With an abundance of birds that are fairly used to people, Jawbone Flora and Fauna Reserve along the Williamstown coastline is a good place to practice bird photography.
Australian Magpie, Jawbone Flora and Fauna Reserve, Williamstown, Vic
New Holland Honeyeater
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Hoary-headed Grebe
Crested Pigeons feeling the early morning cold
Blue-billed Duck
I was delighted to find that Berwick is a stronghold of the New Holland Honeyeater. It is a small, aggressive and active bird, quick to defend its territory and raise the alarm when it sees something not quite right. We had spent a few hours at a large Fig tree along Princes Highway waiting for the Channel-billed Cuckoo to turn up in a regular feeding tree. The New Hollands were along the fence line behind us and as we made our way back to the car after our failed steak-out, they raised the alarm. Besides us walking by with our camera gear, the other threat I had seen was a Brown Goshawk cruising by and perched within a nearby tree watching all the action.
New Holland Honeyeaters on the lookout for trouble
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Brown Goshawk in a large nearby tree, watching all the local bird action.
While visiting my folks on Willowind farm in Moorooduc, I noticed that the New Holland Honeyeaters were spending quite a bit of time in the bare bushes around the birdbath near the back door. When an Eastern Spinebill, a few Brown Thornbills and a White-eared Honeyeater stopped by for a drink or a quick bath, they were chased off by the New Hollands. They can be an aggressive species often fighting with similar sized honeyeaters over a territory or a temporary food source but I have not seen them defend a water source before. There is a bit of water around the local area and even a dam nearby but the birds would have to travel through open unprotected areas. It shows the importance of supplying a protected clean water source for small birds. It also provides a great location to photograph the birds when they come into drink and bathe.
New Holland Honeyeater, Willowind Farm, Moorooduc, Victoria
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White-eared Honeyeater – by placing a rock into a deeper birdbath it allows the bird to bathe from the rock. They need a way to hop out onto the edge again after quick dunk.
A wary drink…
Chasing off the other species…
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New Holland Honeyeaters dominate the formal parts of the Cranbourne Botanical Gardens. They are generally easy to get a nice image of but it can be much more time consuming trying to get a shot with a bit of personality. Many of the native plants are flowering at the moment so there are good opportunities to find an ideal bush with nectar filled flowers and wait for a Honeyeater to turn up. Many times they land on a high point behind you, you notice, you spin around and it takes off, then you curse yourself as you realise you just missed the shot that was right in front of you. I recently visited with a few bird photography friends and we had a challenging time attempting to find “the” shot – a never ending quest. It seems harder to get a good shot, that you are happy with, of a fairly common subject while often we seem happier with average shots of a rarer subject.
New Holland Honeyeater, Cranbourne Botanical Gardens
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Olive Backed Oriole, Cranbourne Botanical Gardens – a rare bird for me, only seen a few times before.
There is nothing like a nice afternoon bath in a small fresh puddle – perfect temperature, perfect depth. This New Holland Honeyeater was one of several birds that made quick flights into the water. After a quick dip and a splash around it would take off to a nearby branch to groom and then back into the water again. Bathing, grooming and keeping the feathers in good condition are extremely important to birds. It is fun and challenging to try and take decent images when the opportunity arises…
Bathing New Holland Honeyeater, Cranbourne Botanical Gardens,
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The Australian Garden is located at Cranbourne and is part of the Royal Botanic Gardens. It is dedicated to Australian plants and landscapes and displays the various regions of Australia and its native plants. A great place to take visitors. It has large formal created gardens and larger areas of open natural parkland, woodlands, heathlands and even wetlands. It has many species of birds and quite a few Black or Swamp Wallabies as well as Wombats and Echidnas. I have visited a few times in the last couple of weeks. The previous Post at this site was about the Bandicoots that I had photographed. [I have since found out that the Bandicoot without the tail and the healed scars is called Stumpy and is a regular at the Stringybark Picnic area.
Australian Garden, Royal Botanical Gardens, Cranbourne – red centre section
Black Fronted Dotterel – a pair were working the waters edge along one of the ponds
By far the most abundant bird in the formal part of the Garden is the New Holland Honeyeater. Due to their numbers and ready food source available with the flowering Australian natives they are a great target for taking photos.
New Holland Honeyeater
New Holland Honeyeater
New Holland Honeyeater
New Holland Honeyeater on a standard weeping Grevillea.
