Bird of the Week

Bird 226 – Pacific Koel

This week we bring you another polarising bird, the Pacific Koel (Eudynamys orientalis). Most people hate them, but for a select few their annoying antics evoke a comforting sense of nostalgia.

First up, what even is a Koel?

They’re a rather beefy Cuckoo. The males are jet black, the females a mottled brown and grey. They split their time between New Guinea and Australia. During the winter months they hang out in the tropical forests of New Guinea, eating fruit and generally being a bird of the jungle. But when spring comes, they hightail it outta there and head to Australia where they set up shop from Queensland all the way down the east coast, making it to Canberra and even into Victoria.

File:Pacific Koel - Long Reef.jpg — “Pacific Koel – Long Reef.jpg” by JJ Harrison

Why do they come to Australia? To be annoying and leech of Honeyeaters. Standard summer vacation.

These birds are Cuckoos, and they live up to their freeloading reputation. The Koel has no interest in raising its own young. Instead, they find a large Honeyeater, usually a Wattlebird or a Friarbird, to be their chick’s foster parent. They lay one egg in the unsuspecting bird’s nest and then skive off, leaving them to do all the work. Now, I have read conflicting sources as to whether their chicks kill the Honeyeater’s babies or not, so … maybe they do, they maybe they don’t. Either way, if you have a Cuckoo in your nest, you’re not going to have a good time. Even if the babies aren’t actively killed, the little Cuckoos outcompete the smaller chick and they usually (not always) starve to death anyway.

Koels becoming more common in Canberra | The Canberra Times | Canberra, ACT — Photo: Geoffrey Dabb

As nasty as that is, it isn’t the reason people hate the Koel. What really turns people against them is their annoying call. They make a high-pitched coo-eee scream, repeated over and over again that builds in maddening intensity. This is the male claiming its territory and alerting the females to its presence. If a Koel moves in near you, you may never see it (they are ace little hiders) but trust me, you will hear it.

They are sometimes known as storm birds, because they have a habit of turning up as the rainy season begins. For some people, this association with the change of season, coupled with their distinctive call, makes for a pleasant association… so I’m told. But for me, I have no love for the one that settled near my house this spring. It has done nothing but make a constant racket, although I am yet to see any poor Wattlebirds feeding an oversized monstrosity.

File:Pacific koel fem kob08.JPG — Pacific koel fem kob08.JPG” by Aviceda

In other birding news this week, you have heard that an album of bird songs made it into the top five ARIA album charts. The album, Songs of Disappearance, features a collection of over 50 of Australia’s most endangered birds. All proceeds go to help Australian bird conservation, so why not give it a listen and maybe help a bird out. It’s a reminder of the bird song we’re at risk of losing.

19/12/2021

Bird 225 – Common Bronzewing

The poor old pigeon is a much-maligned bird. And you know, I get it, city pigeons are a feral species, they’ve got a reputation for pooping on things and eating trash. But some pigeons are just straight up beautiful, and there is maybe none more so than the Common Bronzewing (Phaps chalcoptera).

These stocky Australian birds are fairly common (as you might have guessed from the name), but they rarely come into the suburbs and when spotted in the bush are quite cautious and retiring. Which is a shame because it makes it rather difficult to appreciate that splendid plumage. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, their wings have a special metallic quality. From some angles they do appear bronze, but at other times their wings can flash yellow, red, green or blue. So how do they do it?

“11-20-15 Common Bronzewing P1050644” by jacksnipe1990

Well, this is no common plumage. The colours you see on a Bronzewing’s wing aren’t made with pigment in the normal way. Instead, it’s because of the microscopic structure of the feather. Down on the nano level, the keratin that makes up the feather acts like tiny prisms, scattering white light into a full spectrum of colour, just like a crystal. Thanks to the careful arrangement of the feathers, it means when you look at the bird from different angles you might see their wings shimmering red and yellow, but if you shift your vantage point it will change to blue or green, even jet black. It’s a fancy trick of physics.

