Darters snaking and snakey

A Darter offers a sleek profile as it quits a lagoon today at Tyto. Also known as Snake-birds, Darters feature a writhing long neck, often all that shows above water as they pause for breath before again chasing fish underwater.
But they're not so sleek coming in for web-footed landings. There's something comic (think Daffy Duck) in their tiffs.
But there's also a certain grandeur, don't you think?

Tilting at lists and craning a neck

Black-necked Stork reveals inner bill colour almost matching vivid coral red of her legs. Yellow eye distinguishes females from males. Note distinctly nonblack neck. Just one of many birds done an injustice by its name.

IF birdos on the Titanic had been told of a list to port they'd have demanded to know what birds were on it.
For we do love lists: today's species; week's; month's; year's; lifetime's. One site; block; cell; state; country; world.
So those of us not physicists are all more or less Rutherford's 'stamp collectors'. Give Ernest his due, it's unlikely he was in total earnest. Those super-starched 1930s types failed to feel their legs being firmly tugged by the atom-splitting Kiwi.
Taxonomists can take all the umbrage they like, but surely one of Rutherford's points would have been: is the list real (will it stand rigorous scrutiny)?
How real are the lists many of us love to be challenged by? Not the major international and national lists. No matter how bizarrely geographic, inclusive, exclusive, lumping or splitting they may be, at least they are under serious scrutiny.
But many impressively long lesser lists seek to cash in on eco-tourism and the 'big bucks' birdos throw around. Laugh if you like, but the tourism industry appears to believe birdos are mostly millionaires. It also has an inflated idea of birding numbers (partly because most caravanners, for example, tick the box in surveys - and indeed may glance at them sometimes). The temptation all round is to gild the lily.
After puzzling over some 'optimistic' lists might I suggest birding groups work on guidelines to help tourism and local, state and federal government produce info that's both accurate and - to my point - realistic.

No shortcuts to high bird counts

Golden-headed Cisticola finds use for pretty weeds

PLENTY to see in the wetlands today, the final tally after five hours being 65 bird species - without a few regulars.
Yet it is common for visitors in Tyto and in many other birding spots to bemoan a lack of birds. The lagoons do not hold masses of birds, on the water or lining the fringes. The sky above is mostly clear. The open woodlands show a few species but the creek forest sounds and looks a bit lifeless. Where are all the birds?
For a start, how many were there in the carpark trees and plantings? It's not unusual to see 10 species before quitting the asphalt, and another 10 in the first 500 metres of track. (The best sightings are often close to base.)
The Tyto track goes in three ways to the main lagoon. Most walk straight to the viewing knoll, and return the same way, and so miss possible birds by covering the same ground. Many skip the lagoon circle (2km). Or do only part of the creek track. Spend token minutes in the hide. Skip the fire trails. Shun the guava groves. The 'typical' visitor today would probably have seen fewer than 35 species.
The more persistent and lucky (the two go together) would have walked to 50 or so. By cycling most areas twice I gained extra sightings.

So, no shortcuts. Go slow. Go everywhere. Go get 'em!

Thumbs up for rules of thumb

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo shows its colours at Tyto

THUMBS up or thumbs down for rules of thumb? By and large my birding thumb figures on a species count of 60:90:120 at Tyto. That's 60 birds in a full morning, 90 in a week, and 120 in a month. That's a big month.
For a quieter month the figures are 50:80:110. The thumb hasn't got a figure for year by year counts, the task being too much to grasp. And that's the problem you can put your finger on with rules of thumb: lack of precision. Lately, 60 has been a push, 90 too low, 120 about right. Thumb's still sort of up ... for now.
Here's a bit of even more relevant arithmetic. Tyto species list still stands at 234 after latest addition (Red-capped Robin) and a subtraction (Gould's Bronze Cuckoo, swallowed by Little Bronze Cuckoo). After several 120-bird months how many of the 234 should be seen? Don't rush to answer.
First, subtract the singleton sightings and the species not seen in the last four years. That's 25 off the list. Now delete the rare and the rarely seen: goodbye to another 42. Throw in seven more as extremely unlikely and the number is a rounded 160. Allow for seasonal migration and influence, and at this quarter of year another 20 (rounded) vanish. Down to 140.
Guess what? Just checked, and found my count for April-May-June is 140. Another rule of thumb in the making!
So far, so boring, you say? But there are a couple of points to be taken from the figures. The first has been made in earlier posts, perhaps without much support info. It is: take a cold, hard look at all bird lists. Second: seek local knowledge.
Surely the second point needs not be stated? Oh, but it does, indeed it does. Many well-travelled birding tourists give the impression they would prefer to miss sightings than be thought in need of help from anyone (not just me!).
Just as strangely, travellers frequently stand in the midst of Tyto's plenty and persist in talking only of their (often Northern Hemisphere) stamping grounds. That this is so literally out-of-place and wholly upsidedown seems to escape them. Tourists, OK; bore-ists, no!

Such a pretty wetlands

Somewhere under a rainbow...
there's a place in Australia called Tyto Wetlands...

with habitat that attracts 230 species of birds...

and draws birdos and nature walkers...

seeking beauty any time of day or year.

