Bird of Day 97: Spur-winged Plover

Vanellus miles

This bird is often called the Spur-winged Plover in its native range of Australasia, however it has been renamed Masked Lapwing to avoid confusion with the Spur-winged Lapwing/Plover of the Mediterranean and African regions (Vanellus spinosus).

Vanellus miles is a large (35cm; 370g), common and conspicuous bird native to Australia, particularly the northern and eastern parts of the continent. The subspecies found in the southern and eastern states (Vanellus miles novaehollandiae), and often locally called the Spur-winged Plover, has a black neck-stripe and smaller wattles* than its northern counterparts.

It spends most of its time on the ground searching for food such as insects and worms and has several distinctive calls. The wide range of calls can be heard at any time of the day or night include: the warning call, a loud defending call, courtship calls, calls to its young, and others. Since this bird lives on the ground it is always alert and even though it rests it never sleeps properly.

Vanellus miles will strike at interlopers with their feet and attack animals on the ground with a conspicuous yellow spur on the carpal joint of the wing. There is a much-believed but incorrect myth that the spur can inject venom.

[All text above: Ref (139)]

* A wattle is a fleshy longitudinal flap of skin hanging from various parts of the head or neck in several groups of birds, goats and other animals. [Ref (140)]

Bird of Day 96: Yellow-billed Stork

Mycteria ibis

This large protected wading bird occurs in Tropical East Africa; Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Madagascar. It lives in aquatic habitats, including shallow lakes, mud flats, coastal lagoons and meadows.

The Yellow-billed Stork is a medium-sized stork. Length: 97cm; average body weight for males: 2.3kg; for females: 1.9kg. It feeds on crustaceans, small fish, frogs, insects and worms. These birds have a quick muscular reflex of the neck, allowing almost all food to be caught in the water. They typically use one foot to stir up the water or mud which disturbs and flushes out the prey, then they submerge their heads quickly in the water snapping their bills on small prey.

Yellow-billed Storks are not particularly social, they like to isolate themselves in swamps and muddy rivers. They move slowly and deliberately and are extremely inactive, resting and feeding for most of the day. The female Yellow-billed Stork initiates courtship among the male yellow-billed storks. Together they build a bulky nest made of sticks, the male choosing where the nest is to be built. These nests are usually built high in trees away from predators.

A good photo of Mycteria ibis is here: http://www.whozoo.org/Intro2002/ShannonList/YBStorkPink041803_6537C.JPG

[All text: Ref (138)]

Bird of Day 95: Red-backed Kingfisher

Todiramphus pyrrhopygius

This predominantly blue-green and white bird with a chestnut rump is found across the continent of Australia. It is a summer visitor to the southeast of the country; elsewhere it is resident all year round.

The Red-backed Kingfisher inhabits dry forests, mulga and mallee country, to savannah. It avoids denser forests. During breeding season, birds will move to river courses to make use of the earthy banks to dig nesting burrows.

Todiramphus pyrrhopygius measures 20-22.5cm in length. The male is featured here; the female has a duller overall coloration. The call is a descending whistle, with a harsh alarm call given by birds near the nest.

[All text: Ref (137)]

Bird of Day 94: Eastern Yellow Robin

Eopsaltria australis

The Eastern Yellow Robin is an Australasian robin of coastal and sub-coastal eastern Australia. Specifically, it occurs from the extreme southeast corner of South Australia through most of Victoria and the western half of New South Wales and north as far as Cooktown. Tropical Northern Queensland birds are mainly restricted to the cool heights of the Great Dividing Range.

At 15 to 16cm in length, the Eastern Yellow Robin is one of the larger Australasian robins, and one of the most easily observed. Eopsaltria australis occupies a wide range of habitats including heaths, mallee, acacia scrub, woodlands and sclerophyll* forests, but is most often found in damper places or near water. Like all Australian robins, the Eastern Yellow tends to inhabit fairly dark, shaded locations and is a perch and pounce hunter, typically from a tree trunk, wire, or low branch. Pairs and small family parties establish a territory—sometimes year-round, sometimes for a season—and seem little disturbed by human presence.

Their diet is a wide range of small creatures, mostly insects. Breeding takes place in the spring and, as with many Australian birds, is often communal. The nest is a neat cup made of fine plant material and spider web, usually placed in a fork, and expertly disguised with lichen, moss, bark, or leaves. They appear not to migrate any great distance, but will make local movements with the seasons, particularly to higher and lower ground.

[All text above: Ref (135)]

* Sclerophyll is a type of vegetation that has hard leaves and short internodes (the distance between leaves along the stem). [Ref (136)]

Bird of Day 93: Grey Crowned Crane

Balearica regulorum

The Grey Crowned Crane occurs in dry savannah in Africa south of the Sahara, although it nests in somewhat wetter habitats. This animal does not migrate.

