Wild Bird Wednesday 643

The New Zealand Kākā (Nestor meridionalis) or just Kākā is large forest dwelling parrot that is endemic to New Zealand.  It can be found on North, South and Stewart Island, where it lives in native forests, predator free islands and a number of newly established predator-free sanctuaries.

An example of the predator-free sanctuaries is Zealandia in Wellington.  This sanctuary is based around an old reservoir that once provided drinking water to the city of Wellington.  It is now ring-fenced with a predator-proof fence and the area inside the fence is being regenerated as native forest.  The Kākā in this sanctuary are free flying - and are in fact colonising the surrounding areas outside of the sanctuary.

Most of the pictures here are actually of fully wild birds from South and Stewart Island. 

The Kākā is about 45 cm (18 in) in length and weighs between 390 to 560 g (14 to 20 oz).  The Kākā nests from October to June in cavities in hollow trees, and produces 4 eggs, which normally leads to the fledging of just two young parrots.

Like most (maybe all?) parrots this species is intelligent, and great fun to watch. 

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Wild Bird Wednesday 642 - Snowy Albatross / Wandering Albatross

More from my recent trips out to sea from Tasmania this week,

There are a group of Albatross species that are broadly known as The Great Albatrosses. The Great Albatrosses are divided into two species complexes, the 'Wandering and Amsterdam Albatrosses', and the 'Royal Albatrosses'. The splitting of the great albatrosses into six or seven species has been accepted by most, though not all, authorities.

I have to say that the ability of some people to be able to split these species in the field is nothing short of remarkable - although it has to said that readily available images on the back of a camera are of great help.

This week's WBW bird is a Diomedea exulans - which is also know as the Snowy Albatross, the White-Winged Albatross and the Wandering Albatross.

The Snowy Albatross has the longest wingspan of any living bird, reaching upwards of 3.5 m (11 ft), and adults can weigh from 5.9 to 12.7 kg (13 to 28 lb).  They are by any standard a large and impressive bird.  And as they glide in towards the boat - and occasionally settle on the water near it - they are an utter joy to watch.

These birds breed on a small number of sub-antarctic islands, but they can be seen anywhere in the southern oceans that surround Antartica.  By any stretch of the imagination that's a lot water to call home.

I may have said it before and I'll probably say it again, but if you get the chance to see any albatross - take it.

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Wild Bird Wednesday 641 - Salvin's Albatross

I was lucky enough to go out on another couple of pelagic birding trips a week ago.  As per usual for me, these went out from Eaglehawk Neck in Tasmania.

This is a Salvin's Albatross (Thalassarche salvini) that we saw in the first trip of the weekend.  This species is part of the Shy Albatross group of birds.  It can be separated from Shy Albatross (Thalassarche cauta) by its pale grey head with a white forehead, its white underwings and the pale or olive-grey bit with a dark tip.

In the field (or on the ocean in this case) the grey head was very noticeable and this was the feature that first alerted us to the birds presence as it flew past.  Somewhat unusually (so I am told) the bird stayed around the boat for a while, rather than just doing a fly past.

This is a Southern Ocean species that breeds on some of New Zealand sub-antarctic islands. 

In some of these picture you can see the bird interacting with a Shy Albatross. 

As ever, to join on with WBW click on the link below.  Hope all is well.  SM

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Wild Bird Wednesday 640 - Eurasian Teal

The Eurasian Teal (Anas crecca) or just Teal to me in the UK is another duck that is a scarce breeder in the UK - about 1,400 pairs - but an abundant winter visitor when 210,000 individuals may be present in the UK.

These ducks are small enough to be mistaken for waders in flight, and the twisting and turning flight of their flocks adds to this appearance.  When they take flight they leap nearly vertically into the air, and I like to think this is where the collective noun for a group of teal - a spring - originates.

The smallest of these birds is only just over half the size of a Mallard, but they really are a great looking bird.

The taxonomy of this species is rather fluid, with the closely related Green Winged Teal from America sometimes being considered the same species, and sometimes not.  This article suggests that these two type of birds are about to be (re) lumped as a single species after being separated in the past.

These picture were taken in flooded winter pastures at Catcott Reserve on the Somerset Levels in the UK.

(Once again I have failed to take any decent pictures of the females that were there - I really must address this!)

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Wild Bird Wednesday 639 - Pintail

The Pintail or Northern Pintail (Anas acuta) is a duck with a wide geographic distribution that breeds in the northern areas of Europe and across the Palearctic and North America.  These birds (which are all male) were seen at the Slimbridge WWT reserves in Gloucestershire in the UK.

They are a large duck, about the same size as the closely related but probably more familiar Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos). Both males and females of this species have the long, fine tail that gives them their common name.  Only the males have the distinctive white neck stripe.

Only abut 20 pairs of this species breed in the UK, but in winter almost 30,000 birds may be present as they migrate south from their more northern breeding grounds.

I remember the first time I ever saw this species was on an urban pond in Gateshead in the NE of the UK.  I got rather excited!

I must try harder not to be just distracted by the showy males when I am photographing birds!

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Wild Bird Wednesday 638 - Tuffted Duck

The Tufted Duck (Aythya fuligula) is a diving duck that is closely related to the Scaup. These pictures were taken at Slimbridge, a famous wildfowl reserve in Gloustershire, UK.

Tufted Ducks can always be found over much of the southern UK, but their numbers increase significantly during the winter.  The breeding population is about 16,000 pairs, but there may be as many as 120,000 individual birds present in the winter.  Interestingly, some of the UK breeding birds as themselves migratory, and spend the northern winter in Spain and Portugal.  This movement is most noticeable in cold winters in the UK. 

The individual in these pictures is a male.

 As ever, to join in with WBW, click on the link below.  Cheers  SM

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