BIRDS OF LOBETHAL BUSHLAND PARK

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Scarlet Robin

Petroica boodang
Petroicidae

While several species of Australian robins feature reddish feathering on their breasts, the plumage of the Scarlet Robin is particularly vivid.
This feature captured the attention of the Indigenous Noongar people of south-western Australia, who considered the red coloration of the robin's breast to have been stained by blood.
The robin is said to have been punched on the nose (or beak) by a pugnacious Willie Wagtail, causing it to bleed. When the blood trickled down from the wounded beak, it is said to have discoloured the robin’s breast.

Description

The Scarlet Robin is a medium-sized robin, with a plump and compact appearance.
Males have a black head, neck and upperparts with a conspicuous white patch above the bill
(frontal patch).
The breast is scarlet red and the lower underparts are white.
The wings are barred white and the outer tail is also white.
Females differ markedly from males, being brown above with a whitish frontal patch and an
orange-red breast, brown wings and white underparts. Young birds resemble females but are
streaked white above, tinged buff on the wings and are mottled dark-brown on the breast and
sides of the body.

Information from Bird Life Australia

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Superb Fairy-wren

Superb Fairy-wren (Male)

Superb Fairy-wren (Female)

Malurus cyaneus
Maluridae

With its gleaming, velvety blue-and-black plumage, the male Superb Fairy-wren is easily distinguished. These ‘coloured’ males are often accompanied by a band of brown ‘jenny wrens’, often assumed to be a harem of females, but a proportion of them are males which have not yet attained their breeding plumage.
The contents of these birds’ untidy nests — a clutch of three or four eggs — are not necessarily the progeny of the ‘coloured’ male, as there is much infidelity among female fairy-wrens, with many eggs resulting from extra-pair liaisons.

Description

Adult male Superb Fairy-wrens are among the most brightly coloured of the species, especially during the breeding season. They have rich blue and black plumage above and on the throat.
The belly is grey-white and the bill is black.
Females and young birds are mostly brown above with a dull red-orange area around the eye and a brown bill. Females have a pale greenish gloss, absent in young birds, on the otherwise brown tail.
The legs are brown in both sexes.
Males from further inland and in the south-west of the range have more blue on the back and underparts.

Information from Bird Life Australia

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Yellow-faced Honeyeater

Lichenostomus chrysops Meliphagidae

Yellow-faced Honeyeater

Like most honeyeaters in eastern and south-eastern Australia, the Yellow-faced Honeyeater is an active species, spending much time probing flowers or gleaning insects from the foliage of trees, but it is when they are on migration that they become conspicuous, congregating in large flocks, and thousands of birds may pass by in the space of an hour as they migrate north along the Great Divide each autumn and return south each spring.
These migratory flocks often contain smaller numbers of other migratory species, especially White-naped Honeyeaters.

Description

The Yellow-faced Honeyeater is a medium to small, plainly coloured honeyeater with a slightly down-curved bill. It is dark grey-brown above, with some brown streaking on the head, and paler below with lighter streaks. It has a distinctive, broad yellow face-stripe, bordered with black. The males are slightly larger but the sexes are otherwise similar. Young are paler and unstreaked on the head.
It can be seen in large flocks when migrating, and in smaller groups when feeding.

Information from Bird Life Australia

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Silvereye

Zosterops lateralis
Timaliidae

Silvereyes are widespread in many parts of Australia, and there are many different populations throughout their range, some of which are highly mobile.
Thus, in some places, local populations may be augmented or replaced by birds moving in from other areas. Although the species may be present at a particular location throughout the year, they may be birds from different populations that are being seen at different times.

Description

The Silvereye is a small bird with a conspicuous ring of white feathers around the eye, and belongs to a group of birds known as white-eyes.
The Silvereye shows interesting plumage variations across its range. The grey back and olive-green head and wings are found in birds through the east, while western birds have a uniformly olive-green back. Breeding birds of the east coast have yellow throats, pale buff flanks (side of the belly) and white on the undertail.
Tasmanian birds have grey throats, chestnut flanks and yellow on the undertail.
To complicate this, the birds in the east have regular migrations within Australia and may replace each other in their different areas for parts of the year.
Birds in Western Australia have yellowish olive, rather than grey, backs.

Information from Bird Life Australia

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Eastern Spinebill

Acanthorhynchus tenuirostris
Meliphagidae

Eastern Spinebill

The Eastern Spinebill inhabits shrubs in open eucalypt forests, as well as shrubland, heathland and suburban gardens.
They use their long, slender, decurved bills to probe deep into flowers, at all levels from the canopy down to the undergrowth, to feed on the sweet nectar.
Some plants appear to have evolved specially to be pollinated by them. Fuelled with this energy-rich nectar, Eastern Spinebills are also often seen actively darting about on whirring, fluttering wings, after flying insects.

Description

The Eastern Spinebill is most easily recognised by its very long, fine, down-curved beak and energetic flight, during which its white outer tail feathers are prominent. Males have a grey-black crown which extends in a black line on either site of the breast. The breast and throat are white, with a rufous patch in the centre of the throat. The wings and lower back are dark grey and the underparts and upper back are buff. Females are similar to males but have less distinct markings.