The Grey Crowned Crane is about 1m tall and weighs 3.5kg. Its body plumage is mainly grey; the wings are predominantly white, but contain feathers with a range of colours. The head has a crown of stiff golden feathers. The sides of the face are white, and there is a bright red inflatable throat pouch*. The bill is relatively short and grey, and the legs are black. The sexes are similar, although males tend to be slightly larger. It feeds on grass seeds, insects, reptiles and small mammals.

The Grey Crowned Crane has a breeding display involving dancing, bowing, and jumping. Refer here for some good footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzZhK09A_cM. It has a booming call which involves inflation of the red gular sac*. It also makes a honking sound quite different from the trumpeting of other crane species.

The Grey Crowned Crane is the national bird of Uganda and features in the country's flag and coat of arms. Balearica regulorum is listed as Vulnerable.

Try here for a particularly interesting image of the Grey Crowned Crane: http://rpmedia.ask.com/ts?u=/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1c/Grey_Crowned_Crane_2.jpg/80px-Grey_Crowned_Crane_2.jpg

[All text above: Ref (133)]

* Gular skin (throat skin), in ornithology, is an area of featherless skin on birds that joins the lower mandible of the beak (or bill) to the bird's neck. [Ref (134)]

Bird of Day 92: Rainbow Bee-eater

Merops ornatus

The brilliantly colored Rainbow Bee-eater is the only member of the family Meropidae found in Australia. Here they are a common species and can be found during the summer in un-forested areas in most of southern Australia and Tasmania, however they are becoming increasingly rare in Suburban parks. They migrate north during the winter into northern Australia, New Guinea, and some of the southern islands of Indonesia.

Like all bee-eaters, Rainbow Bee-eaters are very social birds. When they are not breeding they roost together in large groups in dense undergrowth or large trees. These birds mostly eat flying insects, but, as their name implies, they have a real taste for bees. Rainbow bee-eaters are always watching for flying insects, and can spot a potential meal up to 150 feet away. Even though rainbow bee-eaters are actually immune to the stings of bees and wasps, upon capturing a bee they will rub the insect's stinger against their perch to remove it, closing their eyes to avoid being squirted with poison from the ruptured poison sac. Bee-eaters can eat several hundred bees a day.

A photo of Merops ornatus in flight: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rainbowbeeeater.jpg

[All text: Ref (132)]

Bird of Day 91: Ruff

Philomachus pugnax

The Ruff is a medium-sized wading bird that breeds in marshes and wet meadows across northern Eurasia. This highly gregarious sandpiper is migratory and sometimes forms huge flocks in its winter grounds, which include southern and western Europe, Africa, southern Asia and Australia. The Ruff is from the family of Sandpipers.

This bird is a long-necked, pot-bellied bird, often described as having a gravy boat appearance. It shows marked sexual dimorphism; the male (29-32cm, 180g, 54-60cm wingspan) is much larger than the female (the reeve), and has a breeding plumage that includes brightly coloured head tufts, bare orange facial skin, extensive black on the breast, and the large collar of ornamental feathers that inspired this bird's English name. The female and the non-breeding male have grey-brown upperparts and mainly white underparts.

During the breeding season Ruff eat only insects (adult and larvae). Whilst on migration and during winter they also eat crustaceans, spiders, molluscs, worms, frogs, small fish, and also the seeds of rice and other cereals, sedges, grasses and aquatic plants. The Ruff stores fat as a fuel, but unlike mammals, uses lipids as the main energy source for exercise (including migration) and, when necessary, keeps warm by shivering; however, little research has been conducted on the mechanisms by which they oxidise lipids.

Males display during the breeding season at a lek* in a traditional open grassy arena. The Ruff is one of the few lekking species in which the display is primarily directed at other males rather than to the females. There are three male forms: typical territorial, satellite males and the faeders. Ruffs have one of the highest levels of polyandry** known for any avian lekking species and for any shorebird.

The nest is a shallow ground scrape lined with grass leaves and stems, and concealed in marsh plants or tall grass. Males play no part in the nesting or chick care and leaves the breeding grounds a month before the female and juveniles.

[All Text above: Ref (129)]

* A lek is a gathering of males, of certain animal species, for the purposes of competitive mating display. Leks assemble before and during the breeding season, on a daily basis. The same group of males meet at a traditional place and take up the same individual positions on an arena, each occupying and defending a small territory or court. Intermittently or continuously, they spar individually with their neighbors or put on extravagant visual or aural displays. [Ref (130)]

** polyandry is a type of breeding adaptation in which one female mates with many males. [Ref (131)]