Secretive and Spotless

Small, fast, and secretive - crakes and rails must rank as one of the more difficult species to observe and find across the world. Most species are cryptically plumaged, extremely shy, and loathe to fly - preferring to snake in and out of their preferred habitat, which is usually dense reeds, grasses, undergrowth.

On top of that, the best of these birds are often tiny. The members of this group of birds which a birder is most often acquainted with are heavy-bodied, conspicuous birds like swamphens, coots, and moorhens; so naturally, it is reasonable to expect the rest to be similar too. Alas, new birders - prepare to be surprised! I remember when I saw my first Baillon’s Crake as it dashed across a small puddle (in 2007), I was not prepared for the wee little sparrow-sized thing it was!

And like a lot of difficult-to-see and secretive birds, it’s very hard for researchers to ascertain how common or uncommon these species really are.

For all those reasons, sighting one is always an extremely rewarding experience. And for me, they’ll often be the highlight of any birdwatching trip.

In Tasmania, we regularly get to see 3 species of these secretive rails - Spotless Crake, Australian Crake, Lewin’s Rail (I’m not including the much commoner Australian Swamphen, Eurasian Coot, Tasmanian Nativehen, and the slightly uncommon Dusky Moorhen). But they seem to be, at best, uncommon and finding them can be quite hard. I consider myself lucky to even add them to my year list.

Spotless Crake

Lately, we have been lucky to find a reliable spot for Spotless Crakes along the NW Coast. The birds appear to be slightly more used to people walking on the path adjacent to their habitats. But most amazingly, it is the sheer density of the birds at the location that leaves me awestruck. Pairs apparently occupy tiny territories and, on an exceptionally good day, one may see up to 8 birds along a 300m stretch!

Spotless Crakes are tiny, mostly dark crakes that can be extremely skittish and skulking. They often feed on the margins of reeds where mud meets water and are quick to rush into cover when spotted. When viewed well, one can truly appreciate how pretty these crakes really are with their red eyes; and the subtle brown upperparts and grey underparts contrasting with the spots on the undertail.

Spotless Crake chick

When I visited the patch a day ago, my attention was initially drawn to 3 table tennis ball-sized fluffy birds that were out amongst the short grasses and mud. Spotless Crake juveniles! These little ones were soon joined by a pair of adults warily watching from the edges of vegetation. As I sat down while keeping them in view, the birds soon grew bolder and went about their business, ignoring my presence.

Face-off between two Spotless Crakes

Later, one of the adults from the pair with a chick seemed to have forgotten the rules of being a secretive bird and ventured out in the open, busying itself with picking out invertebrates from the mud. Another adult (yes, from a different pair of birds - told you the numbers were densely packed!) from the other side of this muddy patch clearly noticed the infringement by this individual and came running to let it know that territorial lines had been crossed! A short skirmish that included a weird almost ‘bird-of-paradise’-like-display (without the colours and flamboyance) followed as both the birds gave me an insight into their otherwise poorly-known lives. Quick video (see below) and some photos and it was all over in a <30 seconds.

I saw a lot of nice birds through the course of the morning (including Swift Parrots in the gums above me as I looked at the crakes) but this display took the cake :-)

Here’s a short video of the skirmish and a haiku to go with it:

Crakes at the border
Skirmishes, threats, and display
All wings, and no f(l)ight

One thousand days of birding...

On 29 October 2017, I boarded a flight from Melbourne to get to Delhi via Guangzhou and managed to spend an entire 24-hour period within the confines of a plane/window-less rooms/airports in the middle of the night. And thus, I went a full day without getting a chance to look at birds for even a short while and failed to make an eBird checklist.

At the time, I was on a 140-ish day streak of birding, and hoping to continue the spell until I was left heartbroken at the airport. Apparently I was so disappointed, I didn’t bother birding at all the next day… and then on 31 October, picked up my binoculars again and started the journey one more time.

This time, despite some very close calls (mostly due to transits in airports, and at least once due to laziness), I reached the milestone I was aiming for - 1000 consecutive days of birding as of today morning (26 July 2020).

My best eBirding streak yet…

My best eBirding streak yet.