But you know what, getting people to appreciate a Bronzewing is easy. I mean, look at that handsome pigeon, it basically sells itself.

No photo description available. — Georgina Steytler

The real trick is convincing someone that a filthy city pigeon is amazing, and that’s exactly what I’ve tried to do. I recently got together with some friends to change their opinion of pigeons. Are they gross flying rats, or are they brilliant birds worthy of your love? If you want to find out if I could spread some pigeon propaganda, then why not tune in to our conversation (Apple, Spotify) and hear how it went down, and hey maybe you too will learn to … maybe not love, but hate pigeons less.

12/12/21

Bird 224 – Common Loon

Today I’m going to introduce you to one of the world’s most famous birds. There is probably no bird that has featured in more Hollywood films than the Common Loon (Gavia immer).

“Common Loons by Gary J. Wege” by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – Midwest Region

What’s that you say? You can’t think of a single film where you’ve seen this bird. Well, that’s probably because it rarely features in the flesh, but almost always as a disembodied voice. If you’ve seen Game of Thrones, Rick and Morty, 1917, Avengers Infinity War, Harry Potter, Platoon, Out of Africa or literally hundreds of other movies and shows, then you have heard the call of the Common Loon. Or to be more specific, you have heard their wail.

Whenever a film producer wants to evoke a sense of haunting wilderness or isolation overlaid with a touch of the mournful or the melancholy, they go straight to the wail of the Loon. If you’d like a little reminder of this sound, that I promise you’ve heard before, then have a listen.

There is something deeply other-worldly about the long drawn out wail, which is basically just their contact call. It’s the Loon’s way of letting its mate know where it is, and as dusk falls the pair have a habit of calling out to each other to keep in touch. But while Hollywood may have appropriated the Loon for its own purposes, these birds are rather cool.

They’re a North American water bird. There are several species of Loon, but they aren’t really related to anything else. As such they have a couple of odd features … beyond their haunting voice. They evolved to spend their lives almost exclusively on the water. They have larger, powerful flippers that they use to dive and swim under the water in hunt for fish and crustaceans. But as good as their feet are for swimming, they are almost useless on land. Their feet are set far back on their body, which means it is almost impossible for them to stand, so they try not leave the water, unless it’s to make a nest.

Loon legs | Back Yard Biology — Rather than being able to stand, their feet are so far back that they’re better at pushing themselves along on their belly.

For their body size, they also have quite stubby wings, which makes it difficult for them to get into the air. To take off they need a long runway and skip along the surface of their lakes while building up enough speed to get airborne. As such, it is also impossible for the Common Loon to take off while on land, they need to be on water.

Common Loon — North of 49 Photography — North of 49 Photography

To make up for these short comings, the Loon does have the delightful habit of carrying its babies around on its back. And I mean, that’s so adorable there’s almost nothing I wouldn’t forgive them.

Common loon (Gavia immer) carrying chick on its back (Print #20361682) — Media storehouse

05/12/2021

Bird 223 – Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

This week we have a bird that must have really annoyed the person who named them, because it sounds like they wanted to dish out a sick burn: the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius).

But far from being a cowardly bird that sucks sap, this is a rather handsome Woodpecker … who also sucks sap. Now, usually we think of Woodpeckers as hunting insects that live under tree bark, and indeed many do. But Woodpeckers have a diverse range of strategies for finding food via the pecking of wood, like the Acorn Woodpecker who bores holes in trees to store acorns. Well, our new sap sucking friend is no exception.

Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation

Rather than going after bugs, the Sapsucker chisels a collection of neatly arranged holes in a tree trunk. These are sap-wells, and the bird will move from well to well to lap up the sap as it pools in these holes. Sure, if a bug gets caught in the sticky sap they’ll eat that too, but their primary diet is tree blood.

