"Going up" A Heron on the fourth floor

This is a final post from this year's trip to Caloundra. This White-faced heron paid a visit to the fourth floor balcony of our Kings Beach accommodation. It provided photographic challenges for the equipment and talent at hand.

At 65cm this bird is reasonably big. This is generally not a problem except if the bird has landed only 3 metres away from your 150-500 lens. It was also quite unusual for me to be shooting with a glaringly sunlit maroon wall as a background. The results are, at best, interesting!

A very cosmopolitan White-faced heron, Kings Beach, Caloundra

Here we see evidence of trial-and-error photography as I ....

• Realise that I wasn't going to able to work at all with that bright maroon wall.

• Try to take the wall out of the equation using different angles and zooming to a tighter subject. 

• Don't really coming to grips with optimal focussing when the head and tail are at such different focal lengths.

• Miss nailing a decent take-off shot and inadvertently capture an interesting shadow in a corner of a picture. 

Well, "Live and learn" as they say!

Where Beach stone-curlew fossicked the night before!

Another extremely welcome visit was from a pair of Beach stone-curlew (Esacus magnirostris) to the main beach right alongside the boardwalk and cafe-strip of Caloundra's Bulcock Beach Esplanade.

There are no photos!

The weather had been lousy and I was going for a no-camera jog in the drizzle and gloom of early evening when I sighted the pair. I was able to watch from the boardwalk for a good 15 minutes as they poked around the water's edge. I observed one bird repeatedly nodding every 4-5 seconds. The bird's whole body would see-saw with the quick nod. Intermittently the other bird bowed it's head and spread it's wings forming horizontal arcs in a possibly submissive display. It was a memorable moment for me seeing these locally endangered shore birds for the first time.

Here is a link to some excellent images of some other local Beach stone-curlews at Greg Roberts' blog sunshinecoastbirds. For more information about these birds check the Birds in Backyards Beach Stone-curlew page.

I returned the next morning to find the trusty council tractor raking and flattening the exact spot!

Back to how a beach should be. Completely flat, devoid of washed-up seaweed, pesky birdlife or any form of obvious life!

Osprey are also a regular part of the Caloundra sky scape. No close-up photos this year but I enjoyed finding this nest high up in a Norfolk Island pine on the Headland Esplanade.

Site of urban Osprey nest, Caloundra

Osprey just visible in nest, Caloundra

Little Black Cormorant (Phalacrocorax sulcirostris) checking the conditions

Pied cormorant (Phalacrocorax varius) 

Bird on!

Sunshine Coast Ospreys

Over the last four years I have enjoyed an annual trip with friends to Caloundra for a few days in May. Among the many highlights are opportunities to renew acquaintances with the local ospreys.

Osprey (Pandion heliaetus), Noosa Heads National Park 

In the photos above the bird was perched on the bare branch seen at lower right. He patrolled this coastline around the Boilingpot Lookout, Noosa Heads National Park

Now we are back closer the accommodation and the Kings Beach ospreys are even more obliging with one bird regularly perching at the Surf Club. His favoured lookout was on some street art ...... featuring birds!

A fellow Victorian admires the view (allowed this close only after the author was satisfied he had enough snaps!)

"Handedness" in birds

Left-handedness, left clawedness, left talonedness? The terms don't really roll off the tongue!

Now many birds only use their feet for mobility but I had heard that parrots were prone to being "left-handed".

While watching this swamphen the other day at a reserve called Wurundjeri Walk in Blackburn South I started wondering about other bird groups:

Purple swamphen, Wurundjeri Walk
Porphyrio porphyrio melanotus 

Left foot

Left foot

Ahhh, right foot!

Ron Dudley's blog (Utah, USA) has amazing photos demonstrating his observed Handedness in Short-eared owls.

An old and small study of zoo birds described in this piece "Left handedness in parrots" concludes that to varying degrees parrots are at least 75% left-handed.

A BBC Earth News report details the findings of some Sydney researchers in Parrots preferred left-handedness and includes this observation:

"Young Sulphur-crested cockatoos all end up being left-footed, but when they first come out of the nest they are equally clumsy with both." 

Dr Culum Brown, Macquarie University, Australia

This study goes a little further and researched whether bird-handedness held clues for the development of human handedness.

It appears that some species of birds, parrots in particular do determine a left or right handedness. It just so happens that in many parrots left-handedness is more common than right handedness.

White-cheeked rosella, Platycerus eximius
Wurundjeri Walk, 9th Feb 2012

Crimson Rosella, Platycerus elegans
Wee Jasper, NSW, 5th July 2009

A left-footed Osprey, Pandion haliaetus?
Osprey handedness is also debated - No conclusions I'm afraid!

...or right-footed?
Both birds (or the same bird 30 minutes later) were
photographed at Caloundra, Qld, May 2011

Caloundra

On a good weekend I might have added 20 subtropical birds to the 2011 list from the lads' weekend jaunt up to Caloundra. As it was we had a great time & I managed 11 new birds for the year. This included the lifers Variegated fairy-wren & Scarlet honeyeater (Spangled drongo also recorded as an Eremaea lifer but this must be an oversight on previous lists).

As usual had excellent views of Osprey & a wonderful Sea-eagle experience as it's massive form took off from the top of a tree in bushland only metres above me - we had surprised each other.

The birds added to the 2011 list were:

• Osprey
• Scaly-breasted lorikeet
• Red-backed fairy wren
• Variegated fairy-wren
• Scarlet honeyeater
• Brown honeyeater
• Blue-faced Honeyeater
• Pied butcherbird
• Varied Triller
• Spangled Drongo
• Torresian Crow

Red-backed Fairy wren (only brown birds today)

Does my bum look big in this?
(can just see the red back coming through)

Variegated Fairy-wren (dismal light), Ben Bennett Bushland Reserve

Huge! White-bellied sea eagle, Ben Bennett Bushland Reserve, Caloundra

Scarlet Honeyeater, Ben Bennett Bushland Reserve

The photo that might have been.
Scarlet Honeyeater hawking

Osprey