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A pair of New Holland Honeyeaters – spring was definitely in the air…
Brown Quail, Jawbone Flora and Fauna Reserve
Well camouflaged amongst the dry grass
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Another highlight was a New Holland Honeyeater that seemed happy to ignore us and allow a close approach for photos. It spent 20 minutes hunting for insects from a few perches close to the path.
New Holland Honeyeater
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Following on from yesterday’s You Yangs post – The parasitic Mistletoe is also fruiting and the tiny Mistletoebirds are having a feast on the new fruit. One of the highlights of our photography expedition was watching the behaviour and skills of a few Mistletoebirds as they worked the Mistletoe bushes on the various gum trees. They would select an attached fruit bud and carefully remove its cap and pull out the fruit. It would not just eat the bullet shaped fruit, it would squeeze and twist several times and then when the fruit had released its sticky white secretion, the birds would then swallow it. The Mistletobird has a fast digestion and processes the fruit in an amazing time (4min to 25min). We watched as one did excrete a seed and did so slowly and seemingly with purpose. In doing a bit of research on mistletoe I found a picture where a Painted Honeyeater actually has to pull out the fruit seed from its vent as the white liquid is very sticky. This made sense as our Mistletoebird spent a bit of time on the branch wiggling about and when it moved away there was a little mound of white secretion and the seed pods stuck to the branch. This is how the mistletoe attaches to the host branch. In this case the seed wont germinate successfully as it was still located on the Mistletoe bush. The birds we photographed were very focussed and did not seem to mind 4 blokes only a few metres away clicking away with cameras. They kept an eye on us but were not at all nervous and one spent a few minutes sunning itself. We took hundreds of shots of the little birds.
At one point a New Holland Honeyeater flew into the mistletoe bush and started to chase off the female Mistletoebird. After a flurry of wings and loud calls, each bird flew off in different directions but our little friend came back for an encore and after a few more pics we left her in peace.
Mistletoebird, You Yangs
Squeezing the seed pod/fruit
Spending a few moments and using the branch to remove the stick seed pod excretion.
Mistletoe bird excretion with a few visible seeds stuck to the branch.
Mistletoebird
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New Holland Honeyeater
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Mistletoe bird back again
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I explored a new area last week. The Kororiot Creek mouth opens out into Port Phillip Bay in Williamstown next to the Jawbone reserve. To access the area you need to park at either the sports ground or next to one of the many fishing club shacks that line the Creek mouth on one side. As the nearby areas gentrify this part is fighting to stay the way it has always been – a working class fishing area/village. On the opposite side is a bank of salt marsh vegetation while on the village side it is Banksia trees and attempts at regeneration of creek side flora including White Mangroves. It is a remnant of the tidal wetland that ran right across this coastal area.
Further up the creek is the Mobile Oil Refinery Storage tanks. Considering the local birdlife including many migratory waders, it is surprising that such heavy can co-exist successfully with the wetland.
Great Egret
Welcome Swallow
Little Black Cormorants – I watched these Cormorants hunt as a pack. There were 6 in the group working closely together.
Black Swan P81 – I reported the swan through the myswan link . See Jawbone link above for more details on tagged swan research.
Pelican
Pelican II
New Holland Honeyeater
Little Pied Cormorant
I explored a new bush park today, on the outskirts of Frankston, Langwarrin Flora and Fauna Reserve. It is a good sized reserve with many well managed and signposted tracks and a wide fire break running down the centre of the park. I spent a few hours investigating several of the Northern trails and found quite a number of smaller birds. The bush is very thick and dense with the only access via the trails – it is too thick to get into. It is a haven for the smaller birds while the larger birds stick to the taller gums. A few uncommon birds seen were Grey Currawongs, a Collared Sparrowhawk and 2 Wedge Tail Eagles circling very high. Many of the gum trees were flowering and there seemed to be a good supply of Lerp on the leaves as well. The birds were quite aggressive towards other species and each other – a sign of a supply of food worth defending.
Yellow Faced Honeyeater
New Holland Honeyeater,
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Little Wattlebird
Grey Shrike Thrush
Collared Sparrowhawk
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And my usual forest companion:
Eastern Yellow Robin
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 | Imma on Bowerbirds at the Falls |
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| Mary on Wild Goschen Cockatiels |
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The Gap Year and Beyond 