Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Spotless Crake not so easy to spot

Immature Spotless Crake (Porzana tabuensis) peers from out of cover beside a Tyto track. In maturity the drab grey back will give way to chocolate brown. The eyes will glow red. Ditto the legs. Worth waiting to see.


Always worth waiting to see: Rainbow Lorikeet (Trichoglossus haematodus), scratched up from the holdover file.

Ditto this Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus banksii) crunching into green almond down the road from Tyto.

Updates: Male Comb-crested Jacana stays glued to surviving youngster. Three other families: four, three and two immatures. Plus two youngsters now independent.

Shining Flycatchers still feeding probably three hatchlings.

3 comments:

Russell Jenkins said...

Wow! Love that Shining Flycatcher and now I understand why they're called Spotless Crakes.

Snail said...

For some reason (possibily insanity) I didn't believe that spotless crakes really were sans spots. Now I know to trust crake and rail labelling.

Tyto Tony said...

Hi Russell, Snail: Not so sure about trusting names. Spotless Crakes have very strong undertail barring that can look quite spotty. Oz bird names often v confusing, I think.

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