Sector 2; Raptors and rain

I surveyed the SE section and northern boundary of Sector 2 this morning. This is the first survey to date that I saw no Noisy Miners!! These species are one of the most aggressive, competitive and exclusive of all species on the east coast. They are usually associated with edge habitat and habitat that has undergone considerable impact. The absence of Noisy Miners was due to the intact nature of much of the habitat I surveyed this morning! As a result, compared to Sector 1 that I surveyed just 3 days ago, there were vastly more small insectivores and honeyeaters. The presence of a Brown Goshawk along the northern boundary kept the Pied Currawongs very vocal and restless; together keeping all other species away (Currawongs are also somewhat aggressive and recognised nest predators). The Currawongs tried many times to chase off the Goshawk, to no avail! The only other highlight was the late presence of a female Leaden Flycatcher. They are seasonal migrants and travel to northern Queensland and Papua New Guinea for winter, before returning to breed in spring. The sexes are di-morphic, and in contrast to the usual case with birds, the female is the more colourful one. The female is characterised by the orange throat and chest, whereas the male has a somewhat crested dark head and back with white belly. The Leaden Flycatcher is very difficult to distinguish from the Satin Flycatcher, although the Satin Flycatcher is found in more mesic (rainforest-like) habitat. The Satin Flycatcher is ‘darker’ black and ‘shinier’ I colour than the Leaden, although if the light is not right, this is very hard to tell in the field. JUST as I finished the survey, the heavens opened up, and it rained real heavy! It was perfect timing, and an interesting experience to see the already saturated ground on which I was walking, turn into a number of trickles, then streams flowing around me. Got back to the car unscathed, albeit rather wet.

Date: 27th November 2008
Time: 0535 - 0740
Sector: 2
Number of species seen: 22
Number of birds seen: 143

Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike (4)
Brown Goshawk (1)
Cicadabird (2)
Common Mynah (1)
Grey Butcherbird (6)
Grey Shrike-thrush (1)
Laughing Kookaburra (1)
Leaden Flycatcher (1)
Mistletoebird (1)
Noisy Friarbird (9)
Pied Currawong (11)
Rainbow Lorikeet (20)
Rufous Fantail (1)
Scaly-breasted Lorikeet (30)
Spangled Drongo (1)
Spotted Turtle-dove (3)
Striated Pardalote (6)
Torresian Crow (4)
Variegated Fairy-wren (15)
Weebill (3)
White-throated Honeyeater (9)

Yellow-faced Honeyeater (13)

Ecological Society of Australia conference poster

Between the 1st and 5th December 2008, the Ecological Society of Australia is holding their 33rd annual ESA conference in Sydney, at the University of Sydney! I am going to this conference and will be presenting a poster of some of the research that I am carrying out here at Griffith University. I have pasted the poster as an image to the right here, although if you wish to see it in all it’s full quality (7MB Powerpoint slide; A0 in size, 84cm x 119cm), click here to download. You will notice on the poster a picture of my supervisor (Prof Catterall) and myself, and as you will notice, yes, I have cut all my hair off! Given the hot, muggy weather up here in Brisbane, short hair is DEFINITELY better to work with than longer hair!!

Sydney University is one of the ‘Sandstone Universities’ (along with University of Western Australia which is where I undertook my undergraduate degree in Zoology and Botany), representing the 6 oldest educational institutions in Australia; all were founded before World War 2, and represent the oldest universities in each state. The grounds of Sydney University look stunning, with predominantly sandstone buildings, exemplifying the early Victorian Gothic architecture of the mid-nineteenth century. I will definitely post images of the university and the conference in the near future! Rebecca is coming with me and shopping and relaxing while I am at the conference. Everything is paid for (travel, taxis, accommodation and conference registration), so this is an opportunity for Bec (oh, we had to pay for her airfare of course) and I to enjoy a holiday (of sorts), without the exorbitant costs normally associated with it! Enjoy perusing over the poster, feel free to leave feedback or questions, and I will post photos and debrief when I get back!

Sector 1; Needletails and Drongos

Surveyed the western-most portion of Toohey Forest this morning. After a rather cool start, it ended up rather warm by about 7.30am! In general, it was a rather uneventful morning; only a couple of small insectivores or forest-interior species. It was however interesting in that I added some more species to the my Toohey list. The first, was a flyover of a Channel-billed Cuckoo, which was calling out loud across the canopy as it flew through. The second was the presence of two White-throated Needletail. These species breed in northern Asia and migrate to inhabit Australia between October and about May. You rarely get a good glimpse of them, and usually see them soaring high above the treetops where they feed on flying insects. Often, you see hundreds and hundreds of them immediately prior to storms as they feed on large insect eruptions that occur at this time. For this reason, they are also sometimes referred to as Stormbirds! The third species of interest was the presence of a species that I believe harbours the best name of any bird in Australia: The Spangled Drongo! I saw three of them chasing a Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike! They are a very easy species to identify. Firstly, even in silhouette, you can see the characteristic forked ‘fish’ tail. They also have iridescent black plumage, with a stark red eye! One final ‘first’ for me this morning was being swooped by a Grey Butcherbird! I have rarely been swooped in my life, little alone by a Butcherbird, so I was pleasantly surprised!!

