Colourful spots guide for food - and twitchers

Spot anything of note on the young bird? Aha, little spots of colour. Right. So, what do the popular Australian bird guides say about the spots. Er, nothing. Nothing? Yep, nothing. You mean one of the country's most world famed bird species shows as a juvenile a major identifier and no guide notes it?

Yep. But home and commercial breeders would know all about Gouldian Finches and their colourful light-reflecting spots. Open wide and baby birds' gaping mouths become glowing targets for food delivery. Other species may use various bright targets inside the mouth. Such knowledge will aid ID out in the field: Star Finches and Gouldians are said to look alike, apart from the spots - nodules of skin that fall off. I noticed the feature only after photographing finches in the Belgian Gardens State School's aviaries. Shows how little I know. And, too, illustrators of the Australian bird guides.

Notes: The school sells endangered species. Chicks: Wikipedia under Creative Commons 

 

 

Nankeen Kestrel worth a few thousand . . . words!

If one picture's worth a thousand words what price a whizzo series of four? Nankeen Kestrel, sometime acquaintance of mine, on the Town Common, Townsville two mornings ago.

Rare tale of huge rare owls and first captor

Think it's been touch chilly lately? Try birding hundreds of kms north of Vladivostok, sitting in felt-lined tents for hours, -30C outside, waiting for the world's biggest owl to be snagged in a world first live capture. But first spend winter months finding some of the Blakiston's Fish Owls. Come back a year later. Repeat another year later. Finally crack secrets of luring owls with live-fish traps. Finally, live-trapping. Capture, measure, fit trackers to some, release, for, hopefully, recapture the following year. Repeat. And repeat again.

Owls of the Eastern Ice, A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl, by Jonathan C. Slaght, tells in nitty-gritty detail of mad and bad moments and motley sometimes mad Russian companions of the burly US Peace Corp volunteer's transition from casual birder to Wildlife Conservation Society co-ordination for Russia and Northeast Asia. Maybe too much detail for nonbirders but remarkable for its picture of extraordinary field science and scientist. (The vagaries of libraries today: Lucky find in large print section, Townsville City Council, Flinders St.) 

 

Getting some inside info on Black-throated Finches

Whizzed 50km southwest in chill temps this morning to give Troopy first real run in a while and hoped a Black-throated Finch or two might be sitting around begging to have photos taken. No finches, nor any other species apart from Striated Pardalote (above) obligingly quitting treetops for close-up pose alongside the road.

Why would I not be too unhappy about lack of finches? Because earlier this week I was surrounded by endangered and vulnerable species no more than 2km from my Rowes Bay, Townsville, studio unit. Black-throateds, Stars, Gouldians, young and adult - plus even more threatened Golden-shouldered Parrots. Their only threat on day was clumsy giant on knees inside aviary in the Belgian Gardens State School, permission of Stem teacher-birder Brett Murphy after most birds retreated into heavily shadowed areas as I tried to photograph them through their metal mesh enclosures (a simple technique that, birds willing, works surprisingly well).

Time for commercial break! The school sells some birds. Helps with costs, I imagine. Anyway, knowing nothing whatsoever about bird commerce, seems to me $100 for the rarest down to $15-$35 for others is good value. How that compares with more commercial operations I have no idea. I mention it by way of thanks for the school's generosity of staff and pupils' time and access to a typically self-centred birder turning up on their doorstep tracking possible sources of unexplained sightings of 'outsider' species in nearby birding hotspots.

Meanwhile the Townsville City Council is stepping up its efforts to boost numbers of Black-throated Finches. New revegetation methods and grasses are being tried in Oak Valley Reserve Park. The council is keen to gather current information about sightings of the species in the reserve. This need not be so formal as notifications to the Black-throated Finch Recovery programme.   

Australian Ravens share affection, saliva and samphire

How's this for a show of affection? Australian Ravens mate for life it's said. But that's not saying so much given they don't breed till age three and then usually for only four or five years. In fact most never breed since more than 60 percent are said to die before age one and others never find partners.

This resident pair in the Town Common have had two or maybe three families. They don't know how lucky they are. Now they're approaching another season and indeed their touching display may be testament to some quickening of the blood.

Also interesting the other morning was a rush to gobble wet samphire (in the mouth, above) - after they had been feeding on, probably, some other plant material at the side of the road. 

It appeared there may have been some transfer of the samphire, along with French kissing and the usual saliva. Samphire salad? French kissing tops French dressing.

