The brow cuckoo-dove ( also known as the Slender-billed Cuckoo-Dove ) use to turn up from time to time but since installing the bird feeder out the back it’s one of the most common birds in the backyard! The species is found up the entire east coast and across Papua New Guinea and into Indonesia. Their specific habitat is rainforests and wet sclerophyll forest, particularly at the forest edges, along creeks and rivers. They are also found in regrowth areas and cleared land.
Brown Cuckoo-Dove waiting for his turn at the bird feeder
My wife found this snake under a house brick while gardening in the back yard. My 5 year old daughter identified it as a white crowned snake after reading a snake book that our neighbors had given her a few weeks earlier She was pretty damn close! After more consultation with the book we were confident this is actually a golden crowned snake. The crown marking on it’s head is quite distinctive, unlike the white crowned snake the golden crowned’s crown has a gap at the back of the head near the neck.
It’s quite small, it would have been about 30cm long and about 1cm thick in the body just behind the head. It hung around for a few minutes after it was disturbed then calmly slithered away to hide under a nearby wood pile. We don’t often see snakes near the house, we were happy to have seen it, and it was great to be able to identify it too.
Found in the backyard while gardening. Jessie identified it from a snake book the neighbors gave her! They are venomous but not considered dangerous to people.
Golden crowned snakes are found along much of the east coast of Australia from Queensland to NSW. They are not large growing to a maximum length of 75cm. Although they are venomous they are not considered dangerous to people, they are nocturnal and feed mostly on small lizards, frogs and blind snakes.
A few days ago a pair of Kookaburras started attacking an old steel air conditioner on the side of the house. They sit on a branch and take turns flying right at the thing, hitting it hard with their beaks. It makes a loud clang, sometimes they get their beaks stuck between the slats.
These are the 2 kookaburras that have been attacking the side of the house for the past few days. Don’t know why they’re doing it. They’re hitting an old steel air conditioner really hard with their beaks, sometimes their beaks get stuck between the slats
It’s not happened before in the 3 years we’ve been here. Not sure what it going on, I thought there might be something living inside the aircon box that they’re going after, or maybe they’re just sharpening their beaks? They tend to do it at the crack of dawn which is 5am this time of year.
Others have seen this behavior, there are a numberofpeople having problems with Kookaburras repeatedly trying to attack their reflection in windows too.
I’ve been shining a bright light at them, it makes them fly away, they sometimes come back after a while though. Any other suggestions welcome!
These two have been attacking an old air conditioner on the side of our house for the past few days, they take it in turns!
“A tufted herb with grass like leaves, found in moist forest situations.” – NPOS p.219
The trigger plant has developed the fascinating ability for movement fast enough to outdo animal reflexes. The trigger plant’s pollen producing anthers are located at the end of a stalk emanating from the center of the flower. The stalk is cocked back behind the flower like the hammer of a gun. When an insect lands it triggers the hammer which crashes onto the insect, showering it with pollen. The insect then flies away to fertilize the next trigger flower it lands upon. The flower resets itself in 20 minutes, ready for it’s next customer.
There are several species of trigger plant found in the Sydney area, I’m reasonably confident this is the Stylidium productum. It was found on a moist hill side atop Hawksburry sandstone. Stylidium productum is a small herb like plant consisting of a single stem, leaves are grass like and grow directly off the stem. Flowers grow at the end of a stalk that comes out of the top of the plant. We’ve got a few of these in the yard but they usually get munched by rabbits or wallabies before they get a chance to flower.
Leaves of the trigger plant. The long flower tipped stalk grows out from the top of the plant.The purple flowers of the Trigger Plant. Each flower has a hammer cocked and waiting to be triggered by the next insect that lands on it.Trigger Plant Flower locked and loaded. The arrow traces the arc of the hammer.