A birder, in practice, is always birding. But here, when I say birding, I mean taking out some time each day to actively and dedicatedly make the effort of looking for birds, noting down all you see, and making a list. Often, this effort may only be a few minutes long and sometimes, it may stretch through hours - but it all counts. For my purposes, I decided that I need to engage in the effort of birding for at least 5 minutes a day as a minimum. That low bar I set came in handy a couple of times as I made lists from airports and airplanes… (note that all these are complete checklists)

Places I have birded over the last 1000 days

Thanks to eBird, I’ve been able to track my birding efforts and additionally, become a birder who’s more obsessed with birding at all times and making lists at all places. Along the way, eBird has also acted as a fantastic platform to play the role of my “digital notebook”. Using eBird I am able to see where all I have been, what all I have seen, who I went with, and even what the weather was like at times. But I digress; and before I drone on and wax lyrical about eBird and its many virtues, I will get to the point.

I used this little personal milestone as a way to learn a bit more about myself as a birder. So, I pulled out my data from eBird today evening and set to work to look at how I bird and in recent context, how the lockdown affected my birding. I looked at the lockdown in particular as it was the “home stretch” as far as my 1000-day run as concerned - and motivating myself to get out in the garden and look at the same birds again and again everyday for 51 days often felt like a chore. The differences in the two stats also go on to show how closely interlinked birding is with travelling (long or short distances) for me.

Here’s a couple of frequency bar graphs. The first one showing how often I birded over the last 1000 days, and the second one showing how often I birded over the 51 days of lockdown.

On a little over 400 days out of 1000 (this includes all the lockdown days, mind you), I birded just the once. But on almost 280 days, I birded at least twice; and on over 200 days, I birded 3 or 4 times! In contrast, during the lockdown, I only managed to pick up my binoculars two times in a day on 8 days out of 51. Yikes!

Across the 1000 days, I averaged 2.46 checklists a day but during the lockdown that number fell to a tame 1.15 checklists each day.

I also wanted to look at when I go birding. I was pretty sure this was going to be an easy one to guess - and I wagered that I birded in the mornings 90% of the time. Close enough, but it was a bit more varied than I’d guessed. To get these numbers, I looked at starting times for my checklist, and divided the day into 3 blocks - mornings (4 AM to 12 PM), afternoons and evenings (12 PM to 7 PM), and nights (7 PM to 4 AM). There are likely to be a few evening lists that are night lists and some morning lists that are afternoon lists but the overlap overall should be negligible overall… (I hope)

So, a solid 75% of my time birding is in the mornings. And a fairly measly amount at night - which goes on to explain why I complain about not seeing any owls or nightjars :-) During the lockdown, my suburban environments proved even less enticing at night, while I am pleased I managed to get almost 10 lists out of the way after noon (vs 50 in the morning!).

I also looked at how long my checklists are within these time blocks. In this case, I used the length of each checklist as a proxy for the length of each “period” of birding. Here’s where I expected there to be a major difference. I imagined I birded a lot longer in the mornings and at night, than in the afternoon/evening. The results weren’t as stark. In the mornings, I birded an average of 36.75 minutes per checklist whereas the numbers are not very different for either the afternoons/evenings and the nights with their numbers at 30.28 minutes and 33.63 minutes per checklist respectively. However, I only managed a rather paltry 14.5 minutes per checklist during the lockdown.

Oh well, the idea of keeping this streak going has been very engaging and great fun. And some of the most interesting moments in recent years have involved me scrambling on rainy days, at airports, at events, etc trying to fit in a genuine checklist into my day. Here’s to another 1000 consecutive days of eBirding!

An obsession with Scrubtits

I love all birds… I really do. But there is something special about birds that are range-restricted, endemic, and highly specialised. Make that bird the only one of its kind - you know, like belonging to a monotypic family or genus - and to me, that bird becomes truly, truly exceptional.

In Tasmania, one gets to see endemic species (12 on the island), species that are “near-endemics” in that they breed only on the island (but may disperse elsewhere), and as on most islands, endemic subspecies of the species that are also found on the mainland. Tasmania’s habitats, too, are pretty unique and in many ways unlike the habitats found elsewhere in Australia. In general being colder, wetter, and denser. However, rather surprisingly (at least to me), many of Tassie’s endemics seem to do pretty well even outside these “typical Tassie habitats”.

But one bird stands out; and as you have probably already guessed from the title, it is the Scrubtit Acanthornis magna. Found almost exclusively in cool, temperate, moist forests as well as in alpine heath - it occupies some of Tasmania’s most unique landscapes. And there’s nothing else like it. Split from their closest cousins (the whitefaces) millions of years ago, it now the only member of the genus Acanthornis.

