Kookaburra Killed

If you look carefully, you can see something grasped firmly in this majestic-looking Wedge-tailed Eagle’s talons. The victim, whose lower bill I recovered from beneath the tree, was an iconic bird of the Kimberley - a Blue-winged Kookaburra (Daecelo leachii). This was one less bird that would wake us campers up at dawn! He (I knew the kookaburra was male from discarded tail feathers) was almost certainly caught live by either this eagle or her mate this morning at El Questro Wilderness Park.

When Gavin Scott (an El Questro Ranger) excitedly rushed over to tell me about seeing an eagle feeding, I didn’t expect we would return to the scene and find the bird still there. But as we drove slowly along the dusty road and I glanced out the window eagerly, I focused instantly on a dark shape perched on the highest limb of a Bauhinia tree, only 20m from us. An adult male Wedge-tailed Eagle! Gavin quickly pointed out that it was not the bird he’d just seen feeding. Then we saw movement and noticed the female was perched just below him - not one eagle but TWO!!

I shot some footage of her ripping the kookaburra to pieces and even filmed her eating the whole top of the skull! She didn’t seem fazed by me as I snuck out of the car, so I circled around to her north-western side to have the sun at my back. Just the right lighting for a good photo. I snapped a few of the male (below), then started approaching her. She stopped feeding when I got to about 10m, then flew shortly afterwards.

Many doubt the Wedge-tail’s capability at hunting birds on the wing but I firmly believe that the smaller and swifter male finds it easy. A few weeks ago I observed a family trio of  wedgies hunting black cockatoos and their agility astounded me - they flapped furiously and split a flock up to single out just one bird, staying low to the ground, flapping upwards and plummeting to gain momentum, before disappearing below the treeline. Combined with their sheer patience, skill at ambush and manoeuvrability, it wouldn’t have surprised me if the male eagle had captured this kookaburra after a pursuit (albeit a short one) through the air. My instinct also told me he had captured it for his mate because she was about to lay eggs. 

I found their nest, pictured below, in a stunning Boab tree, high up on a rocky escarpment during my visit to El Questro last year. This year I’d checked it again and it was freshly lined in preparation for breeding very soon. The female eagle needs peak body condition in order to produce eggs and it is quite possible that some extra snacks are provided by her soulmate, whose loyalty to her during the breeding season is immeasurable. I’ve watched eagle behaviour for countless hours and when you see a male perform aerial courtship, bring prey to the nest or take over an incubation shift, you can see how dedicated he is.

I’m really looking forward to hearing updates from Gavin Scott about the breeding progress of this pair of eagles. Keep watching this News section for updates!

Possum Magic

Nearly two months ago I installed a nest box (made from 100% recycled material) in a large Marri tree at the front of our place in Mt. Helena. This was not long after we sighted the fella in the photo above in our backyard. I’ve checked it about twice to see if we’ve had anything move in - but no luck.

A few nights ago I saw two possums foraging in the canopy of the Marri trees in our backyard - so checked all my boxes (I have 4!) immediately, but still didn’t find any residents.

This morning I was raking leaves out the front when I noticed tufts of possum fur on the floor. As I looked harder, I could see little bits floating down from a branch high up, around which I then noticed were wads and wads of more fur. Maybe the possum’s had had a fight? Someone had lost lots of fur! As this branch was in the ‘nest box tree’, I borrowed my neighbours’ ladder (thanks to my wonderful friendly neighbours) and scrambled up for a look. Sure enough, laying curled up asleep at the bottom of the nest box was a beautiful Common Brushtail Possum (Trichosurus vulpecula). Our first resident!

These possums are often known for living in people’s roofs, which unfortunately can lead to them being trapped and moved. Possums are highly sensitive animals and translocations can very often cause the possums to die. This is usually because the area to which they are moved has other possums already living there - so the newcomers get driven out... to their death.

A great solution is to install a Nest Box in your garden - all you need is a reasonably tall tree. Possums may not move in straight away, but at least they can get used to the box (especially if you ‘bait’ it with some fresh apple or banana!), and if you wire off your eaves a bit at a time, these arboreal animals will be happy to move house. It’s best to do some detective work first: check along your roof and try to locate the exact spot where the possum comes in and out of your roof cavity - this spot should have traces of fur caught on the bricks or wood. When you locate the spot, you can start wiring off the rest of the gaps under the roof, and leave the ‘possum hole’ until last. After you’ve installed a nest box, make sure the possum has found it before closing up the last hole. You might even like to sit quietly one evening and watch the possum emerge.