The Sapsucker favours a wide range of trees, including Birch, Maple, Willow, Hickory and Conifers. Sometimes these little guys can become overzealous, completely ringbark a tree and kill it by accident. Between that the profusion of insects that also get attracted to the sweet tree sap, these suckers are sometimes considered a pest.

Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers - YouTube — Maybe getting a little too excited with this Birch tree.

As a final side note, Woodpecker tails are quite special. They’re especially stiff, and while perched on the side of a tree a Woodpecker will use its tail as an additional form of support. They brace themselves against their tails while they smack their face into the tree. It’s a neat little trick that helps create stability. And let’s face it, when you’re bagging your head against a wall, you want all the stability you can get.

28/11/2021

Bird 222 – Ocellated Turkey

For our American friends, this week is Thanksgiving, and we all know there is one bird and one bird only associated with Thanksgiving: the Wild Turkey. But we already featured the Turkey about … 170 weeks ago. So, if you want to learn how exactly a North American bird got named after a Middle Eastern country, you can check that out here.

And that’s all good and well, but did you know there is a second species of Turkey that is far more fancy? Well, there is, and it is known as the Ocellated Turkey (Meleagris ocellata).

Take a gander at that showstopper, it ain’t no garden variety gobbler. You’ve probably never heard of the Ocellated Turkey, because by comparison they are quite rare, and live only on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico and Belize. But what they lack in numbers they make up for in colours. This is a Turkey done up for Milan fashion week. They’ve accessorised every inch of their body, from their blue head, iridescent feathers, spotted tails and yellow face warts.

Oh yeah, they got yellow face warts, or nodules. Both males and females have these fleshy growths, and during the mating season they swell and become even more pronounced, because apparently that’s what the ladies want to see. Their mating displays are quite complex, and much like a Peacock, the males fan out their spotted tails and dance about the females.

Incidentally, that’s where their name comes from: ocellated being a fancy biological term for spotted.

Like many of the fanciest things in this world, these Turkeys have a declining population. They’ve suffered from a combination of deforestation and over hunting in recent years. But being fancy also means people are generally more motivated to do something to protect you. So, there are currently conservation pushes to create nature reserves where our ocellated friends can stay safe. And I think I can speak for everyone when I say that the world needs more wart covered giant chickens.

“23093: ocellated Turkey portrait” by Panegyrics of Granovetter

21/11/2021

Bird 221 – Spotted Pardalote

Today we have one of Australia’s smallest, but most beautiful birds, the Spotted Pardalote (Pardalotus punctatus).

“Spotted Pardalote (male)” by 0ystercatcher

Just look at that jewelled beauty, with its polka-dot crown, yellow bib, and red tail. It’s no wonder they used to be known as Diamond Birds. A name which would have been far easier to pronounce. However, as odd a word as Pardalote is, it is pronounced exactly how it looks: par-da-lote. But what does the word mean? It is derived from the Greek ‘pardalotos’, which means spotted. So this bird is the Spotted Spotted. Neat.

Having said that, it can be incredibly difficult to spot a Spotted Pardalote. Even though they’re relatively common on Australia’s east coast, they have a habit of hiding high in the treetops. Often they’re more easily identified by their distinctive calls, sometimes described as sounding like the phrase ‘sleep-may-be’. When foraging apart, pairs will call out to let each other know where they are. But their calls are so closely timed together that it sounds like a single call coming from two directions, making it even harder to find these tiny beauties.

“Spotted Pardalote (Pardalotus punctatus)” by David Cook Wildlife Photography

Now, you would expect a bird like this to make a cute little cup-shaped nest, probably hidden in a thick bush, like many similar small birds do. But the Spotted Pardalote don’t do like other birds do. These tiny guys are burrowers. They dig horizontal tunnels up to a metre and a half long, which they line with shredded bark and other soft material to make a safe, hidden home for their babies.

