Wild Bird Wednesday 592 - Crested Tern

The Crested Tern (Thalasseus bergii) is more or less the default tern in my part of the world.  When I see a tern on my 'local' patch this is always the case that I start with this species with - and only when I am sure its not a Crested Tern do I move on to other species.  In many cases this is straight forward - but not always!

When you are out at sea is one of the times when you may need to look a little closer - but in this case it was a Crested Tern.  This bird flew around our boat for a few minutes when I was out on a pelagic trip recently.

I love the simplicity of these pictures.

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Wild Bird Wednesday 591- Australian Spotted Crake

The Australian Spotted Crake (Porzana fluminea) is a small - but not as small as Baillon's Crake - bird, that is endemic to Australia. The closely related Spotted Crake (Porzana porzana) is found in the northern hemisphere, and the similarity of the common names of these species sometimes causes confusion - and raised blood pressure amongst taxonomists. 

This bird was out and about at Werribee, and is generally the most common crake I see.  I love the shade of green on its beak.

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Wild Bird Wednesday 590 - Pacific Heron

The Pacific Heron (Ardea pacifica) is a medium sized and conspicuous heron that seems to be showing up in greater numbers in my local patch that in past years.  In the past, this bird was known as the White-Necked Heron - which makes a lot of sense.

This bird was hunting in remarkably calm waters in one of the lagoon at Werribee.  Unfortunately it flew off a short time after the unsuccessful fishing stab shown in these images.  

I really like the spots on the throat of this species.

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Wild Bird Wednesday 589 - Baillon's Crake

The (Porzana pusilla) gains its common name from Lousi Baillon, a French naturalist who collect some of the earliest (but not the earliest!) examples of this species.  It's scientific name means 'insignificant little crake', which is a reasonable assessment of its size!

The Baillons's Crake is actually only just bigger than a house sparrow, and tends to be found in dense freshwater vegetation.  However, on the morning I took these pictures it seems it was a 'crakes day out' as there were five, and maybe six, of these birds visible at one time!  They seemed to be largely unconcerned by the presence of three birders, all of which were wielding long lenses.

It will come as no surprise for people to learn that these birds were seen at Werribee Sewage works.

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Wild Bird Wednesday 588 - Golden-headed Cisticola

The Golden-headed Cisticola (Cisticola exilis) is a small bird that favours perching at the top of plants and singing its heart out during breeding season.  It's voice is a bit scratchy, but very identifiable. 

I am not 100% sure if Cisticola is pronounced 'Cist-a-cola' - with the last bit sending like the drink, or 'Sis-tickler' with it sound like somebody torturing their female sibling!  But, its a nice bird none the less. 

These pictures were taken during an early morning visit to Werribee - where the light was wonderful and birding just as good.  

This bird was sat up singing in a pool of light, and just glowed.

This pictures look much better larger, so I recommend you click on the images.

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Wild Bird Wednesday 587 - Shy Albatross

 'When a man is tired of London Albatross, he is tired of life'

with apologies to Samuel Johnson.

I had the opportunity to go out on another 'pelagic' trip this weekend - although this one was a little different from the ones I have done in Tasmania.

Melbourne is not really close to any genuine deep ocean - which is what you need to find for most pelagic birds - but we do have access to a large area of shallower seas.  These shallow seas cover what is basically part of the landmass of Australia that was flooded at the end of the last ice age. A remarkable thing about this, is that when colonised by Australia's first people they would have been able to have walked to the part of the country we now call Tasmania. Bass Strait, which now separates the mainland from Tasmania, formed during the history of human occupation!

Anyway, I took a short trip out into the shallow waters of Bass Strait to see what we could find.

One of the more abundant birds we found were Shy Albatross (Thalassarche cauta).

These are some shots of Shy Albatross performing braking manoeuvres as they approached the back of our boat.

OK, I admit it - these birds are not braking! 

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