Date: 24th November 2008
Time: 0530 - 0810
Sector: 1
Number of species seen: 23
Number of birds seen: 150

Australian Magpie (3)
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike (6)
Channel-billed Cuckoo (1)
Cicadabird (1)
Common Mynah (1)
Crested Pigeon (2)
Dollarbird (1)
Grey Butcherbird (2)
Magpie-lark (4)
Noisy Friarbird (3)
Noisy Miner (43)
Olive-backed Oriole (1)
Pied Butcherbird (1)
Pied Currawong (1)
Rainbow Lorikeet (19)
Scaly-breasted Lorikeet (23)
Silvereye (6)
Spangled Drongo (4)
Spotted Turtle-dove (1)
Striated Pardalote (22)
Torresian Crow (2)
White-throated Needletail (2)
Yellow-faced Honeyeater (1)

Sector 10 survey; Fairy-wrens and Fantails

Another early morning start for me this morning. Because of the incessant rain over the last few days, I never thought I would be able to get this survey done, but finally it is done! It was the most daunting of all surveys to date, because it was done around the Mt Gravatt summit, so there was a lot of steep country to follow. The view from the top of Mt Gravatt rivals that of most city views in the country in my opinion (although the King’s park view of Perth is still the best by far!). There were two highlights to this survey. The first was an extended look at two male Red-backed Fairy wrens!! The stark contrast between the fire-rich red and black plumage is just incredible. The second highlight was a record of a highly unexpected Rufous Fantail. This species is similar to the Grey Fantail except that it is found in more mesic rainforest vegetation, whereas the Grey Fantail is typically in woodland and forest! Given that Toohey State Forest is primarily represented by lowland woodland/forest vegetation rather than rainforest vegetation, the recording of a Rufous Fantail is an odd and thus rare occurrence!

Date: 21st November 2008
Time: 0530 - 0800
Sector: 10
Number of species seen: 18
Number of birds seen: 220

Australian Magpie (2)
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike (3)
Grey Butcherbird (4)
Laughing Kookaburra (3)
Noisy Friarbird (17)
Noisy Miner (18)
Pied Butcherbird (2)
Rainbow Lorikeet (75)
Red-backed Fairy-wren (5)
Rufous Fantail (1)
Sacred Kingfisher (1)
Scaly-breasted Lorikeet (45)
Silvereye (5)
Striated Pardalote (4)
Torresian Crow (5)
Variegated Fairy-wren (19)
White-browed Scrub-wren (6)
White-throated Honeyeater (5)

The Brisbane storms, hail, rain and wind of November 2008

Needless to say, many would have heard of some of the devastating effects experienced in Brisbane form a spate of storms that have ravaged the city in the last week! In total, there have been at least 4 major storms that have wreaked havoc across the region. In terms of rain, here are some stats just for Brisbane over the last week!

Mon 17/11/2008 31.8mm
Tue 18/11/2008 14.6mm
Wed 19/11/2008 77.2mm
Thu 20/11/2008 79.4mm
Fri 21/11/2008 29.0mm
TOTAL 232.0mm

That is 232mm in 5 days!! To put it in perspective, that is almost 3 times the average November rainfall for Brisbane and just under a quarter of the yearly rainfall for Brisbane in 5 days! No wonder the rivers in the region are flooded! In the Ipswich region to the west of Brisbane, 250mm of rain fell from 10pm Wednesday night till 5am Thursday morning! Homes were flooded, highways were flooded, railways were flooded! Crazy!! Thankfully, all we had to deal with was a bit of a flooded front lawn, compared with the poor buggers who lost their house and garden.


The main storm in Brisbane actually occurred on Sunday night; giving rise to the 31.8mm recorded up to 9am on the Monday. However, it was the wind and rain together that caused much of the devastation! The degree of devastation was so localised! A suburb called The Gap bore the brunt of the storms, while others nearby escaped with minor damage if at all!! One video that exemplifies the strength of the wind and rain where it was devastating is this YouTube video. Well work checking out, especially for the wind shear in the last 20 secs or so!! Scary stuff, and to think that the wind was strong enough in other places to remove destroy whole houses!!