They are generally tough to observe and quiet; and even when they vocalise, many people are not able to discern their soft, high-pitched contact calls in the field. None of this is helped by their habit of hanging out in dark, shady gullies where light is low and foliage is plenty. They also appear surprisingly small, although with some patience and care, one can get amazing views of these unobtrusive little birds as they forage carefully on trunks and barks of man ferns, mossy trees, and tangled vegetation - in a manner that resembles something like a cross between a nuthatch, a treecreeper, and a tit.

Naturally, given how cool this bird is, I have become a bit obsessed with it. I spend inordinate amounts of time thinking about it (avg. 2.4 hours a day over the past month… yes, I calculated), seeking out its habitats (which almost always turn out to be top notch, good quality Tasmanian forests), trying to record its seldom-heard vocalisations, and watching it go about its business in a manner that befits the species’ reclusive nature. It’s a thrill to see it; and in my opinion (as on this date), it is probably the best Tasmanian bird out there!

I recently spent some time watching a few of these birds at Cradle Mountain, managing some photos and a recording I was quite pleased with.

Wings in the sky

It’s that time of the year again. It’s getting quieter, darker, colder, and windier. As autumn draws to a close and Tasmania begins its tryst with what always seems to be a long, miserable winter; my mood reflects the seasons changing as I become equally erratic, restless, and worn out.

But, at least in early winter, there are a couple of weekends I do look forward to. The annual Where? Where? Wedgie! survey is a citizen science initiative that invites Tasmanians to go pick a 4km x 4km cell anywhere in the state, and then spend 10 minutes each at 6 points within that cell looking out for raptors and white cockatoos. AS and I have enthusiastically taken part in the project since it took wing 3 years ago in 2018.

So, for the first weekend of the survey (there are two weekends), we picked out a survey cell near Sheffield, under the shadow of Mt Roland. I wouldn’t bore you with the details of how it went, but in short - it was great fun, as always, with some typical Tassie weather (sun, rain, clouds, winds, calm all in a few hours) and a few interesting birds, including Wedge-tailed Eagles.

In the gloom of the approaching Tasmanian winter, projects such as these can prove to be so uplifting. To be out and about with a purpose, knowing that others are collectively working towards the single goal of documenting these marvellous birds in Tassie, and getting to know the lay of this beautiful land is something really special! And honestly, by the end of the 6 survey points and the 3 hours you spend in the field, the raptors themselves become a minor detail :-)

As Tasmania begins to lift its restrictions and the threat of the virus wanes (hopefully, without a second wave in sight), I cannot wait to get out explore the state as much as possible. With possible pelagics, some snow, and a bit of hiking about in the bush all on the horizon; spring doesn’t feel like it’s too far away!

Hope you are all keeping safe and sane wherever you are.

PS. Another thing that also brightens up the winter for me is the delightful little Crescent Honeyeater that descends to lower altitudes at this time of the year, and lends some cheer with its sounds. Here’s a recording I made of a singing bird at one of our survey points - you can hear the pitter-patter of the drizzle as water bounces off my parabola.

Bioluminescent Fungi

There's something enchanting about bioluminescence in nature. It feels primeval in that it seems magical, unnatural and spooky; and of course - it is amongst those phenomena which is best appreciated under the cover of darkness, like gazing at stars, listening to the chorus of frogs on a damp monsoon night, or if you are fortunate - watching an aurora!

So when my wife and I found out about the bioluminescent fungi near our place, we were after them and searching. Any excuse to get out and spend some time in the woods - thankfully before stricter COVID-19 regulations came into place - and look for stuff. I took the dog in the day along the path where these fungi were supposed to be, and right off the track, they were hard to miss. At the base of some eucalypts, these whitish brown fungi stood out but one would never guess how much more special they became in the dark. Now that we knew where they were, we just had to get ourselves to the spot once it was dark :-)

So here's a couple of images of the enigmatic Ghost Fungi (Omphalotus nidiformis). It is one amongst 80 or so species of bioluminescent fungi (out of some 70,000 known species of fungi - so not a common phenomenon at all!). I don't know why they (or other species of fungi) glow but apparently the light may attract insects which then help to disperse their spores. Another theory is that the light deters animals (and humans?) from trying to eat it - a good idea unless you want to vomit for a few hours.

Now back to engrossing myself in random things at home during these bizarre times. Stay safe!