Australasian Shoveler

Often associating with other species of ducks, the Australasian Shoveler is often seen in flocks with Pink-eared Ducks. They inhabit a wide variety of wetlands, ranging from terrestrial swamps and lakes to estuaries and even sheltered inshore waters. They prefer wetlands with areas of open water fringed by abundant aquatic vegetation, where they feed in small groups by dabbling in the mud or at the water’s surface to filter small aquatic invertebrates from the water, using small grooves, or lamellae, on the sides of the birds’ spatulate bills.

Australian Magpie

  This striking black-and-white bird is, according to the experts, a large species of butcherbird. Apart from its widespread distribution — there are few places in Australia where magpies do not occur — the species’ familiarity is probably due equally to its pleasant carolling song, which is such an essential part of the Australian soundscape, and for its tendency to swoop at people during its springtime nesting season. Reaserch indicates that the Australian Magpie is declining in some regions, while increasing in others. In the East Coast region, reporting rates for this species have declined significantly since 1998

Australian White Ibis

In regional areas, Australian White Ibis (and Straw-necked Ibis) are sometimes called ‘the farmers’ friend’, due to their habit of flocking into areas afflicted by plagues of locusts and gorging on the ravaging hoards of insects. In urban areas, however, where many Ibis scrounge for a living by scavenging at rubbish tips and in city parks, and their plumage becomes soiled by refuse, they are sometimes disparagingly referred to as ‘tip turkeys’

Australian Spotted Crake

 The Australian Spotted Crake is a rather secretive bird. It usually skulks about among dense vegetation at the edges of wetlands, though sometimes they come out into the open, and not nearly as shy as many other species of crakes and rails. When they walk, they constantly flick their tail to reveal a white patch of plumage, and if they are disturbed, they may run in a crouched posture with the tail cocked. Australian Spotted Crakes also swim occasionally, though usually only to cross channels or streams.

Black Tailed Native Hen

Black-tailed Native-hens may be absent from a region for many years, but when the rains come, filling the wetlands and making the conditions suitable for nesting, they may breed up and then they move into new areas in huge numbers, forming remarkable influxes called irruptions. These birds seldom fly, and they mostly run across the landscape, their red legs flashing beneath them, and the effect of seeing thousands and thousands of these birds on the move is like a seeing moving carpet of birds.

Black-fronted Dottorel

 The Black-fronted Dotterel is widespread in many parts of Australia, where it usually inhabits the muddy margins of a variety of shallow terrestrial freshwater wetlands, walking over the soft mud, all the while pecking at its surface to take small invertebrate prey. As well as natural habitats, they also regularly occur at man-made wetlands, and are often seen at the muddy margins of farm dams. They are also often recorded in less salubrious artificial habitats, such as beside sewage treatment ponds and at sludge ponds in abattoirs.

Black-winged Stilt

The long, slender bill of the Black-winged Stilt is used like a pair of fine tweezers as the bird forages by pecking at tiny invertebrates on the water’s surface. Although this is its most common feeding method, stilts have been recorded using at least nine different methods to feed. They usually forage by wading in water up to belly deep, but also feed along the muddy margins of wetlands, regularly forming large, noisy feeding flocks, often in association with Banded Stilts and Red-necked Avocets.

Brown Falcon

The Brown Falcon is one of the most widespread birds in Australia — there is almost nowhere they cannot be seen, at least occasionally. They are most commonly seen perched on power poles, or hovering or flying back and forth over open habitats, especially grasslands and low shrublands, where they search for prey. They are opportunistic raptors, catching and eating mammals and birds, snakes and insects, with introduced rabbits are their most common prey in many places, especially in summer.

Brown Quail

Like many species of quail, the Brown Quail is often difficult to see, as it inhabits rank, overgrown grassy areas, often in damp, low-lying patches beside wetlands. They are difficult to flush from this cover, preferring to squat among the grass or run quickly off through the vegetation rather than fly off. As is the case with many species that inhabit dense habitats, the Brown Quail may be heard more often than it is seen, with its characteristically mournful two-note call whistle often heard at dawn and dusk.

Buff-banded Rail

Occasionally seen as it quickly dashes between clumps of rank grass, rushes or other overgrown vegetation, the Buff-banded Rail is often otherwise difficult to observe as it skulks about, concealed by plant cover. Its harsh squeaks may reveal its presence. The species inhabits a wide range of terrestrial wetlands, as well as coastal beaches, reef flats, mangroves, where it forages on the ground, pecking and probing in mud to catch crustaceans, worms and other invertebrates.  Rails on beaches may scavenge along the strandline.

