Goodbye to Winter

Winter here in Atlanta officially ends today at 5:58 p.m. This is cause for celebration. To bid farewell to the drab, gray winter and warmly welcome the colorful spring, I give you the rainbow lorikeet.

If you’re visiting eastern or northern Australia, you do not have to search for rainbow lorikeets. I saw my first one in Sydney at a cafe near the Opera House. It was sitting on a table, hoping to pick up a scrap of food; the way you’d see a pigeon or sparrow hanging around an outdoor eatery in any big-city downtown area.

As to the bird in this photography, I saw him in downtown Adelaide. We had arrived in the late afternoon, and gone for a walk. A few blocks from our hotel, we were on a side street just off one of the main roads. The city had planted trees along the sidewalk on a few of the blocks. And in one of those trees were a half-dozen or so of these lorikeets, feeding on those fruits you see. I went back the next afternoon with my camera, and they were there again for the late afternoon meal.

They’re garrulous and noisy parrots, with a high-pitched call. Rainbow lorikeets are about 10 to 12 inches long and the sexes are identical.

May your spring be as beautiful and colorful as this!

Saved from Extinction

This bird is lucky to be alive. We, meaning humans, almost caused its specie’s extinction. This is the North Island Saddleback. The rust-colored patches on both sides of its back are the reason for the name. The red wattles just below its beak tell you the saddleback is part of the wattlebird family.

Before the arrival of humans, North Island saddlebacks were widespread on mainland North Island. But a combination of deforestation and introduced mammalian predators decimated these populations, and by the 1890's, the mainland population was eliminated. The remaining North Island saddlebacks were only found on Hen Island, a small island off the coast of Northland.

A translocation program began in 1964, moving saddlebacks to areas protected from predators. One such area is Tiritiri Matangi Island, where I took this photo. The last census for North Island saddlebacks estimated the population at about seven thousand.

The North Island saddleback has a nearly identical South Island sibling. But their ranges don’t overlap. The South Island saddleback was also almost wiped out by the introduction of rats that came to New Zealand as stowaways on ships. The translocation effort that began in 1964 on the North Island also took place on the South Island, and saved this species, as well.

Red Wattlebird

This is the second-largest member of the Australian honeyeater family, the red wattlebird. You can see the red wattles beneath its face that give this birds its name.

You will find these birds in southeast Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and southwest Western Australia in open forests and woodlands. It’s a common visitor to urban gardens and parks. Red wattlebirds are loud and easy to spot. I was trying to get a good photo of another bird in this tree when this bird flew in for a snack, chasing the other bird away.

The red wattlebird is about 14 inches long and is one of the largest nectar-feeding birds in the world. This one was enjoying what it could get from the flowers on this tree. It was kind enough to pause for a moment, allowing me to get this shot of him or her (sexes are similar, so I have no way of knowing which it is) framed by the beautiful flowers and fruits of this tree, the name of which I have forgotten.

A more common cousin

Yesterday, I wrote about the beautiful but critically endangered Regent Honeyeater. Today, we have one of his much more common cousins, the White-cheeked Honeyeater.

Like all honeyeaters, this one feeds mainly on nectar. It’s bright yellow patch and loud, clear whistle are seen and heard all over eastern Australia, and in the southwest corner of the country, as well. I took this photo on Fraser Island (which is an ecological marvel itself; worthy of inclusion on any itinerary!)

As I wrote yesterday, there are 187 species of honeyeaters. They all live in Australia and other islands in the southwest Pacific. But they’re not all called honeyeaters. And next time, I’ll show you a member of the family named for one of its peculiar physical characteristics.

Beautiful and Endangered

This is the critically endangered member of a large family. He’s the Regent Honeyeater, endemic to southeastern Australia. There are 187 species of honeyeaters. This is the one that’s critically endangered. The reason: agricultural development has led to the loss of the kinds of trees and shrubs that produce nectars making up about 85% of the bird’s diet.

There are no hummingbirds in Australia. The honeyeaters, which are the size of cardinals, are as close to a hummingbird as you’ll find there. They have a long, slightly curved bill adapted for getting nectar from plants. They can’t hover, so you see them acrobatically jumping, twisting and turning through shrubs and trees, feeding on the nectar. And with their striking black and gold feathers, they are gorgeous.

Kerkeru

Meet the kerkeru. This big bird—about 20 inches long and nearly two pounds—is the native and endemic pigeon of New Zealand. Kerkeru is its Maori name, and that’s what most folks call it. But it’s also known as a wood pigeon, because it lives in wooded areas. Their diet is mainly the small fruits of the trees in their habitag. They play an important ecological role, as they are the only birds capable of eating the largest native fruits, and thus spreading the seeds intact.

I took this photo on Tiritiri Matangi, an island near Auckland that’s a wildlife sanctuary. But I also saw them in the tree in my cousin’s front yard in suburban Auckland. So they’re fairly common. But getting a clear shot of a perching kerkeru was very uncommon for me, so I was thrilled to have this one posing for me!

An Appropriate Name

Meet the Superb Fairy-Wren. I don’t know how it got that adjective attached to its name, but it sure fits. Like several other breathtakingly beautiful birds in Australia, this little guy is very common. That doesn’t mean we ever got tired of seeing them. Far from it. He’s only about five inches long, but that brilliant blue makes him impossible to overlook.

There are 15 species of fairy-wrens in Australia; they are not related to the true wrens of the Northern Hemisphere. Why they’re called fairy-wrens is another mystery to me. They eat mostly insects, of which Australia has no shortage.

This is one of the birds I was most eager to see and photograph on our recent trip. My wife was first to see and take a picture of one. I was down on the beach at the 12 Apostles taking some pictures while she stayed atop the cliff and spotted one hopping around. She’s quite proud of that! I got this shot a few days later at a nature preserve.

Superb, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Big Bill

I took this picture of a pelican coming in for a landing one morning on Kangaroo Island, in South Australia. The cook from our hotel had walked across the road to the beach with a small bucket of fish scraps, as he apparently does most mornings, and the usual crowd of gulls and pelicans were there to greet him and get a free meal. The way the sunlight is hitting the bird’s wings almost makes it look like a painting, but that’s just how it came out of the camera.

Big bill is not this bird’s name; it describes his most notable feature. The Australian Pelican has the largest bill of any bird, up to about 20 inches. They look bigger than white pelicans we see in the U.S. and it’s all because of the bill. Their bodies are actually pretty similar in size. This picture does’t show you how big the bill is, but I love this one because I don’t get many good shots of birds in flight. But I’m working on it.