Australasian Darter & colour variation

I had some good opportunities to observe Australasian darter Anhinga novaehollandiae the other day along Melbourne's Yarra River. Coming across both male and female birds enabled appreciation of their contrasting appearance.

The pictures were taken while walking along the Main Yarra Trail starting at a Fitzsimmon's Lane car park and heading upstream to the amazing Petty's Orchard.

Australasian darter (adult male) Candlebark Reserve

Australasian darter. I suspect the female bird. It is my understanding that the immature birds look similar but are paler again and have a less distinct "neck streak".

At a few points along this stretch of the Yarra River there are some deciduous plantings lending some late Autumn colour. 

More typical vegetation, Yarra River, Templestowe

And how about that neck! No wonder they are also known as Snake-birds (even more striking in the water)!

And here's a minute of video I shot of an Australasian Darter swimming at Noosa Heads in Queensland in 2006. I remember watching this bird for several minutes and was impressed with how skilfully it moved underwater. It's efficiency of movement and spooky potential as an underwater hunter left me with an eerie feeling as well.

Unfortunately this doesn't really come across in the video! I was probably wearing polaroids.

More links:

Wikipedia's Darter page describing the 4 species of the genus Anhinga worldwide

Yarra Organics at Petty's Orchard - a cafe & shop that I have put on my "To Do" list

 Bird on!

Bald Hills, 1 year ago

I am finding precious few moments for birding at present but a year ago today Tom and I visited a peculiar bit of South Gippsland bush called Bald Hills Wetland Reserve.

It was an overcast and squally day which added to the lonely and slightly spooky feel to the bush. A short walk from the car park brings one to a small lake with a bird hide. Part of the walk is along a slightly elevated boardwalk through bushy swamp. The Parks Victoria parknotes leaflet proclaims

The Bald Hills Wetland Reserve is a special place, alive with an array of birds and other wildlife. A meandering walking track leads you through a series of sand ridges and thickets of Paperbark, that flood during wet periods, to the sheltered bird hide where you can sit quietly and observe birds feeding within the wetland.

Australasian darter (Anhinga novaehollandiae)

Mirkwood or The Old Forest from Tolkien's Middle-earth?

The elevated boardwalk could have been a bit more elevated in places!

White-eared and Yellow-faced honeyeaters were readily spotted.

Grey shrike-thrush (Colluricincla harmonica)

 Grey fantail nest (I think) and an uncooperative and poorly lit Eastern yellow robin.

Cattle egrets (Ardea ibis)

Brown falcon by Tom (from moving car!) at .... well, Tarwin Lower!

I also fondly remember a Bald Hills moment when I checked my mobile phone to see if my beloved Aussie rules team Essendon (the Bombers) had started their scheduled match. I was momentarily befuddled by a set of numbers I couldn't comprehend as a 1st quarter scoreline of 94 to 1 point was displayed:

Swan Lake performance steals show!

We are not talking of ballet but of a visit to Phillip Island's Swan Lake last weekend. The wetland is situated in the southwestern corner of the island. And although I was very pleased to study this Black-fronted dotterel from the more southern of the two bird hides, it is not the star to which I refer!

  

This Black-fronted dotterel (Elseyornis melanops) was actively feeding at the lake's edge.
Below (right) we can just see it extracting a worm from the crusted mud.

I am more than a little impressed that the bright contrasting colours (black and white chest, bright red-bill and eye ring) do not stop the birds from being well camouflaged. They are quite hard to spot. Unnoticed until in flight, two others flew off while I was studying this closer bird.

The star performer?

Again, while I enjoyed watching this Eurasian coot feed in the shallows and then coming ashore to shows us its "toes with flattened lobes to assist swimming" (Pizzey) - it is not my Swan Lake star.

Eurasian coot (Fulica atra)

The site is a popular spot for Little black cormorant (outnumbering the Little pied cormorant on this occasion) and Musk duck seem reasonably constant at present (better pictures of Swan Lake birds including Musk duck at Ian Smissen's blog pages featuring a visit to Swan Lake).

The lake was far from full which surprised me given recent summer rains. Close viewing of birds was limited to the southern hide. I don't even know how this darter managed to wet its wings!

Swan Lake, Phillip Island, 25th March 2012

An iconic coastal call and an appearance not-quite-right for Pacific gull?
We have ourselves a Kelp gull (Larus dominicanus)
Swan Lake, 25 March 2012

The path leading from the car park has information boards at regular intervals. 

The Swan Lake star performance was enjoyed on the way back to the car park and viewed from the wooden boardwalk (which provides protection for shearwater burrows).

It enables me to place the words "ballet" and "echidna" in the one sentence!

The Short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) which is found throughout Australia in wide-ranging habitat. There are also three species of Long-beaked echidna which live in Papua New Guinea

Peregrine falcon vs Whistling kite

A few slow birding days (too hot, too windy, too tired) so I would like to recount an hitherto unposted experience from 18 October last year.

This episode occurred at an otherwise pretty miserable looking place called Kow Swamp in northern Victoria (I believe it can be a birding paradise if the conditions are right, you have a boat or are prepared to wade). The course of events was as follows:

4.32pm
Viewing and photographing Whistling kite in flight while parked at the Lions Club picnic area.

Whistling kite (Haliastur sphenurus)

4.38pm
Drove away from picnic area but had travelled no further then 400m when surprised by an imposing looking bird in a roadside tree-top.

Peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus)

4.39pm

Falcon flies off - "So much for that!" I think. I jump back in the car vaguely aware that the Peregrine has gone in the same direction as the road.

4.41pm

I have travelled another 200m when I notice the kites are again close. As I am photographing, the peregrine re-appears and stoops on the kite who takes defensive action.

Closely cropped view of the kite reaction.

My interpretation of this episode is that the Peregine was aggressively reinforcing "his patch". It was fast and impressive flight.

An Eremaea poster describes Kow Swamp as a:

Large freshwater storage lake between Echuca and Kerang with drowned trees and swampy margins.

You can see a list of recorded species at Eremaea's Kow Swamp page.

Typical Kow Swamp view
Australasian darter (Anhinga novaehollandiae)

Darter Processing

Having not seen Australasian Darter my whole life (according to my eremaea lists) there are now three sightings in nearly as many days:

Australasian darter (Adult male), Candlebark Reserve, Croydon Hills

The bird below was demonstrating great effectiveness at fishing, disappearing for 15-30 seconds and reappearing (doing the snake thing) with a fish on each dive (I saw 4 or 5). I just missed a photo of it tossing it's catch in the air to effect a neat swallow. I think it is the fish going down that makes the neck look deformed in this photo. I can't explain the white muck on the bill, it is in all of the photos - must be a Lilydale thing.

Australasian darter (female) or Snake-bird

Bird on!

What's uglier than a night heron?

Answer: A juvenile night heron. Before last weekend I'd really only seen mature birds in various states of plumage but this juvenile is really a weird looking dude.

This fella was seen at Jell's Park - Tom kindly joined me for a mid-afternoon outing & he was manned with the original digital SLR & lenses (daddy has a better camera now!). We discussed the different settings you can use & here's his photo of an obliging dragon fly he spotted:

We also had good views of darter (2) including witnessing why it is also known as snake bird. Watching one swim with body submerged, neck and head sticking out of the water was initially a little confronting (no photo of that sorry)!