This is exactly how I spent the evening tonight. Eager to ‘meet’ my new friend, I crept outside and sat a little way back from the nest box tree, equipped with a torch and my camera. After only a couple of minutes (right on dusk), I heard scratching coming from inside the box, and was excited to see this very cute expert climber emerge. (Please note that the 'blood' on the tree looks a bit suspicious but it's just sap from the tree!). So many times nature’s ‘problems’ can be solved with a balanced solution that benefits both humans and wildlife.

A Sound from the Ground

In the Noongar Aboriginal calendar there are six seasons, and this depiction much more accurately (compared to the European version) represents the changes we see in our environment throughout the course of a year in the south-west of Western Australia. With the arrival of April, we have just entered Djeran, the season of cooler change.

Nothing detects the change in season better than local wildlife who are often waiting for a cue to focus on a particular food, migrate, or commence breeding. The latter applies to a group of animals that you can hear right now if you listen closely around  dry creek beds and swamp edges in the Perth hills.

One example of this group is pictured above. This incredible creature is a burrowing frog - specifically, a Moaning Frog (Heleioporus eyrei). It is one of several species in the south-west of Western Australia that spends much of its life under ground. Moaning Frogs excavate their way into soft soil using their back legs, digging down deep until they find enough moisture to keep them hydrated. They stay here, hiding away from the hot sun until they are lured out by warm, moist nights to forage.

Coinciding with the arrival of Djeran, male Moaning Frogs begin calling to attract mates. At dusk and into the night, their mournful moan is emitted from a shallow burrow, the entrance of which helps resonate the sound to the outside world. If you look carefully in the muddy banks of creeks and dams, you can find the entrance to the burrow.

You may think it unusual for a frog to commence breeding before there is any water around - well, this is for a reason. After mating, the female frog lays her eggs in a foam nest that is hidden inside an underground burrow. Here the tadpoles metamorphose, just in time for the rains of Makuru (early winter) , which wash them into larger, more permanent water bodies. They then spend the next few months growing and developing, before they turn into Baby Burrowers.

The Hooting Frog has bright yellow markings.

Western Spotted Frogs have distinct spots on their back.

Several other species of burrowing frog can also be found in the Perth region. Pictured above is a rarer species, the Hooting Frog (Heleioporus barycragus), which prefers heavier soils in the Darling Range. As its name suggests, the call of this frog is a bit what you imagine an owl to sound like (although just to confuse things, it doesn’t sound like any of our Australian owl species!). If you live east of the Darling Scarp you may be lucky enough to hear the distinctive calls of Western Spotted Frogs (Heleioporus albopunctatus). The distinctive spots (from which its species name is derived: albo = white, punctatus = spotted) and smooth brown to purplish colour make this a beautifully marked animal. Their call is a higher pitched, quicker ‘whoop’ sound, and can often be heard from ditches at the side of country roads in the Wheatbelt region.

Why not spend an Autumn evening listening out for burrowing frog calls? You may even see one of these magic creatures!

Promiscuous Pigeons

The Common Bronzewing (Phaps chalcoptera) can breed any month. Earlier this year, a pair built a nest and reared two beautiful young at my parents’ place in Parkerville. And now ‘our’ Mt Helena pair has decided that April is the month for them!

A few weeks ago, we observed both male and female pigeons busily gathering sticks and flying to a protected spot in the parrot bush thicket at the front of our yard. A flimsy nest started forming... but suddenly they gave up and ceased to build any more, or lay eggs. Recently we had a few days of rain, and this seemed to trigger the birds back into action. Nest-building behaviour was continuous over the weekend, and today I observed the male sitting while his mate was off foraging in the backyard. He sat patiently all day, probably incubating one egg the female laid the previous night, nestled cosily into the stick platform that sat among the prickly, holly-like branchlets of the Dryandra shrub.

Later this evening I checked the nest, and noticed the female had now taken on the ‘night shift’. In the cold evening air she sat much lower down than the male had, flattened onto the nest with her head tucked neatly behind some spiny leaves, concerned only with keeping her precious eggs warm.

Bronzewing camouflage is amazing - they no doubt rely on their patterned plumage to keep themselves hidden while sitting on their exposed nests. The birds are also aware of their colouring when out foraging and this has some influence on their behaviour. For example, when a magpie is startled by a threat like a dog or fox, it will call out in alarm and fly up to the safety of a tree branch. A Bronzewing on the other hand, knowing its feathers are coloured to match the dry leaves and bushes on the ground where it feeds, will remain perfectly still and wait until danger has passed. This makes them particularly vulnerable to being hit by cars: when active on roads, the birds freeze if an oncoming vehicle approaches, thinking they are camouflaged and can stay hidden until danger moves on. They don’t realise they are on a bitumen road and actually very obvious to all - instinct is very powerful.

