up.

This particular day we saw no males, though the following week I saw 3 males and 3 females. As we made our way through the forest our stress levels fell and we felt more relaxed.

We started hearing and then seeing the White-throated Treecreeper ascending a tree, silently. Usually you only find them by hearing their loud repeating call. This is a female, because of the orange spot on her ears.

As she ascended you will hear in the background the sound of another Treecreeper climbing, foraging for grubs and insects in the bark of the eucalypt tree. This is a bird seen in greater number during the colder months.

The Golden Whistler is quieter during the winter months also. The males are usually hard to spot during Winter months, as they are shy and not singing as much as they Sing in Spring. The females on the other hand are very curious and will come close to get a good look at you.

One bird you will always hear in our rainforest all year round is the Lewin’s Honeyeater. Their call is similar to the Treecreeper but much faster in staccato. You may remember the call from a previous post, it was also in the background of the female Golden Whistler clip (above).

On this occasion I was able to get closer. Most of our Honeyeaters migrate around following blossom, and avoiding colder weather, but the Lewin’s is a rainforest Honeyeater and is usually territorial remaining all year round, similar to the Miners and Wattlebirds.

One of the encouraging signs after the drought beginning to break from recent rains, is the sound of the many Eastern Whipbirds, which went very quiet during the driest part of last year, as they forage on the forest floor turning moist leaf litter for grubs and insects, in moist gullies.  They are very elusive birds, and in my early birding years had me standing for hours trying to catch a glimpse. This one eluded us also.

Eastern Whipbird sees us and plans his escape
Eastern Whipbird making his gettaway

As we finished our 9 km walk we noticed this Australasian Darter resting, and doing an excerpt from some Bird Ballet for a few seconds.

Darter Ballet

My contemplation for this week comes from the following film clip during my rainforest walk this week. The National Park was spared the horrific bushfires this past year, but has been burnt out years ago in 1994 with a horrific fire click here to see some of the photos. This tall straight forest hardwood in the thick of the rainforest was burnt out but continues to grow strong, because enough of the vital cambium layer just under the thick bark, which feeds the tree, survived the intense heat and fire.

This tree reminded me of me, when years ago I suffered burn out from being too busy and too stressed from the demands of job, family and life itself. Thankfully with God’s provision and help I survived and managed to to come back even stronger, like the tree, which spurred me on to study family counselling and write the books. While I remain connected and rooted firmly to my Life Source I can continue growing and enjoying life, having learnt how to avoid further burn out. My birding walks help achieve this,in a mindful way, like Adam (the first man) I can walk and talk with God alone in his beautiful garden, and be at peace, because I have come to realize his faithful love and provision for me. If you feel safe to check out my Birder Sanctuary pages you will see some of the principles that helped me through the difficult times, and continue to. Interesting enough God used birds to teach, help and even feed man many times throughout  history, and Jesus mentions them more than any other animal.

 Enjoy your week, and especially enjoy a fresh appreciation of  freedom, food, family and friends and our beautiful country as we begin to navigate a new normal as we hopefully come out of the Covid Crisis.

My Mission: To encourage all people to make good life choices, using birds to teach important life skills.

W. A. Hewson (Adv. Dip. Counselling & Family Therapy).

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, 2019, 2020.