White-plumed Honeyeaters have been nesting in our back yard, the main focus in the BirdLife Central Australia Branch Newsletter - the Desert Chat and frolicking around the car recently. Andrew Crouch wrote a great article in the Newsletter, and gave a few interesting facts I didn't know before, namely that White-plumed Honeyeaters are also called "Greenies", and the Central Australian birds are a deeper yellow than the southern varieties. (you can e-mail me rjwaring@richardwaring.com.au if you want to be added to our e-mail list for the Branch Newsletter. We should have a website up and running soon and I'll post a link to that on this blog where you will be able to download future editions).
The nesting White-plumed Honeyeaters have been very busy and there are 3 chicks that have hatched and are constantly calling for food. My son Moses has been keeping a close eye on developments there and reports any new developments.
The frolicking around the car experience was completely unexpected. The birds seemed to be trying to get to their own reflections in the car mirror and windows. At one point there were 4 of them all looking at themselves. The camera did come out and I took a few photos.
White-plumed Honeyeater
and as to the Thornbill post - did you pick the odd one out? One of these was not a Central Australian Thornbill at all.
The answers are:
1 Chestnut-rumped Thornbill - apart from the colour of the rump, the key id feature for me is the eye
2 Slaty-backed Thornbill - very similar to the Inland Thornbill, but with less markings around the face and neck
3 Inland Thonbill - probably the most common around Central Australia
4 Yellow-rumped Thornbill - I see these birds on the ground a lot more than the other Thornbills in CA
5 Buff-rumped Thornbill - the furphy in the pack. Check out the range in one of your bird books. this was the one we don't get in Central Australia.
As with most birding I do, sometimes I find even the most commonly seen birds difficult to ID due to their close resemblance to other birds in the area, especially when they are small and in shadows.
Although I have never seen one in person, I think that the White-plumed Honeyeater is among the most elegant of all Australian birds. Nice photos.
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