The nest of the Australian Spotted Pardalote bird can extend for over 1 metre in the ground horizontally. : r/Awwducational

Some of you out there may be thinking, ‘hey I’ve heard of this Pardalote bird before, but I thought they were super rare’. Well, that is the closely related Forty-spotted Pardalote from Tasmania. You can tell them apart from the normal Spotted Pardalote by very carefully counting their spots while they flit about high in the canopy … that, or you could just use the fact that you’re standing in Tasmania. Now, those ones are rare indeed, one of Australia’s rarest birds in fact, but theirs is a story of another week.

But after learning about a bird so spotty they named it twice, you might be wondering just how birds get their names in the first place. Well, good news, because our latest audio story dives into that question. Who is in charge of naming birds? Do they have rules? Can they be broken? Is there any controversy? Is it ridiculous? The answer to all those questions is yes, and you can hear it all right here (apple, spotify).

14/11/21

Bird 220 – Pheasant Pigeon

Today we’re staying in Papua New Guinea to meet another bird evolution had its way with: the Pheasant Pigeon (Otidiphaps nobilis).

Now, you know me, I love a handsome Pigeon. Hell, I even love an ugly Pigeon. Our Pigeon stance is generally pretty pro. The Pheasant Pigeon, though, is especially handsome. They’re one of the larger species of Pigeon and they live almost exclusively on the forest floor, where they struct about looking gorgeous and eating any fallen fruit that happens to cross their path.

Sometimes the name of a bird can be misleading, but in this case, it tells us a lot. Aside from looking an awful lot like a Pheasant, this Pigeon also has a similar lifestyle. Indeed, it is their shared lifestyle that has resulted in their Pheasant-like appearance. In particular, they have a more robust, rounded bearing; their tail feathers have fanned out; and while they maintain the ability to fly, they are not strong and agile aeronauts like their other Pigeon brethren.

Green-naped Pheasant Pigeon - Lincoln Park Zoo — Lincoln Park Zoo

As it turns out, New Guinea is mostly free of Pheasants and other large jungle fowl, and as we know, nature abhors a vacuum. The Pheasant Pigeon saw a niche in the forest ecosystem ripe for exploitation, and so millions of years ago, they flew down from the trees and declared to the forest that they were going to become a Pheasant. The forest naturally didn’t care and continued doing whatever it is forests do. The Pigeon stood around awkwardly for a couple of minutes and when it realised no-one was going to stop it, it went ahead and became a Pheasant. The fact that New Guinea is also free of terrestrial predators meant they could become as plump a Pigeon as they wanted, without fear of being hunted.

Green-naped pheasant-pigeon : Cotswold WP : 14 Jun 2019 - ZooChat

And let me tell you, they wanted to be plump.

07/11/21

Bird 219 – Dracula Parrot

Happy Halloween! To bring our month of horror inducing birds to a close, I am bringing you Nosferatu himself, the Dracula Parrot (Psittrichas fulgidus).

The Dracula parrot is intimidating - Australian Geographic — Ondrej Prosicky

It earned its name for reasons that are too obvious and numerous to point out. Never has there been a bird with a more threatening aura. With the bald head of a Vulture, an elongated hooked beak, and the black and red plumes of a self-respecting villain, the Dracula Parrot certainly has a foreboding bearing.

Pesquet's Parrot - eBird — Holger Teichmann

While it is easy to see why they were dubbed the vampire of the parrot world, they’re behaviour is anything but. This parrot is a strict frugivore, meaning they only eat fruit, and specifically figs. Their long, hooked beaks are perfect for dissecting and draining the life blood of the innocent fig.

It’s generally believed that they’re bald for the same reason as Vultures. Vultures lost their head feathers so they wouldn’t get messy when digging around in animal carcasses. Likewise, our parrot become bald to avoid becoming a matted, sticky mess when eating juicy fruits. This does raise a question though, if being bald is such an advantage, why didn’t any of the other dozen fruit-eating parrots evolve this trait? As it is, parrot baldness is rather rare; sometimes evolution is a fickle mistress.

