Category: wildlife

Superb Fruit-doves

February 11, 2025February 11, 2025 Christina

After several years, the Symplocos trees are finally fruiting well again, and are attracting a number of birds.

Most Superb Fruit-doves seem to be nesting, so it is mainly the females, who are coming to feed during the day. The males grab a quick bite or three early in the mornings and late in the afternoons.

female Superb Fruit-dove, resting -they do a lot of that during short bouts of feeding!

There is also the odd juvenile:

Other birds like the small purple fruit, too. We’ve seen 9 species in the trees so far, including a Tooth-billed Bowerbird:

Scott Ritchie spent a couple of days wielding his impressive camera and published the following post, which he generously allowed me to print here, so do enjoy his superb images and witty and informative commentary:

The Hazelwood buffet is up and running! I was in one deck lead this past week trying to capture birds feeding on the white Hazlewood, Symplocos puberula. I really wanted to see the male Superb Fruit-dove with his astounding fruit-dove wardrobe. But he didn’t make an appearance. However, the female was very obliging. And I saw there were many other local birds who couldn’t resist all you can eat fruit at the Hazelwood Cafe.

It’s interesting to see how the female Superb Fruit-doves green with dark green with purple spot plumage matches the fruit and leaves of the Symplocos. This makes a lot of sense. It’s the female that feeds in broad daylight while the male sits on the nest. The Symplocos has its fruit exposed on the end of its branches. Green with purple dots. So the female superb is very well camouflaged, crawling around eating its fill of fruit. Making very slow, careful movements to avoid being seen. You never know when the goshawk will fly overhead.

Female Superb Fruit-dove perches atop the Symplocos

She is beautifully camouflaged, her dark green with purplish spots blending in with the fruiting Symplocos branches

She has to feed. She’s very exposed sitting right on top of the tree.

In rare moments when the sun came out, it really highlighted the beautiful colours on the female Superb Fruit-dove.

Give a girl a break!

She spent a lot of time sitting in the branches, carefully preening her feathers. It’s almost like a Ziploc baggie. Squeezing it and zip the feather plumes together.

The Symplocos buffet was a favoured venue by many other fruit-loving birds in the neighbourhood. Here a White-headed Pigeon tosses one down.

While a Wompoo Fruit-dove sentinel keeps watch as its mate feeds below.

Lewin’s Honey-eater can’t resist quick feed

Nor can a female Victoria’s Riflebird

Sh*t! Oh well, plenty more where that came from.

But soon enough, the superb’s has a poo, and it’s belly rumbles. It’s time for a feed.

“Ha ha! I’ve spied a really ripe one.” It eyes its target, snatches the fruit…

…and snaps the fruit off with a deft twist of its head.

And so it goes for hours in the Hazelwood Cafe.

Drongos, Riflebirds and Frogs

February 10, 2025 Christina

Every spring numerous drongos arrive to breed here.
They are very vocal, with a variety of calls.
When they are excited, they also raise their ear tufts.

The riflebirds have finished displaying and are now moulting, looking like a creature from Star Wars:

We finally had some good rainfall (but nothing dramatic like further south along the coast!), so the frogs are busy.

Some birds have finished their second brood:

and the King Parrots are back with more fledglings than ever.

Victoria’s Riflebird: a dancing black hole in the rainforest, by Scott Ritchie | Guest Contributor

December 11, 2024 Christina

Scott Ritchie, an enthusiastic birder and photographer, and a regular guest at our place, wrote this very informative article for the Birdlife North Queensland magazine.
As his wonderful images were taken here, I asked for his permission to use it for this blog.

In the Wet Tropics of Far North Queensland, we have a bird that baffles light – that bends light to its will – that is a dancing, swaying black hole of a bird. All to woo a female. This is Victoria’s Riflebird.
In late September this year, I was privileged to spend a weekend at the Atherton Birdwatchers Cabin near Wondecla, Queensland. While I was interested in seeing all the birds that one can see from the deck of this beautiful cabin, I was particularly intent on capturing images of the Victoria’s Riflebird performing its pole dance. I had my new Canon R5-Mark II camera, and my dependable 100-500 RF zoom lens. I was keen to see how it captured this iconic bird as it performed its tango.