Having seen the bird, an ignorant driver could think it will fly off, just as any other bird might, and not slow down giving it time to get away. The Bronzewing, waiting until the very last minute, gets killed on impact before it can move. Minimising our impacts to wildlife can sometimes take a bit of knowledge about wildlife, awareness of their behaviour and careful thought.

 

Outback Death Trap

The above skeletal collection is something that I would usually be very excited about, having found bones beneath the nest of an Australian bird of prey. However, the 32 skulls pictured above do not represent birds killed in a natural situation... they were recovered from an outback death trap, in Western Australia’s Murchison region.

This death trap was the abandoned water tank pictured below.

I’d spent the first rays of daylight eating my breakfast and waiting for birds to come in to drink at an old trough on a farming property just south of Cue. The bent windmill nearby had stopped working, but the trough had filled with water from recent rains, something which had not escaped the attention of local birds. The previous few days I’d seen Australian Ringnecks (Barnadius zonarius), Bourke’s Parrots (Neopsephotes bourkii) and even Mulga Parrots (Psephotes varius) gathering at the precious water source in an otherwise barren landscape. They drank momentarily before fleeting off into the scrub. On this still morning, a lone Budgerigar had burst from its roost, narrowly escaping with its life after a male Collared Sparrowhawk (Accipiter cirrhocephalus) chanced a sudden attack.

I walked over to the trough, the water supply in which was now dwindling and covered in algae. Only a few insects floated down to the moisture. The surrounding silence was deafening.

The large, fiberglass tank near the windmill then caught my attention. Curious to see if any water remained inside, I walked over to an opening in the top and peered inside. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could make out the shape of many small bones scattered over a layer of cracked, dusty mud on the floor of the tank. Grabbing a head-torch from my dashboard, I climbed up to the opening and lowered myself inside.

Closer inspection revealed the bones were all those of birds - skulls, lower jaws, sternums, wing bones. Five, eleven, sixteen, twenty-five... thirty-TWO!! I gathered the skulls together and arranged them in front of me. What a terrible shame, and a horrible way to die.

Most of the skulls belonged to galahs, with a couple of pigeons and a few parrots, probably of the species mentioned above. These individuals must have been attracted to a shallow layer of water that once remained inside the tank. Over decades the birds had learnt about this artificial watering point, and had come to drink one day... but the trough was dry. So they inquisitively sought out moisture inside the tank. Once inside, they would have had nowhere to land, and no easy way out. The opening in the top was too small. Flapping frantically, they eventually became bedraggled and were sucked under the water. Slowly submerging and drowning inside the plastic prison.

And unnecessary deaths like this could have been avoided...     with ONE LITTLE LID.

There is an old saying “Out of sight, out of mind.” When we make changes to the landscape, then forget about them, impacts resultant from these changes cease to exist in our thoughts. But they don’t cease to occur. Such things should be carefully considered when humans come and go, leaving these changes which can have profound affects on other beings.

          A family of Mulga Parrots (male at front right, female back left) drinking at an outback puddle.

Nest Boxes: Ardross Primary

Looking down from the leafy canopy and seeing over 150 smiling faces beaming up at me today was one of the most wonderful moments of my short ‘education history’. This photo was taken from about 20 metres up in a Lemon-scented Gum at the front of the latest school to participate in the School Nest Box Program. Why was I up there? Read this Re-Cyc-Ology website post to find out...

Baby Burrowers

If you think this looks like nothing more than a pile of wet leaves, then you’re right! And what could be interesting about a this? Well, the secret lies beneath...

Today I was helping my mum in the garden by shovelling piles of leaves out from the drain that runs down the side of our property. These, along with much soil and sediment, had accumulated after recent ‘flash floods’ in the Perth Hills. Leaves, rocks and sticks are actually important to remain in drains and creek beds to help control the flow of water and minimise erosion, but when a massive build up occurs, this can do more damage by acting like a dam, causing excess flooding once winter creeks begin to flow. Land management is always about finding the right balance!