Because of their striking appearance, the local peoples of Papua New Guinea hunt them to use their feathers in traditional headdresses. Today they’re vulnerable in the wild, and campaigns are afoot to create a more sustainable relationship between the people and their bird. So far from being a flying monstrosity, sapping the life blood of their victims, the Dracula Parrot is in need of protection.

Preserving Dead Parrots in Order to Save the Living | NRDC — ELODIE VAN LIERDE

You might also spy a Superb Bird of Paradise hiding in there.

31/10/21

Bird 218 – Satanic Nightjar

Last week we met Lucifer, so this week let’s stay in the realm of hell with the Satanic Nightjar (Eurostopodus diabolicus).

A bird with a fondness for pentagrams and blood rituals, the Satanic Nightjar is not to be trifled with. They have been blessed with dark powers beyond the comprehension of we mortal beings. They are the terror of the night, death on swift wings, eternal, immortal and the consumer of worlds.

Like everything supernatural, these Nightjars are poorly understood. They were first discovered on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi in 1931. They were only spotted for a second time in 1996, but since then we have come to learn more about this rare and elusive bird. They earned their fun name thanks to their call. They make a kind of plip-plop noise, like dripping water, but some people liken it to the sound of a bird pulling out a person’s eyes. How they knew what eye-ball extraction sounded like, I’m not sure, but I can only assume a lot of double-blind studies were conducted to work it out.

Why We Love Birds | 9/9 Lore Lindu National Park | Satanic nightjar (Eurostopodus diabolicus) — John McKean

Whilst we can never be sure how diabolical these birds are, researchers favour keeping the name as a way to draw more attention to this little-known, endangered bird. And that seems like a good enough reason to me.

But to finish up, let’s answer the most important question of all. Can they blend?

Yes.

Some more good news at hand. Have you ever wondered how many different bird species there are? No? Just me? Okay, well, I looked into it anyway, and if you’d like to find out why that question is nearly impossible to answer, then pop on over to your favourite podcast app, and I’ll lay it out for you (Apple, Spotify).

24/10/2021

Bird 217 – Lucifer Sheartail

As Halloween draws ever nearer, the time has come to bring forth the very personification of evil itself. That’s right, today we’re meeting the Prince of Darkness, the goat-man downstairs, he’s bathed in hellfire. You love him, you fear him, it’s the Lucifer Sheartail (Calothorax lucifer).

Lucifer Hummingbird - eBird — Marky Mutchler

Look not upon its fearsome visage, less thee go insane. I do admit it, yes, this is a rather handsome Hummingbird, but be not fooled, for the devil can take on pleasing forms.

アカヒゲハチドリ Lucifer Sheartail, Lucifer Hummingbird (Calothorax lucifer) | Beautiful birds, Hummingbird, Lucifer — mijika

Okay, so what’s going on with this sparkling chap’s name? Well, ‘sheartail’ is a reference to its forked tail. That’s right, all your life you thought the devil was a serpent with a forked tongue, turned out it was a bird with a forked tail, go figure.

But enough of this gay levity, I know it’s the ‘Lucifer’ part of its name that you really want to know about. Well, sadly it has nothing to do with the devil. I know, major bummer. I was hoping these birds were the demon lords of the avian world. Don’t worry, in my mind they still are. To get to the bottom of that mystery, we must turn to the original Latin. In this case, it means light-bringer. In antiquity, this was the Greek name for the planet Venus, and is also why Satan is sometimes referred to as Lucifer Morningstar.

Calothorax lucifer, Lucifer Hummingbird image — Larry Thompson, 2007-2015

For our little Hummingbird, this is a reference to the male’s bright purple gorget feathers which catch the light in dazzling ways. So, far from being the Prince of Darkness, they are quite literally a light-bringer. Of course, they use their pleasing form to lure the ladies into mating with them. So maybe they have something of the old sweet-talking serpent after all.

Christmas Mountains Oasis: Lucifer Hummingbird courtship display | Hummingbird, Lucifer, Bird — Ron Cook

17/10/2021