Only last night, while out late-night shopping, Rebecca and I were in the middle of an almighty storm, and watched it pour with rain like I have never seen it. Following the storm, we managed to capture on film the most intense lightning I have ever seen as the storm receding storm as it raced north and on to Brisbane city! I have posted it here! Enjoy!

Sector 9 survey; A good look at a Cicadabird

Another sector finished this morning! It was a strenuous walk, with a lot of hills and gullies. The survey was undertaken on the east side of the Pacific motorway, which meant I entered the forest from the Mt Gravatt campus. Nothing extraordinary during this survey, apart from a large number of Sacred Kingfisher (even though there were only 8, that is a lot relative to what you would normally see) and a large number of Silvereye, the latter probably because of the dense understorey associated with the many gullies. The highlight of the morning though was my best ever sighting of a Cicadabird! I heard one on one of the ridge lines. Their call is amazing, and funnily enough, sounds like a cicada to the untrained ear! (Click here to listen to recording) As I got closer I managed to track the source down and there it was in plain view (albeit through the binoculars)! I have previously had a fleeting glimpse of a single individual on Mt Duval (just to the north of Armidale NSW), but this was a long and great view of one!


Date: 14th November 2008
Time: 0535 - 0800
Sector: 9
Number of species seen: 18
Number of birds seen: 155

Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike (3)
Cicadabird (1) Galah (2)
Grey Butcherbird (1)
Noisy Miner (11)
Olive-backed Oriole (3)
Pale-headed Rosella (2)
Rainbow Lorikeet (34)
Sacred Kingfisher (8)
Scaly-breasted Lorikeet (3)
Silvereye (31)
Striated Pardalote (3)
Torresian Crow (4)
Variegated Fairy-wren (23)
White-browed Scrub-wren (7)
Welcome Swallow (3)
White-throated Honeyeater (4)
Yellow-faced Honeyeater (12)

Sector 8 survey; some WEIRD behaviour

During the 11th November survey, I witnessed one of the strangest behaviours I have even seen in the field. I recorded an interaction between a Brown Thornbill and a female Variegated Fairy-wren. My initial reaction was that the Variegated Fairy-wren ‘supplanted’ the Brown Thornbill; supplanting is where a species displaces another species from its perch, i.e., I run toward you and scare you off your seat and take your seat. HOWEVER, I noticed afterwards that the Fairy-wren persisted for over 2 minutes with this apparent aggressive behaviour toward the Brown Thornbill. Let it be known at this point, that the fairy-wren is perhaps one of the most placid of any species and rarely exhibits any form of aggression to any other species (interspecific), or even to members of its own species (intraspecific; apart from that associated with breeding I suppose). Anyway, it was after 2-3 minutes of watching this interaction that I recorded the most bizarre behaviour: the Brown Thornbill turned and fed the fairy-wren!! This is unprecedented! Apart from observations of small birds feeding cuckoo chicks (for those not aware, cuckoos only ever lay their eggs in the nest of other species, so a small little bird feeding a great big cuckoo is not all that uncommon), interspecific feeding is incredibly uncommon!

So how can we explain this bizarre behaviour? Well, there is one possibility that I can think of, and it relates to the fact that fairy-wrens live in (often) large groups; usually with more females than males. Young females usually disperse away from their ‘birth’ place the year after they fledge, and therefore look for mates outside their natal territory. It is possible however, that the young fairy-wren female, having no doubt been harassed by her mum or other dominant female to leave the territory, has decided to remain. Without an available mate (or dominant female allowing her to mate with the male/s in the territory) her cluckiness has led her to find another bird, perhaps similar looking, to be the object of her desire. What reason the Brown Thornbill has to feed her however, I will never know. It is possible that the Brown Thornbill is also an unwanted individual, so likes the company that the female fairy-wren provides…….. Anyway, there is an interesting story I am sure you will agree!!

I have included a pic of the male Variegated Fairy-wren, as he is much more striking in colour than the female!! Now on to the sightings!!

Date: 11th November 2008
Time: 0530 - 0732
Sector: 8
Number of species seen: 16
Number of birds seen: 149

Australian Brush-Turkey (1)
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike (1)
Brown Thornbill (3)
Eastern Yellow Robin (2)
Grey Butcherbird (2)
Australian Magpie (3)
Noisy Miner (32)
Olive-backed Oriole (1)
Pied Currawong (1)
Rainbow Lorikeet (20)
Scaly-breasted Lorikeet (35)
Silvereye (8)
Torresian Crow (3)
Variegated Fairy-wren (27)
White-browed Scrub-wren (6)
Yellow-faced Honeyeater (4)