Photos - birds
Since the year 2000 we have seen a steady increase in the number of different birds visiting or resident on our site. Currently (2013) the number species recorded is 110. Of these, 7 are judged to be of vulnerable status under the threatened species conservation act.
Each kind of bird depends on a particular mix of native plant and animal life for its survival, so much so that the number of bird species is a good measure of overall biodiversity.
The increasingly rich bird life attracts bird watchers, some of whom have provided us with their photos, as shown below. Many of our birds appear on this website of Central Coast Birds. Also, local expert Alan Morris tells us of new species as they arrive, so that they can be recorded in our bird list.
Green catbird
Photo: Laurie Smith
Grey butcher bird, also a good songster and likely to dive-bomb you if you are a stranger approaching its nest.
Photo: Tony Dawe
Blackfaced cuckoo shrike
Photo: Tony Dawe
Pacific baza or crested hawk
Photo: Laurie Smith
Crested hawk showing its barred wings against the sky. As it prefers the wetter forests of eastern Australia, the year-by-year increase in the forest canopy on our site is likely to attract more of this species.
Photo: Laurie Smith
Yellow-throated scrub wren, which hangs its large domed nests from trees and vines. We watched a pair at work on one from our morning tea table in January 2011.
Photo: Tony Dawe
A powerful owl with a possum, nictitating membrane over right eye. It will eat all of the possum except for a carefully-dissected remnant of gut, which presumably is distasteful. The gut remnants that we find show that powerful owls often hunt across our site.
Photo: Laurie Smith
Here is a bush of kangaroo apple with a regent bower bird. Like other fruit eating birds, it benefits from the diversity of fruit-bearing species in and around the rainforest. While some trees produce little fruit in off-years, others fill the gap.
Photo: Tony Dawe
Eastern spinebill, here shown next to a the flowers of the
dreaded weed, lantana. Even lantana flowers provide food for nectar-feeders such as this.
Photo: Tony Dawe
Lewin's honeyeater is a noisy as well as visible bird on our site. One of its favourite foods is the orange fruits of kangaroo apple.
Photo: Laurie Smith
The pied butcher bird has a beautiful song. Whatever you are doing in the bush, you just have to stop and listen. It's a carnivore and feeds on insects, nestlings of other birds and small reptiles.
Photo: Tony Dawe