Crested Pigeon

I wish I could supplement my bird watching posts with photographs, but I'm always too absorbed trying to get a closer look at bird details to reach for my camera and grab pictures. I guess I could take pictures off the web, but they wouldn't be an exact reflection of what I saw. It's like trying to tell your story with other people's photographs. It's never the same.

I have a greater inclination towards those birds being Dusky Moorhens now, even though I haven't had much of a detailed enough look yet. Yet, the memory that I have of the look of their head leans more towards the Dusky Moorhens-inclination.

On to new birds sighted: this time it's a Crested Pigeon. I'm quite sure of it since it's the only pigeon of that colour with a crest. The crest is upright, long and slender, splitting into a fork as it points upwards. It was a shy creature, feeding solitary on the ground just outside Mercy Hospital. I've seen it previously among the grassland on the Werribee campus as well. It's wings are brown with black bars, with white brushes nearer the end. Its tail flips up, and tips white as well. It's legs are red, and so are the circles around its eyes.

[Edit: Photo taken and added! Lousy quality but that's the best my cam could capture. You can almost just see the 'crest' on its head.]

The Confusion of the Hens

I chanced upon those Purple Swamphens again. This time they were closer to the sidewalk, so I got a closer look - their foliage were indeed purple under the light. It was a family of 4. What a rare chance to see such a range of ages of one species! The male was clearly the one with the brighter plumage. He was nearest the sidewalk protecting his brood, and eyed me warily when I slowed down to look at them. The female with her duller plumage was with her 2 chicks. One was a hatchling, small and cute like a chick at the market, and all dull and fluffy. The other was a juvenile, with plumage a strange mixture of purple and brown.

However, after a browse on the internet for Purple Swamphens and Dusky Moorhens, I can't quite tell them apart! Much less identify my birds. Honestly my birds look more Dusky Moorhens now. Looks like I need to be equipped with my camera tmr and see if I can do these Hens some justice.

The Start

New times, new blogs. This blog is dedicated to my bird-watching experiences, however scant.

27 Dec 2009 – Visited a garden in Mornington Peninsula, near Red Hill Brewery. Sean brought my attention to a fairy-wren wagging its tail in the sunlight. I was wearing my sunglasses and couldn’t quite see it clearly. All I saw was its long straight upright tail behind it and a flash of blue as it wagged and took off into the sunlight. Due to the brief experience, I can’t say for sure that it is a fairy-wren, much less confirm the exact species. Based on those few details of my memory, however, it is likely to be a Superb Fairy-Wren. Males during the breeding season have bright blue crowns and a black back, with brown wings. My memory says the whole thing was black/blue but it was flying into the sun, so I’m most likely wrong.

4 Jan 2010 – On my way to and fro uni, I almost always spot these birds on the vast plains flanking Sneydes Rd. However, I never get a detailed enough look to properly identify these birds. During my attachment, I was invited to watch a post-mortem of a Brolga. I had no idea what a Brolga was, and imagined to be either a breed of one of the domestic animals like dogs and cattle, or a marsupial. To my delight, it is a bird. A Brolga is a long-legged grey crane that roams wetlands and grasslands. This Brolga was brought in by a breeding sanctuary in Geelong to find its cause of death. It had haemorrhages to its neck and was speculated to have died of trauma, from being caught in a fence or from attack by the other Brolgas. To our surprise, its trachea was coiled, like a trumpet, around a bony structure. This probably produces the trumpet-like effects of calls made during the breeding season. It was fascinating. It also did not have a crop.

Me and Dr Padraig Duignan and a dissected Brolga

5 Jan 2010 – I finally got my 3rd or 4th look at those ibis-looking birds on the plains. I also realized the presence of reeds, suggesting a pool of some sort around. Due to the curved bills, I thus suspected Ibis, and true enough, they were Straw-necked Ibises. Straw-necked Ibises have a bare black head and a black body with sheen. Its neck looks white from afar, but apparently they are straw-like. I have also seen them fly in a group. According to the field guide, they fly in a V formation. When I saw them, they were close to landing, so the V formation was not observed. The field guide says white body and black wings, and so it is. They roam shallow, freshwater wetlands and pastures, an apt description of my plains with a few reeds.

The second birds of interest that I spotted on the way to uni were a pair of birds that looked like Purple Swamphens, except that the birds I saw looked more black than purple, and were wandering the grass next to sidewalks rather than swamps and marshy paddocks.