Information from Bird Life Australia

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Hardhead

Hardhead
(Photo from Bird Life Australia)

Aythya australis Anatidae

The Hardhead possesses one of the strangest names among Australian birds.
It was formerly known as the ‘White-eyed Duck’, but this feature is present only on drakes, with females having dark eyes.
Nevertheless, this discrepancy has never been an impediment to naming birds in the past — female Blackbirds are never black, for instance.
The name ‘Hardhead’ has nothing to do with the density of the duck’s cranium, but stems from early taxidermists who found that the head was the most difficult part of the duck to process.

Description

The Hardhead is a medium-sized duck which appears mainly chocolate brown when swimming, with a white undertail. In flight, the underwings are white, edged with brown. A white breast patch is obvious in flight and when standing in the shallows. The bill is pale blue on the tip.
Males have a distinct white eye, while the eye is brown in females. When flying, the wings make a distinctive whirring sound. Hardheads sit low on the water and are diving ducks.
This species is also known as the White-eyed Duck, Barwing or Brownhead.

Information from Bird Life Australia

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Brown-headed Honeyeater

Brown-headed Honeyeater
(Photo from Bird Life Australia)

Melithreptus brevirostris Meliphagidae

Brown-headed Honeyeaters can be seen in open eucalypt forests and woodlands from coastal cliffs to the tree-line in the mountains, and inland to the semi-arid plains.
Though they often feed on nectar from the outermost flowers in the canopy of eucalypts and other trees, they are equally at home taking insects, plucking them from bark and branches of mature trees and among the foliage of saplings.
They also nest in the outer foliage of mature trees, building a cup-shaped nest among twigs at the end of a branch.

Description

The Brown-headed Honeyeater is a small honeyeater with a short slender bill. It is plain olive green above, with a brown head marked by a pale line across the back, and is pale grey to buff below. It has a creamy yellow to orange eye-ring which completely encircles the dark eye.
In young birds, the eye-ring is blue.
This species is usually seen in flocks of five to fifteen birds foraging high in the tree canopy. It has an acrobatic flight and is always on the move.

Information from Bird Life Australia

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Australasian Darter

Australasian Darter
(Photo from Bird Life Australia)

Anhinga novaehollandiae Anhingidae

Because of its long and slender neck, the Australasian Darter is sometimes called the snakebird.
Usually inhabiting freshwater wetlands, darters swim with their bodies submerged beneath the water’s surface, with only the sinuous neck protruding above the water, enhancing its serpentine qualities.
Darters forage by diving to depths of about 60 centimetres, and impaling fish with its sharp, spear-like beak. Small fish are swallowed underwater, but larger ones are brought to the surface, where they are flicked off the bill (sometimes into the air) and then swallowed head-first.

Description

The Darter is a large, slim water bird with a long snake-like neck, sharp pointed bill, and long, rounded tail.
Male birds are dark brownish black with glossy black upperwings, streaked and spotted white, silver-grey and brown. The strongly kinked neck has a white or pale brown stripe from the bill to where the neck kinks and the breast is chestnut brown.
Females and immatures are grey-brown above, pale grey to white below, with a white neck stripe that is less distinct in young birds.
The Darter is often seen swimming with only the snake-like neck visible above the water, or drying its wings while perched on a tree or stump over water. While its gait is clumsy on land, it can soar gracefully to great heights on thermals, gliding from updraft to updraft. It has a cross-shaped silhouette when flying.

Information from Bird Life Australia

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Golden Whistler

Male Golden Whistler
(Photo from Bird Life Australia)

Female Golden Whistler
(Photo from Bird Life Australia)

Pachycephala pectoralis Pachycephalidae

Though Golden Whistlers sometimes perch quietly among the foliage of trees or shrubs, the males are often noticeable by their rich, golden plumage, extending from their underparts and in a collar around the bird’s neck, contrasting with a jet-black hood and a white throat patch. The female whistler is drab by comparison, greyish and indistinct.
Even if they are not seen, their beautiful whistled song carries on the wind for hundreds of metres, and is a common sound in the Australian bush throughout spring and summer.

Description

The adult male Golden Whistler is bright yellow on the underside, olive-green on the back and wings, and black on the head with a bright yellow collar. The throat is white, separated from the yellow chest by a broad black band. The bill and legs are black.
Females lack bright plumage. They are generally grey above, with a pale olive tinge, and paler grey below, with a buff wash.,br> The bill is dark brown and the legs grey-brown. The eye is red-brown in adults of both sexes.
Young Golden Whistlers are rufous. As they mature, the plumage comes to resemble that of the female other than rufous edges to some wing feathers. These are later replaced as the bird matures.

Information from Bird Life Australia

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Striated Thornbill

Striated Thornbill
(Photo from Bird Life Australia)

Acanthiza lineata Acanthizidae

Typically seen actively moving through the outer foliage of eucalypts in a range of forests and woodlands of south-eastern Australia, the Striated Thornbill often maintains contact with other members of its flock by continually uttering quiet, insect-like calls.
They often occur as a part of mixed-species feeding-flocks in the treetops, usually joining with other species of thornbills, but also occasionally other small insectivorous species, such as Varied Sittellas, Weebills, Speckled Warblers, treecreepers, whistlers and robins may accompany them.
They feed mainly by gleaning insects from the foliage.

Description

The Striated Thornbill is a medium-sized thornbill with greenish upperparts, an orange-brown cap, streaked distinctively with white and off-white to cream underparts, heavily streaked on chin, throat and breast.
The sexes are similar and young birds are only slightly different to adults, with less streaking on the underside.

Information from Bird Life Australia

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