Cattle Egret

Since Cattle Egrets were first recorded in Australia in 1948, their range has expanded to include eastern and northern Australia, and also along major inland river systems. Their breeding colonies are often shared with other species of waterbirds, especially herons, ibis and other egrets. Cattle Egrets are usually seen stalking about in pasture, accompanying cattle to snap up insects as they are disturbed by the beasts. They also follow other grazing animals, including sheep, horses, goats, alpacas, and in zoos, elephants!

Clamorous Reed-warbler

Inhabits wetlands, especially rushes and reed beds in freshwater swamps, tall crops beside water, bamboo thickets, lantana beside water. An unobtrusive bird, living entirely within the cover of reeds. Clings to reed stems, often low down near the water pecking at insects near the waterline or foraging over fallen, floating debris and water plants for small aquatic animals.

Common Bronzewing

The Common Bronzewing is most often seen while it is feeding as it walks along bush tracks or quiet country roads, pecking at fallen seeds on the ground. Although seeds from wattle trees are its favoured fare, bronzewings will also eat the seeds of many other trees and shrubs. When they are flushed from the ground, their wings make a loud clattering or clapping sound as they take off, and their flight is strong, swift and direct, before they land in a tree nearby.

Common Starling

The common starling has about a dozen subspecies breeding in open habitats  and it has been introduced to Australia,. 

Large flocks typical of this species can be beneficial to agriculture by controlling invertebrate pests; however, starlings can also be pests themselves when they feed on fruit and sprouting crops. Common starlings may also be a nuisance through the noise and mess caused by their large urban roosts.

Dusky Moorhen

The dusky moorhen (Gallinula tenebrosa) is a bird species in the rail family and is one of the eight extant species in the moorhen genus. It occurs in India, Australia, New Guinea, Borneo and Indonesia. It is often confused with the purple swamphen and the Eurasian coot due to similar appearance and overlapping distributions. They often live alongside birds in the same genus, such as the Tasmanian nativehen and the common moorhen.

Eurasian Coot

Also known as the common coot,or Australian coot, is found in Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Africa.

It is reluctant to fly. When taking off runs across the water surface with much splashing. It does the same, when travelling a short distance at speed in territorial disputes or to escape from intruders. Its weak flight does not inspire confidence, but on migration, usually at night, it can cover surprisingly large distances. It bobs its head as it swims, and makes short dives from a little jump.

European Goldfinch

The European Goldfinch was introduced at numerous places in south-eastern Australia in the 19th century, and their populations quickly increased and their range expanded greatly. They now occur from Brisbane to the Eyre Peninsula. In Western Australia, the species was released in 1899, but these birds all died. Later, aviary escapees became established in parts of suburban Perth in the 1930s, and the species became common, but the population declined dramatically in the 1960s, and was extinct around Perth or nearly so by the mid-1970s.

Fairy Martin

The Fairy Martin is sometimes called the Bottle Swallow, because its nest, made from tiny pellets of mud or clay, is bottle shaped. The nests are often placed in colonies in in culverts or under bridges, and are only seldom located on natural features such as cliff faces or the banks of watercourses. The entrance to each nest is via the horizontal spout. These mud-nests are occasionally occupied by Tree Martins or Welcome Swallows, and sometimes usurped by House Sparrows and, rarely, Common Starlings.

Freckled Duck

Australia’s rarest waterfowl, the Freckled Duck breeds in swamps in inland Australia. When these wetlands dry out in the summer months, the Freckled Ducks are forced to disperse towards coastal and subcoastal wetlands, usually swamps where there is much fallen timber that they can loaf amongst. Sometimes, if there is a drought, there may be few of these wetlands available for them, so they may congregate into flocks on whatever wetlands are available, sometimes giving the impression that they are more common than they really are.

Golden-Crested Cisticola

The diminutive Golden-headed Cisticola usually inhabits areas of long, dense grass, where they often remain hidden, but their presence may be betrayed by their buzzing and whistling calls. Once this call is heard, it is often not too difficult to see the bird perched atop a stalk of grass. During the breeding season these tiny birds can sometimes be seen performing display flights, high above the grassland, consisting of a jerking, bouncy flight accompanied by a wheezing song, before diving back down into the long grass.

