Whilst I’m a fairly novice bird watcher, Suki the cat had always a great interest in birds for her own reasons. With the exception of cooked specimens, I tended to ignore feathered animals before I moved to Australia in late 2005 to join Mrs. Schmitz in Sydney. This changed soon after we settled in the suburb of North Bondi where the sheer abundance of colourful and exotic species sparked my interest in avian topics. I started to write down bird inspired observations which I put on this little weekly blog about Australia, Sydney and the feathered and not feathered locals.
The Western Rosella looks on first sight very similar to its relative the Eastern Rosella (see BOTW #33) but on a closer look shows significant differences, much like the habitats of the two species, Western or Eastern Australia respectively.
I swear that I’m not making this up but our Bird Of The Week the Restless Flycatcher is also known as the ‘Dishwasher’, apparently on account of its unusual call. It is an extremely mobile and active bird and is able to hover while feeding, uttering a grinding call that gives it yet another slightly weird common name: ‘Scissors Grinder’.
The male and female Grey Teal share the same colouration, in contrast to the closely related Chestnut Teal, whose male and female are strikingly different. A pronounced distinction between males and females of the same species in morphology, ornamentation and behaviour is a phenomenon called sexual dimorphism and nothing particularly rare in the avian world.
