And Still They Come

On Saturday last, a quick trip north-west of town to Volcano Rd, Swanwater returned a swag of Crimson Chats, a handful of White- fronted Chats, numbers of Pipits, Songlarks, a nesting Brown Falcon and White-winged Trillers.

As I turned onto Volcano Rd from the Sunraysia Highway I had a momentary glimpse of what was possibly a White-breasted Woodswallow. The birds below were about 300ft (or 100m for the purists) away and over a slight rise so the photo isn't great.

Crimson Chats and Trillers.

Also in the photo is a Black-faced Woodswallow, unidentified until I looked at the next photo and sent it off to the expert for confirmation.

I can't get a positive identification on the top left bird on the fence. Any clues? Black-faced Woodswallow checking out something interesting in the stump.

The broad white band on the tail, the small black mask just taking in the eye and down under the chin, the pale grey head and front and darker grey back are descriptive.

I haven't seen this last species here before and it is not on the Club's Bird List. Another new bird for the St Arnaud district.

New Arrivals

Over the last 4 decades I have never seen more than one White-winged Triller at a time and probably only one sighting a decade. Since early September, the Carapooee West area has been over-run with White-winged Trillers.

Below- male White-winged Trller

Using fencelines as lookout posts they have spent weeks pouncing on unwary grubs in the short grasses- so many grubs, probably army worms, that the birds would have to have a spell on the fence for half an hour at a time before looking for more. I counted 35 + birds one day and although numbers have fallen in the last couple of weeks, the remaining birds have taken up residence in the acacias in the top paddock (revegetation).Perhaps they will be so impressed with the conservation works and direct seeding that they will choose to nest. At the same time as the big influx occurred, there also appeared a pair of Crimson Chats, a first for our area and rejected by BIrdlife Australia's Atlas until I plugged the photos in. These brilliant little birds have been seen as far afield as Rupanyup and Newstead so the Central Desert species are coming to St Arnaud Below- making use of a new fence, male WW Triller, Crimson Chat and female WW Triller

Below- male Crimson Chat and female White-winged Triller in foreground

Last week, pandemonium in the chookyard was the result of a loafing Square-tailed Kite- not that he or she wanted a take-away poultry dinner but I didn't take any chances. Sorry about the bad photo but you don't get a second chance with this bird.

The same afternoon I was visited by a ferocious female Brown Goshawk who was not leaving until she had caught dinner( I put all the chooks away very smartly). I bet it was a honeyeater she got- wouldn't look at the sparrows, would she!( No geese!) This bird still has some of the juvenile's vertical chevron banding on her chest and on her collar as it gives way to the beautiful close horizontal bands

Today, Friday 25th Oct- a Cockatiel has turned up here- the first for many years so the drought is really biting further north and we can expect more unusual sightings in the weeks and months to come.

No photos of this one as yet.

Busy Bee

My two bee hotels have been full of activity this summer season with 2 hatchings of Hylaeine bees already. This short video shows a female Hylaeus(Euprosopis) honestus bee finishing off the protective cover to a bamboo tube full of eggs. She seems to be licking the whole edge of the membrane to make sure it is sealed and tight- much as we used to put brown paper covered with vinegar over jam jars to seal them, before the advent of cellophane circles. Further up the hotel, we can see an emerging new Hylaeus bee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi914oprgWg

So successful have these bees been this year that I have had to install a third hotel for them. Hylaeus honestus looks more like a wasp with its shiny body and an absence of pollen-carrying hairs. The pollen it collects is carried internally! These little hotels do not seem to attract any other bee species at the moment but then, there have been very few other native bee species around this summer. In fact, all insect activity is well down since mid-2018, few native bees, wasps, moths, butterflies, stick insects, ant lions, and cicadas have been recorded in my usual haunts. What are all the insectivorous birds eating then?