December comes and with it hot and steamy days as we get stuck into the Queensland summer. I have to admit that as far as the weather is concerned it's not my favourite time of the year. The humidity makes it unpleasant, the heat causes difficulties for the chooks, and it's just not very Christmassy eating your roast turkey in a 35 degree heat. On the other side of life December can be a very interesting month. Now's the time when we begin to see all the recent hatchings from the Spring, which leads me on to Breeding Residents.
We Birders classify birds in a number of ways and one such classification is the Breeding Resident, which in simple terms means that the bird breeds here and is resident throughout the year, as opposed to a Breeding Migrant, that breeds here and then buggers off for a season or so. It's taken some time to identify the Breeding Residents at the Holt. When we first moved her, way back in 2004, I was still trying to simply identify the birds (an ongoing process even today) and of course we built a house and a dam, which will have disrupted the local wildlife for a while. Then the long process of developing the habitats for the wildlife began and I stocked the dam, planted the shrubs and trees that would attract the critters and started logging what I saw. I remember the first Breeding Residents that I identified were the Striated Pardalote, after whom the Holt is named. They nested in a hole in a mud wall that had been carved out of the hill for the cut upon which the house was built. Soon after I found my first nesting pair of Olive-backed Orioles in a scruffy nest in a young gum tree situated near the main intermittent creek, and then it was half a dozen twigs thrown together by a Common Bronzewing at the forest edge. And so the Holt developed, and although I haven't found all the various nests I do see the juvenile birds appear that demonstrate the birds have finally become breeding residents. Perhaps the most recent have been the Plumed Whistling Ducks that first bred here a couple of years ago and now ducklings in December has become a regular in the calendar.
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| Pacific Black Duck and ducklings |
I can't guarantee that all I call Breeding Residents actually nest on our property, as we live in a large swathe of white mahogany dry schlerophyll forest that wraps around Mt Tamborine. Sclerophyll forests are a typically Australian vegetation type having plants (typically Eucalypts, Wattles and Banksias) with hard, short and often spiky leaves, which is a condition closely associated with low soil fertility (rather than rainfall/soil moisture). Low fertility also makes soils undesirable for agriculture and native vegetation has, therefore, remained relatively intact. Plants grow slowly in nutrient-deficient conditions and this makes it quite difficult to establish those that I have wanted to bring in the birds. Pardalote Holt is sited on an unnamed foothill of the mountain and some of the Breeding Residents may nest elsewhere on the hill, but I'm confident that they do breed either here or close by. My current list of Breeding Residents includes:
Breeding Residents
Australian Magpie
Black-faced Cuckoo Shrike
Brown Honeyeater
Cicadabird
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| Juvenile Cicadabird |
Common Bronzewing
Double-barred Finch
Eastern Yellow Robin
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| Juvenile Eastern Yellow Robin |
Forest Kingfisher
Galah
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| A family of Galahs |
King Parrot
Leaden Flycatcher
Noisy Friarbird
Noisy Miner
Olive-backed Oriole
Pacific Black Duck
Pale-headed Rosella
Peaceful Dove
Pied Currawong
Plumed Whistling Duck
Rainbow Lorikeet
Striated Pardalote
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| Juvenile Striated Pardalote |
Sulphur Crested Cockatoo
Torresian Crow
White-throated Gerygone
White-throated Honeyeater
Yellow-faced Honeyeater
There are probably more, but these are those that we can claim with some certainty. I have left some species off the list because they might breed at the Holt, but aren't present throughout the year. Some probably sit in a grey area, such as the Welcome Swallow. The Swallows breed in the garage each year and can be seen around the mountain throughout the year, but not necessarily at the Holt.
So, what else has been happening. The warmer weather has brought out the reptiles and they've been further encouraged by our Guinea Fowl who appear to enjoy dropping caches of eggs all over the place, a nice snack for a passing Lace Monitor. Unfortunately this has led to an increase in numbers of these large goannas and they occasionally try to sneak into the chicken runs. On the flip side, if the Guinea Fowl see them then a mobbing will occur with the embarrassed Monitor being forced to retreat up the nearest tree.
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| A large Lace Monitor (over 5' long) scuffling through the woodland. |
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| A smaller Lace Monitor takes refuge up a tree. They are superb climbers. |
One snake that is appearing with more regularity is the Yellow-faced Whip Snake. This slender and quick moving snake feeds on smaller lizards (skinks and geckos) catching them on the run. They're fairly common and are venomous, but the literature suggests that although painful they aren't considered dangerous. My experience has been that they are quite shy and will use their speed to get away if they notice a human nearby.
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| A Yellow-faced Whipsnake catching some of the morning dew. |
And here are some odds and sods that I caught in my lens as I wandered around the Holt:
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| Spider Wasp catches a Bee |
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| A Graphic Flutterer |
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| A juvenile Eastern Water Dragon |
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| The arboreal Fawn footed Melomys (formerly known as the Mosaic-tailed Rat). |
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| A Red Arrow resting on a Sedge frond. |
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| A Scarlet Percher |
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| Native Bees chasing pollen |
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| A Blue Skimmer |
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| A Red-necked Wallaby |
At which point I had better move on to the bird lists.
Regulars (seen at least x5 per week)
Australian Magpie
Bar-Shouldered Dove
Common Bronzewing
Double-barred Finch
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| Double-barred Finch at the feeder |
Galah
Laughing Kookaburra
Little Friarbird
King Parrot
Olive-backed Oriole
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| An Olive-backed Oriole with a BIG bug! |
Noisy Friarbird
Pacific Black Duck
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| Pacific Black Duck |
Pale-headed Rosella
Peaceful Dove
Pied Currawong
Plumed Whistling Duck
Rainbow Lorikeet
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| Rainbow Lorikeet munching pollen at a Grevillea. |
Sulphur Crested Cockatoo
Torresian Crow
White-throated Gerygone
White-throated Honeyeater
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| White-throated Honeyeater |
Wood Duck
Yellow-faced Honeyeater
Common (Seen at least twice a week)
Black-faced Cuckoo Shrike
Brown Honeyeater
Channel-billed Cuckoo
Cicadabird
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| The shy Cicadabird |
Leaden Flycatcher
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| A Leaden Flycatcher |
Little Corella
Noisy Miner
Spangled Drongo
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| A Spangled Drongo |
Uncommon (Seen 2-5 times in the month)
Brown Cuckoo Dove
Eastern Yellow Robin
Figbird
Forest Kingfisher
Grey Butcherbird
Magpie Lark
Pied Butcherbird
Pheasant Coucal
Red-browed Finch
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| Mutual preening by the Red-browed Finches |
Rufous Whistler
Satin Flycatcher
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| Male Satin Flycatcher |
White-bellied Sea Eagle
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| The rather large White-bellied Sea Eagle |
White-throated Treecreeper
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| A White-throated Treecreeper |
Willie Wagtail
Rare (Seen only once)
Brown Treecreeper
Buff-rumped Thornbill
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| A Buff-rumped Thornbill surprised by a falling leaf. |
Crested Pigeon
Eastern Boobook
Eastern Koel
Grey Shrike Thrush
Golden Whistler
Lewins Honeyeater
Little Pied Cormorant
Red-backed Fairy Wren
Rufous Fantail
Varied Sitella
Wedge-tailed Eagle
White-bellied Cuckoo Shrike
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| A juvenile White-bellied Cuckoo Shrike |
Yellow-rumped Thornbill
Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo
Which at 61-species is our best December so far. Let's hope the New Year continues the upward trend.