Victoria’s Riflebird is one of three Riflebirds, in the Birds of Paradise family, that occur in Australia. The other two are the Magnificent Riflebird that occurs in the rainforest areas in eastern Cape York, and the Paradise Riflebird that occurs in rainforest of south-east Queensland and north-east New South Wales.

Riflebirds are named for their stylishly deep black body plumage, reminiscent of the black-clad British Rifle Brigade of the Napoleonic Wars. But this is black, deep black. Indeed it is referred to as “super black” by ornithologist Richard Prum.

Spectral measurements indicate that the black feathers of Riflebirds (and many other Birds of Paradise) absorb over 99% of incoming light. The amazing trick of physics that they use to absorb light was investigated by McCoy et al. (2018) who found that unlike typical feathers, the black feathers of Birds of Paradise consist of unique overlapping plates resembling oak leaves on a twig. Instead of being reflected back from the feather, light hitting these loosely stacked ‘leaves’ reflects into the feather interior, where it bounces around “in a house of mirrors”. Less than 1% of light escapes, creating a super black plumage.

Why would a bird have super black plumage? The black plumage is a ‘canvas’ that provides a contrast for areas of highly reflective, iridescent feathers that the male uses to woo the female.

On its tree stump dance floor, the male Victoria’s Riflebird yells out, then suddenly raises and spreads its wings creating a circular black canvas. Indeed, the Victoria’s Riflebird wrist can be hyperextended to nearly 60° to create this circular black hole backdrop.

For dancing, the male flies to an upright stump, then announces his presence in a loud “YAASSS” that can be heard throughout the rainforest. Photo by Scott Ritchie.

Male Victoria’s Riflebird in full circular wing display. Photo by Scott Ritchie.

From just the right angle, the super black feathers refract sunlight into a rainbow of colours. Photo by Scott Ritchie.

A prospective mate arrives and perches fetchingly in front of our eager male, concentrating on the theatre in front of her.

Classic upright circular wing pose, exposing yellow gape and iridescent blue throat. I like the rainbow iridescence at the bottom of the grey breast bib. Photo by Scott Ritchie.

He alternately raises each wing – left, right, left right, faster and faster. The wing tips clap, and he swishes his head behind the raised wing. He looks like he’s lost his head over her.
The male often appears headless, as he swings his head back-and-forth behind alternately raised wings. This happens repeatedly, faster and faster.

The wings tips are clapped, and the female is literally mesmerized.

Where is he? The male hides behind his left wing, while the female looks behind the right wing. The male’s bill is very close to his left wing which he’ll rub to create a rasping sound. Photo by Scott Ritchie.

The male has quite a repertoire of dance moves. Here he is, lowering the wing circle down into the ‘flying saucer dance’, rubbing his bill to create a rasping sound. Photo by Scott Ritchie.

The brilliant iridescent blue throat patch dances like a cobra. But this is more than playing peekaboo. When swishing his head, the male rubs his bill on the back of his wing to create a rasping sound.

Then he pauses, looks straight ahead and opens his bill wide to reveal a startling yellow gape. The female then either flies off, or allows the male to mate.

A back view showing the super black feathers and iridescent blue and green on the back of the head and tail. I think he looks beautiful from this angle too. Photo by Scott Ritchie.

It’s interesting that the immature males also spend a lot of time working on their dance routine. In many ways I find their rich browns as attractive as the jet black of the adult male.

These dances aren’t learnt overnight. Here an immature Victoria’s Riflebird practices a classic move. Photo by Scott Ritchie.

I hope you enjoy these photographs. I hope you get the opportunity to watch our pole-dancing birds perform, a true spectacle of our tropical rainforest.