Clinch Gouldian finch - aviary sneaky cinch

Hard to get close to Gouldian Finches in the wild. Very hard to find any close to Townsville. Except ... except for rare escapee, or - shudder  - inmate. But let's swiftly bypass arguments for and against aviaries (I'm mostly against) because they're too vexing. Let's just stare at a beautiful bird and hope it's happy and as healthy as it appears to be behind the fine-mesh enclosure at Queen's Gardens, Townsville. This bird had a red-headed and four black-headeds for company. Nothing sophisticated about photographic technique, determine best settings, then press 100-500 zoom lens firmly against metal mesh and shoot. 

No such ethical questions attaching to shot of Plum-headed Finch, one of up to 200 flocking here and there at north end of Townsville Town Common Conservation Park lately. Biggest flock of the seasonal and only sometime visitors to the park in recent years.

Zebra Finches haven't been making many prominent appearances in the Common lately, but can usually be found year-round nearby in Belgian Gardens Cemetery and Mundy Creek grasslands. Pictured bird was surprise bonus as I sat waiting for Little Kingfisher to appear at one of its favoured feeding spots. 

Whistling Kite whistles down, whisks up fish

Whistling Kites in my experience seldom make much of a splash in their infrequent efforts to take fish. Unlike Ospreys they lack specialised flexi-talons and grip-pads for the job, and deep plunges without plumage waterproofing could be life-threatening.

But, along with the odd Black Kite, a few Whistlers will snatch dying fish from the surface as they float up from deoxygenated water during the late dry season. Again, in my experience, few watching kites follow their more opportunistic snatch and grabbers.

So Whistling Kite's swoop down near edge of pool and take of unidentified fish in front of Payets Tower in the Town Common Conservation Park, Townsville, two mornings back, was probably because fish was freshly dead and floating in paragrass at pool's edge. The kite flew to cover in nearby trees and made short work of the small fish. A lucky scavenger rather than a skilled fisher, in my judgement. Others may disagree.

What Beauty and the Beast have in common

Fairy tales and hairy tales - how Beauty and the Beast plays out in a case from the real world. Above, Whistling Kite in the sky low over part of Town Common Conservation Park in Townsville. Not often that kites in flight present so prettily for a photographer. 

More often it's an underview, in this case two looks - right and left. Beauty! But this was just one of six birds hanging about the area. 

Which is, of course, where the Beast comes in. Maybe two beasts, depending on how one regards the actions leading to the presence of six Whistling Kites. Be warned the image below is not a pretty sight.

The beast is a feral boar without its head, sliced off by a hunter. And though Queensland Parks and Wildlife rangers routinely trap and kill wild pigs in the Common and other state and national parks - because of the great habitat damage they can do - private hunting is, within my knowledge, not allowed. 

The hunter may be doing the park a service of sorts, may even be showing considerable courage, since no dog or vehicle tracks marked the scene, but the scene remains, for me, one of beastly unlawfulness. 

So, why show it? Perhaps because Beauty is not whole without the Beast . . .

  

Twitcher's twiggy twists need tweaking

Not often the birds line up for same 'natural' perch beside the road at eye level with the trusty Troopy but busy Rainbow Bee-eater and fidgety Willie Wagtail couldn't get enough of landing spot and feast of insects in air close to northern arm of Mundy Creek on Old Common Road, Townsville, this morning.

'Natural' because on first photographing the Rainbow two annoying side twigs kept getting in the way. So, naturally they were sneakily removed and birds were left alone for 10 minutes or so. On return from hunting other action further along the road both birds were still at it. 

Why not remove the other bits so out of focus? So intent on the birds I didn't twig to intruding debris. Sometime drive for perfection needs a lot more work, I'm afraid.

Second thoughts overnight. Quick tidy-up with Gimp to clone away most obvious OOF bits - and wee extra sharpen. Far from perfect, but better.

Little Kingfisher manipulated in case for freeware

Long time since I've bored anyone about my arguments for freeware. But sparked by generously informative Feathers and Photos exercise lately on post-processing workflows here's my no-cents (can't get cheaper than that!) worth. One caveat: I make no claim freeware will better pro combos of apps, but say it can come close and at big savings in time and money. So, recent pic, above, Little Kingfisher, full frame, Canon Raw.

Little Kingfisher, cropped, adjusted for brightness, colour saturation, shadow, contrast and sharpened - about two minutes in DPP4, Canon freeware.

Little Kingfisher, most of background tidied up by simply cloning much of background - Gimp clone tool (because DPP4 clone tool is simply useless).

Then, couple more little touches in Gimp - to white hot spot (select spot with lasso tool and cool it down a bit) and bill (lasso, and make tiny bit sharper). More could easily be done without ever getting into more complex time-weighty techniques. And, yes, many claim Gimp is too this, that and t'other. But let the pictures speak for themselves.