After moving a few wheel-barrow loads of leaves out of the drain, I was scraping the last pile together from the now very moist layer at the bottom of the ditch. Even throughout the baking days of summer, which have sometimes exceeded 40˚C, there was moisture here. Then something moved. I looked carefully but struggled to spot anything. I ran my hand across the ground again and a tiny creature hopped. A frog! It was so well camouflaged amongst the leaf-litter and gravel, but its movement had given it away.

 As I picked it up I realised it was a tiny, newly-metamorphosed Banjo Frog (Limnodynastes dorsalis). At the end of Kambarang (late Spring) 2011, this animal would have emerged from its tadpole state in the dwindling pools of the creek. Before all water dried up, it, along with many other froglets and adult frogs, sought out a cool, damp place in which to spend the summer. Sometimes in wet soil nearly a foot below the surface. Occasional damp nights would bring the creatures out to forage for insects, but they would quickly retreat to their damp hidey-holes before the heat of day.

I searched the leaf-litter in front of me and found two other tiny frogs, probably from the same brood as the first one. Removed from their camouflaged home, you can see their beautiful markings. After a quick photo and a ‘show-and-tell’ to my family, I found a new pile of damp leaves on the creek bank and buried them under it. Here they will stay, patiently waiting for the soothing rains of Djeran (Autumn) to wet the landscape. Adults of this species will look forward to the soaking Makaru (winter) rains, when they spread throughout the livened waterways to find suitable breeding sites. From here they emit their loud ‘Booonk’ calls, like the strum of a Banjo, which gives them their name. For more information about Banjo Frogs, read my other news story here, or visit the Frogs of Australia website at  http://frogs.org.au/
 

Nest Boxes: Off the Ground!

The Schools Nest Box Program "Home Among the Gum Trees" has finally begun, with our visit to the first school today.

But to start with, we need to say a BIG THANKYOU to the fabulous, generous staff at Mundaring Hardware. Last week we were thrilled to receive a phone-call from Carolyn and Rusty regarding our sponsorship letter to say the shop was willing to donate various material to help us build nest boxes with school children. They happily gave us hammers, screwdrivers, screws, paint and several other bits and pieces to help us run the first workshop, and are insistent on providing ongoing support to our cause. Our sincere thanks to these kind-hearted people.

Today we had the pleasure of working with 24 Year 8 Students from Tranby College, Baldivis, who were all enthusiastic and had fun with woodworking. We started the session with some indoor talks, giving background information about hollow homes in Australian Gum Trees (by me), and the importance of reducing our waste, recycling, and information on how the students could recycle materials in their area (by Gill). Then we jumped outside and began the construction!

A sign overhead told me this activity was going to be a success when I noticed a pair of my totem Wedge-tailed Eagles, specks in the sky soaring high above in the distance. Each box was made in kit form, so the students’ task was (with some helpful hints) to nail a wire ladder inside the box, assemble the front, back, base and sides, fix the lid with a hinge, then give the whole box a good lick of fresh paint! All the groups showed great teamwork skills and the six boxes were pretty much finished by lunchtime, with some extra keen students choosing to complete their nest box after the bell, before getting their lunch :-)

In our afternoon session, I gave a tree climbing demonstration while setting up ropes in a massive Tuart tree, situated at the edge of the oval, which (with the students’ help) we had selected to house one of the large Black Cockatoo boxes. This took much longer than expected: the children learnt some of the difficulties of climbing when fishing lines get tangled up in the canopy! Gill did a fantastic job of explaining all the intricacies of tree climbing while I attempted to untangle my lines - without success - so we returned to the centre of the school and I installed a smaller box instead (see picture below). This one proved much more straightforward, and afterward the students had to rush off to catch buses home (it was now 3:15pm).

Gill and I had a short break then ‘stayed back after school’ to continue hanging the remaining smaller parrot- and possum-sized boxes, choosing situations close to the school buildings where they could be kept under close watch. I then returned to the big Tuart, which had been beckoning me from the top of the hill overlooking the school. From high in the tree I set up a pulley system, and with Gill’s helping heaves we hoisted the box into position. You can see it in the picture below, about half way up on the right side of the tree.

As we packed our gear into the car we heard the grating ‘Karaak’ call of some Red-tailed Black Cockatoos, and several birds flew low over the tuart tree containing the new nest box. Was this a welcoming visit to a future breeding site? We sure hoped so.

In the meantime it would be up to the Tranby College Year 8’s to keep an eye on their new wildlife homes - and write down details of any promising tenants in the Baldivis area.

Our thanks to Rachael Bullock and Jenny Florence from Tranby College for organising the day. If you like the sound of this and would be keen to have us visit your school, please email me.