Australia: LBJs and Oddities in Jerrabomberra

My first full day in Australia was partly spent seeing the sights in Canberra, but the morning was (of course) dedicated to some time in nature. Nikki and I took a bus out to the Jerrabomberra Wetlands, a nature preserve just a little bit out of town that's supposed to be one of the best birding (and general wildlife) spots in the Australian Capital Territory. Even though we were in the quiet (and cold!) winter months, it proved to be excellent, with an introduction to yet more strange and beautiful Aussie wildlife, including some surprises.

Even before we entered the preserve, there were some new birds seen along the entrance road, including a group of Straw-necked Ibises chasing each other around in a field, a Willie Wagtail (Australians have the best bird names) watching us from a fence post, and a Yellow-rumped Thornbill foraging on the ground.

Straw-necked Ibis

Willie Wagtail- actually a type of fantail. Australians are better at creative names than they are at accurate taxonomy (see also: Australian Magpie, Magpie-lark, Koala bear)

Yellow-rumped Thornbill

Once we figured out how to get inside Jerrabomberra, we first stopped by one of the small ponds, which held some of the slightly less-common Australian ducks like Grey Teal, Cinnamon Teal, and Australasian Shoveler, as well as Red-kneed Dotterel, a type of endemic plover, and Australasian Swamphen, one of the former Purple Swamphen splits. Best of all, there were a couple Pink-eared Ducks swimming around, easily the strangest-looking duck I've ever seen. Australia is known for getting a little crazy with evolution, giving us things like kangaroos, Spiny Echidnas, Wombats, and of course the Duck-billed Platypus, but it turns out that the local birds also somehow got way weirder than anywhere else in the world. What a weird and glorious continent.

Grey Teal

Australasian Swamphen

Pink-eared Duck- aka "how did this thing even evolve?"

In a bit of grassland past the ponds, a Grey Butcherbird was watching us from the top of a tree, while a little ways away was a small flock of Red-rumped Parrots, my last psittacine tick for Canberra. A Little Eagle soared overhead, while in the grass I had my first male Superb Fairy-wren in Bright plumage, which would have been incredibly disappointing not to see in Australia.

Grey Butcherbird

Male Superb Fairy-wren in dull plumage 

Little Eagle

Red-rumped Parrot

Male Superb Fairy-wren in bright plumage

The "real" birding started as we reached the small patch of forest in the middle of Jerrabomberra. We happened across a small mixed flock of honeyeaters in a tree next to a pond, mostly consisting of White-plumed Honeyeaters and Yellow-faced Honeyeaters, with a single White-eared Honeyeater.

Yellow-faced Honeyeater

Further into the trees, a White-browed Scrubwren was hopping around on the ground, while a Red Wattlebird was squawking above it. Red Wattlebirds are one of the most common Australian Honeyeaters, but they're so big and attractive, with great personalities, that I don't entirely mind seeing them everywhere.

White-browed Scrubwren

Red Wattlebird

Shortly after, I saw a couple more very attractive honeyeaters, in the form of an Eastern Spinebill and a New Holland Honeyeater. These two are almost common enough to be considered "trash birds", but again they're so good-looking and bold that I'm always happy to see them. Honeyeaters are always fun to watch, in part because they're completely unlike anything we have in the Philippines (or the US), and are always varied and interesting. 

New Holland Honeyeater

Eastern Spinebill

Further in on the trail we had a number of mixed flocks that included some of the much less-common honeyeaters and LBJs, including Brown Thornbill, Weebill, Yellow Thornbill, Fuscous Honeyeater, and White-eared Honeyeater. Even less-common was a single Brown Gerygone, a species generally found only along the coast. I spent about an hour scrutinizing my pictures to be sure of the ID before submitting them to eBird, and thankfully they were accepted. It turns out this was only the third eBird record of the bird in Jerrabomberra, so that was quite exciting. 

Brown Gerygone

White-browed Scrubwren

Weebill, the smallest bird in Australia

Very successful Yellow Thornbill

Also present was a large flock of Silvereyes, the only zosterops in most of Australia, and a Crimson Rosella, always fun to see. 

Crimson Rosella

Silvereye

Jerrabomberra wasn't absent of cool mammals- an invasive Red Fox out hunting for native wildlife wasn't great to see, but on the bright side we saw a herd of Eastern Grey Kangaroos, my first up-close view of any kangaroo. Some of the females even had joeys inside their pouches. The stereotype of kangaroos hopping down the city streets of Australia isn't entirely accurate, but it really does have a lot of kangaroos around. 

Eastern Grey Kangaroo with a joey!

On the way out I saw an Australian Painted Lady on the ground- my first Australian butterfly, and an endemic at that! Watching from above with a beady eye was an Australian Raven, while also on the ground was a juvenile Australian Magpie and a flock of Crested Pigeons. Crested Pigeons are the most common pigeon in Australia (except maybe feral Rock Doves), and they also look incredibly goofy- because I guess taking normal things and adding a bit of weirdness is basically how evolution works in Australia works. 

Australian Painted Lady

Australian Raven

Crested Pigeon

Immature Australian Magpie

In short, Jerrabomberra really is as good as it's supposed to be- I added a solid 50 species to my Australia list in the space of a few hours. I only wish I'd had time to go back and visit again to get more pictures and see more birds. Alas, we had other places to see and non-birding things to do, so this morning was all I got.