Heron's future in focus

Young White-necked Heron faces an uncertain future. Saw this bird standing quietly in stand of trees. Somewhat unusual spot for a heron. On my approach the bird tried to fly off, but could not, possibly because of a broken wing. There may be a sign of the damage in the differences visible in the leading-edge wing white on show. Fearing doing more harm than good by attempting to capture the bird, I backed off. Since Bush Stone Curlews - large, ground-walking night-feeding birds - abound in the same area, the heron may well survive even if the wing does not heal.

The picture is a great plug for image stabilising. It was taken at 1/30th sec with a Panasonic FZ30 hand-held and zoomed to 420mm=, from an old 4WD van idling and with visible body vibration. Sadly it's not super pin-sharp - because even on a tripod the lens can't match the output of costlier and weightier lenses. Not bad though.

Kingfishers' king fishers

PLENTY of Australians live to fish, far fewer fish to live. Number among the latter, the Little Kingfisher, world's smallest. At 11-13cm it's barely more than half the size of the 'standard' Forest and Sacred species. And it is dwarfed by the Laughing Kookaburra (41-47cm) and the Blue-winged Kookaburra (38-40cm), which are giant kingfishers - and among a rare few Australian bird species to retain an Aboriginal name.

A Little Kingfisher (Alcedo pusilla) shares a branch with a White-lipped Green Tree Frog, a bird eater (see earlier post), but not usually a threat to an alert mature bird.

Most of Australia's 10 kingfisher species would as soon pounce on ground prey as dive into water for fish. A second exception to such preference is the Azure Kingfisher (Alcedo azurea), pictured in a so-so photo saved by a shaft of light.

Catching prey and flights of fancy

GREAT Egret carves out a morning shadow as it stands poised with a small catch snapped up from among the water weed on a water treatment pond near Ingham.

Another Great Egret takes off across a treatment lagoon. Hard to take crisp shots with Panasonic FZ30 because of slow auto focus and narrow ISO range. Also a trial holding all the white tones without blowing everything away.

A digression into the world of entertainment. The lagoon treats water from the largest sugar cane mill in the Southern Hemisphere. Baz Luhrman's latest offering, Australia, features a small railway engine. That engine was puffing away at CSR's mill today, as part of an annual Italian festival in town. Small worlds?

DARTER puts best feet forward as it prepares for one of its typically clumsy crash landings into the top of a melaleuca (paperbark). Seems odd that a bird that spends all its feeding time in and under the water - using huge webbed feet - shows a liking for perching in trees whose tops are all twigs and small leaves rather than substantial bare branches. Also known as Snake Birds, Darters compete with four species of Cormorant for fish and eels.

CHANGE of pace and place with one of those shots that surprises the photographer. Intent was to capture a splash of colour and movement in Ingham's small botanical gardens. I was scarcely aware of a small family group tossing bread into the lotus pools for the resident snake-necked turtles. Only after cropping and adjusting the shot did I spot the children. Small irony: I found them, but their bread found no favour with the turtles.

Some slither, some hop, some fly ...

An Amethyst Python takes a discriminating taste of the air as some big heat-emitter gets in the way at Tyto Wetlands. Couldn't photograph fast enough to stop all movement of tongue. The glistening 3.5 metre snake radiated plump health. After a few more flickers of tongue it untensed and unhurriedly went on its way.

An Agile Wallaby takes a thoughtful bite on the breakfast of choice for champion hoppers - tender grass. The 90-hectare wetlands nourish and shelter hundreds of the species. Agiles bound along athletically enough, but more impressive marsupial agility is shown by various rock wallabies.

Black Kite takes a turn across Tyto's main lagoon. These birds lost out to northern counterparts for rights to the more accurate descriptive title of Fork-tailed Kites. Another unknowing casualty in taxonomy's name games. Yes, I know, it's serious and essential work.

Rainbows and Rainbow Serpents

Chocolate box rainbow - an old scenic cliche - from the land of the much, much, much older Rainbow Serpent.The colour spectrum arches over Tyto Wetlands in Ingham, Tropical North Queensland, where I watch birds and other wildlife - including the present-day Rainbow Serpent - most days.

The Rainbow Serpent's shaping of all land and waterways is a foundation stone of much Aboriginal mythology, thus it winds back 50,000 to 60,000 years.

The snake that seems most likely to have inspired the many tales among more than two hundred language groups - most now long lost - is limited in Australia to a thin northeastern area (roughly 1000km x 100km).

Amethyst Pythons also inhabit Papua New Guinea and parts of Indonesia. So there may be clues to the path to Australia by the first Aborigines in the distribution of Morelia amethistina.

But snake fossils are rare because the bones are so fragile. The pythons perhaps had a wider range across northern Australia that has vanished over, say, the last 30,000 years.

Also known as Scrub Python, the snake is now rarely over five metres long. Old reports of 8m snakes seem founded on stretched, sloughed skins. However, a living specimen in the pioneering sugar cane farming days of the 1890s was measured at 7m. Shipped south to Sydney in a barrel, it was reported to have overheated and died.


The animal pictured is about 4m. It appeared 14 times through 2007 in a one-tree island close to a Tyto lookout knoll, swimming out at night and spending between two and six days and nights coiled and largely concealed up in the melaleuca (paperbark). The magnificent colours are often muted by skin condition and angle of light.