Great Crested Crebe

With its spiky, black crest and chestnut mane, the Great Crested Grebe is unmistakable. It inhabits wetlands from rivers and lakes to estuaries and sheltered bays, but favours large, deep, open bodies of fresh water. Although the species sometimes appears ungainly, Great Crested Grebes perform elaborate courtship displays, which include activities such as the ‘weed dance’ and the elegant ‘penguin dance’. The latter display involves birds stretching their necks upwards, then suddenly rising up out of the water with their feet paddling vigorously and their breasts touching.

Gray Butcherbird

With its lovely, lilting song, the Grey Butcherbird may not seem to be a particularly intimidating species. However, with its strong, hooked beak and its fierce stare, the Grey Butcherbird is not a bird to be messed with. When a nest or newly fledged chick is around, if you venture too close, a butcherbird will swoop by flying straight at your face, sometimes striking with enough force to draw blood, and each swoop is accompanied by a loud, maniacal cackle.

Gray Fantail

The most restless of Australia’s fantails, Grey Fantails are almost continually on the move, constantly changing position when perched, the tail swished back and forth, fluttering about in the canopy of trees or darting out after flying insects. They seem never to keep still. Despite their fluttering flight, they are nevertheless capable of relatively long-distance movements, with some regularly flying across Bass Strait. Grey Fantails’ movements are particularly complex, with no general rule: birds in each different region have their own individual patterns of movement.

Gray Teal

When it comes to spectacular movements, the Grey Teal is unsurpassed by any other Australian waterfowl. Responding to rainfall, or lack of it, they cover vast distances in search of suitable water, and occur on every type of wetland. When the water dries up, they disperse to look for more, turning up almost anywhere, including at waterholes in the desert. These extensive travels have also taken some Grey Teal beyond Australia's shores to Indonesia, New Guinea and New Zealand, and even to subantarctic Macquarie  Island.

Hoary-headed Grebe

The often occur singly, but Hoary-headed Grebes are sometimes also seen in flocks which may comprise hundreds or even thousands of birds. When confronted by a raptor, grebes in a flock may all dive under the water together in a highly synchronised manoeuvre, though at other times they may fly away from danger, staying just above the water. Hoary-headed Grebes often nest in simple pairs, but sometimes they form colonies of hundreds of floating nests, which may be joined together to form a large raft.

House Sparrow

The House Sparrow (actually a large Finch) is a native of Europe and parts of Asia, though it was widely introduced around the world. Australia was no exception, as the species was released at many sites, especially in Victoria. Sparrows quickly became established in the wild, and their numbers increased enormously until they became pests in town and country alike as they spread into new districts. However, their numbers have begun to decline in some built-up areas in recent years.

Little Bittern

The Australian Little Bittern could be considered the consummate skulker and lurker of our wetlands. It is not much larger than the small rails but, unlike them, it rarely comes out onto mudflats or into the open, preferring to remain within or on the edge of wetland vegetation. It occurs in diverse freshwater swamp habitats, mainly where tall rushes, reeds, Typha (cumbungi), shrub thickets or other dense cover is inundated by at least 30 cm of water. It can be found in vast swamps, but unlike the Australasian Bittern, it often inhabits small patches of dense wetland vegetation such as Typha along drains or in small urban lakes.

Little Corella

Little Corellas often indulge in an activity that is uncommon in the bird world — they like to play. Sometimes they slide down the steep roofs of wheat silos, falling off the edge and then flying back to the top to slide down again. They have also been seen perched on the blades of windmills, spinning round and around, falling off and then regaining a precarious grip on the blades. Even when perched, Little Corellas often hang upside down, or dangle below the perch, holding on with its bill.

Little Pied Cormorant

Sometimes Little Pied Cormorants occur in sheltered bays and inlets, but they are more common at terrestrial wetlands, including artificial wetlands as well as a variety of natural ones. Although Little Pied Cormorants will catch fish, more often they take freshwater crayfish and other crustaceans which are captured during brief dives beneath the water. The prey is brought to the surface or back to the nearby bank, where the claws of the crayfish are shaken off before its body is eaten.

Little Wattlebird

The range of the Little Wattlebird is said to have been shaped by fashion. Before the 1970s, Australian suburban gardens were dominated by exotic trees, shrubs and flowers, providing little food for native birds. In the 1970s, the elms, rhododendrons, roses and gladioli had gone out of fashion, and were replaced by native trees and shrubs which provided bounteous nectar-laden flowers, and shelter among spiky foliage. This coincided with the invasion by Little Wattlebirds into the suburbs of various cities, where they have remained and flourished.

