Photos of Little Birds around Alice Springs

Sometimes the little birds are the easiest to hear, but the hardest to find. Here is a selection of recent shots not far from Alice Springs:

Inland Thornbill

Rufous Whistler

Southern Whiteface

Weebill

Yellow-rumped Thornbill

Red-capped Robin

White-winged Fairy-wren

Crimson Chat

The weather is warming up, birds are nesting and maybe rains are coming

In the past few days I have noticed the reptiles have started to re-appear after the colder winter months. The Bearded Dragon (above and below) is one of the more obvious species as they have been appearing on the top of posts, tops of trees and on the roads.

Another species I have seen a few times now is the Centralian Blue-tongue. This can be very colourful even though the one below isn't showing all the colours and it was taken late in the afternoon.

The birds seem to be actively building nests which makes me wonder if we are perhaps not getting rain in the Centre soon. Some, like the Black-shouldered Kite have made sure they are ready by hatching chicks early. You can just see the heads in the third photo of the chicks in the nest.

The smaller birds are the ones who are most actively building nests. The Thornbills below were actively foraging for nesting material, and there are lots of nests in trees and shrubs around Alice Springs and even more out of town.

Yellow-rumped Thornbill

Inland Thornbill

The smaller birds - Zebra Finch juveniles, Red-capped Robin and Inland Thornbill

You know a bird is small when a Fairy-wren looks large in comparison. The wind chill factor in Central Australia makes it hard to get motivated to even go looking, but I found a nice thickly treed area the other day.

In total, there were four juvenile Zebra Finches in the group. They huddled up eventually, but it started with a couple on different branches, until ultimately all 4 sat on the same branch.

The Red-capped Robin in the photos below was one of a few I saw. I was trying to be patient and wait until it landed on a lower branch with some yellow wildflowers in the background but it decided the perches I had identified weren't good for spying food, so I dipped on the wanted photo, but still managed a few shots.

Red-capped Robin

The Inland Thornbill in the photo below was one of a pair that was flitting around and chattering amongst the trees. I was intrigued by the up-turned tail, like a Fairy-wren. I hadn't really noticed this before, and the sounds the thornbills were making was unusual, making me wonder if they weren't perhaps using mating calls. Unfortunately I've misplaced my sound recording machine as it would have been handy to record the calls being made by both birds. I didn't see any indication of a nest, but they could have been building one further into the scrub.

Inland Thornbill

There were a number of other small birds in the area I didn't manage decent shots of - Splendid Fairy-wren, Mistletoebird, Western Gerygone as well as Yellow-rumped Thonbills. I did have a very inquisitive young Thornbill, I think it was an Inland variety but couldn't be 100%. It came to within 1 metre of me on a branch, and checked me out for probably 5 seconds, before moving about the bush and then off to another one from the back of the bush. There were a couple of striking parts to this - firstly, how close it came to me, and secondly, it was tiny. Pizzey and Knight state the Inland Thornbill's size ranges from 9.5 - 11.5 cms. I doubt this one was the 9.5 cms, more like 7, so I am wondering if it perhaps wasn't a juvenile Slaty-backed Thornbill which is supposed to be 9.5 cms only. They are supposed to mix with the Inland Thornbills, so perhaps this was what it was, but without a photo I'll never know. such is life in the birding world.

Thornbills - do you know your Central Australian species?

Central Australian Thornbills

You are out in the scrub. You can sense movement and then you hear a chirp, or a twitter and wonder what it is. Mixed in among the Splendid Fairy-wrens, Western Gerygones and Southern Whiteface, you see another small bird. It is probably a Thornbill but which one?
The above photo is a group of 5 Thornbills that can be seen around Central Australia. They are numbered 1 to 5. Before you keep reading, open the photo and see if you can identify each one. to help you, in no particular order, here are the names of the five:

• Inland Thaornbill
• Slaty-backed Thornbill
• Chestnut-rumped Thornbill
• Yellow-rumped Thornbill 
• Buff-rumped Thornbill

In my next post on this blog, if you are keen to know how well you identified each one, I'll give the answers.

Identifying Thornbills can be difficult. Some of them are easier than others because of their colour, markings and voice, while others are difficult as they look similar to other Thornbills. The Yellow-rumped Thornbills seem to be easiest for me at the moment as they have a very different look and noise, but when you see a bird under the shadows of the foliage of a bush or among the branches above head height with the sun overhead, it can be quite tricky. Eventually though, when you have the time, they do start to be more inquisitive and then once they realise you aren't coming to catch them or hurt them, they can be quite friendly.

Currently the weather is starting to warm up in Central Australia, and as the insects become more active, so too will the Thornbills. An easy access location for these birds is Simpsons Gap, about 15 kms from Alice Springs. I have seen all 5 of the birds in the photo above at this location. Cassia Hill walk and the car park down at the Gap itself seem to have been the most reliable in the past.

If I really haven't got a good photo, I also try really hard to isolate the calls I've heard in my head, and then check on my Pizzey and Knight iPad App of the ones I suspect was the variety. I also use others to help with identification if I'm still unsure and have a good enough photo.

Good luck with the ID above, and enjoy your birding.

Fledglings, juveniles and small bird photos

There seem to be a lot of young birds around at the moment in Central Australia. On my way to and from Santa Teresa today, I stopped for a couple of birds which turned out to be Australasian Pipits. As I was sitting in the car, windows down, I could hear some high pitched squeaks, and noticed a few small birds on the roadside. They didn't seem to mind the car, and came quite close. At first I thought the small birds were grey-headed honeyeaters, then I thought they could be yellow-tinted honeyeaters, although that would be a long way from their range. Turns out, they were grey-fronted honeyeater, not birds I see a lot in Central Australia.

Grey-fronted Honeyeater

Over the past couple of days I have also seen a lot of small birds, or juveile birds on the way to Santa Teresa and around Alice Springs.

Young Crimson Chat with grub

Young Fairy Martin giving me the eye as it flew off

Australian or Clamorous Reed Warbler - should just be called Chatterbox!

Little Grassbird

A pair of Australian Spotted Crakes

I'm fairly sure this is a young Masked Woodswallow, please correct me if I am wrong

A moulting or juvenile Hooded Robin

Inland Thornbill

Birds of Willowra and surrounds

Willowra is approximately 200 kms north of Alice Springs on the Stuart Highway, and then 130 kms west on the road to Willowra. Aningie Station is about 42 kms from the Stuart Highway along the dirt, and the rocky hills and mulga lined roadside makes for a fairly picturesque drive. After Aningie Station, the sides of the road are much flatter, with a lot of burnt out spots with new growth emerging amongst the anthills.

The treat of Willowra, apart from the mating of donkeys to both send you to sleep and wake you in the morning, was a pair of Brown Goshawks, one quite young and only recently fledged, that were occupying the trees near the accommodation I had for the week:

Brown Goshawks:

Apart from the Goshawks, I was also treated to the sound of 250+ Galahs late in the afternoon, and also saw large numbers along the road to and from Willowra. Below is a photo of a tree full of Galahs:

Another of the pink and white variety of bird is the Major Mitchell Cockatoos. There was probably 7-10 of these throughout the week. These photos are of a few coming in to land in the early morning:

Some of the other more photographed birds from the surrounds of Willowra are below:

Black-breasted Buzzard

Brown Falcon

Crimson Chat

Inland Thornbill

Nankeen Kestrel

Red-capped Robin

Australasian Pipit

Juvenile Rufous Whistler

Splendid Fairy-wren

Happy Birding!