Magpie-Lark

Magpie-larks are often seen in parks, gardens and streetscapes in built-up areas, but it is equally common in farmland and open areas of the bush. Its familiar call, sometimes rendered as peewee or peewit, has led to those renditions being used as colloquial names for the species, though in South Australia it is known as the ‘Murray Magpie’. It is often confiding in urban areas, but less so elsewhere. Magpie-larks build robust nests made from mud and rootlets, which male birds sometimes defend surprisingly vigorously.

Masking Lapwing

The Masked Lapwing is sometimes referred to as the Spur-winged Plover because each of its wings is armed with a yellow spur at the ‘elbow’ (or carpal joint) — Indigenous people used to say that the birds were carrying yellow spears. Lapwings use these spurs when diving at potential predators or intruders during breeding season, while chicks are running around or when the eggs are just about to hatch. While these attacks are quite unnerving, the birds seldom actually strike their ‘victims’, preferring a close approach to scare them away.

Noisy Miner

Noisy Miners are particularly pugnacious honeyeaters. They noisily defend their ‘patch’ of trees from other birds, especially other species of honeyeaters which may be seen as competitors for the food resources, and these are vigorously chased away. Many other small birds are also driven from the area, and sometimes miners will even chase after cormorants or herons that may fly past, or harass them mercilessly if they perch somewhere in the miners’ territory. Because of this aggressive behaviour, areas inhabited by Noisy Miners often support few other birds.

Pacific Gull

Australia’s largest gull, the Pacific Gull occurs only along the coasts of southern Australia. Despite its name, the species is seldom seen on the Pacific coastline, and is far more common on the beaches bordering the Southern and Indian Oceans. They breed in colonies on islands, extending from the Furneaux Group in eastern Bass Strait, west to Shark Bay. Their nests may consist of either a scrape in the ground, sometimes lined with gravel, or a neat nest made from grass, sticks and seaweed.

Purple Swamphen

Unlike many wetland species which have dull plumage to aid camouflage among the rank vegetation, the Purple Swamphen has a resplendent purple-blue neck, breast and belly, and a gaudy, oversized bill and frontal shield, both of which are bright red, as are its beady eyes.  And when a Swamphen walks away from you, it usually flicks its tail up and down to reveal a gleaming white rump, which contrasts with the bird’s black upperparts.  The entire combination is dazzling when ambling across a sunlit grassy sward.

Red Wattlebird

Large, gray-brown, streaked honeyeater with small pink flaps of facial skin (wattles) and a bright yellow lower belly. Adult has black crown, red eye with white patch below, yellow belly, and streaking across neck, back, and breast. Juvenile is a more uniformly brown, with less defined facial wattles. This species is found in a wide variety of habitats across southern mainland Australia. It can be quite aggressive and typically chases smaller species away from flowering trees. Has a wide variety of loud, harsh vocalizations, many of which are familiar noises across southern Australia.

Spotted Paradalote

One of Australia’s smallest birds, the Spotted Pardalote builds its nest in a long horizontal tunnel dug into the soil of creek banks, the embankments of railway cuttings, quarries or similar suitable sites, and sometimes they even excavate tunnels in rabbit burrows, or potted plants in gardens. The nest itself is spherical, made from strips of bark, and built in a chamber at the end of the tunnel. Pardalotes are usually seen foraging in the crowns of eucalypt trees, where they pluck invertebrates, especially psillids, from the leaves.

Superb Fairy-wren

With its gleaming, velvety blue-and-black plumage, the male Superb Fairy-wren is easily distinguished. These ‘coloured’ males are often accompanied by a band of brown ‘jenny wrens’, often assumed to be a harem of females, but a proportion of them are males which have not yet attained their breeding plumage. The contents of these birds’ untidy nests — a clutch of three or four eggs — are not necessarily the progeny of the ‘coloured’ male, as there is much infidelity among female fairy-wrens, with many eggs resulting from extra-pair liaisons.

White Plumed Honeyeater

Though not a large honeyeater, the White-plumed Honeyeater is a particularly aggressive bird. They defend their territories quite fiercely, sometimes co-operating in groups to mob interlopers much larger than themselves to drive them away, and have been recorded attacking birds as large as Laughing Kookaburras and Australian Magpies, and as small as Spotted Pardalotes and Mistletoebirds. Mobbing is often accompanied by their characteristic alarm call, and White-plumed Honeyeaters are often the first birds to raise the alarm about the approach of a raptor or other potential predators.