I was excited enough the first time I saw topknot pigeons at home a few years ago visiting the native iolvive trees  that grow in our rainforest.

topknot pigeons in flight

This year a sudden whooshing of wings alerted us to a flock of abut 50 landing for a rest in a large eucalyptus tree. A few days later there were about a hundred of them, feeding on native olives and figs and possibly other trees I couldn’t see clearly on the steep inaccessible slopes across the creek.

They are important seed dispersers, not only because they can swallow large seeds but because they are string fliers and readily travel over cleared paddocks between forest fragments.

They are quite unmistakeable, a lare grey pigeon with a crazy hairdo. and usually in or near rainforests (or flying between them).  They shouldn’t be confused with the smaller, crested pigeon, which is sometimes called topknot, and is a bird of open habitats, including suburbs and dry woodlands.

Now, in mid-September, after about a month of daily visits,  they seem to have had their fill, eaten everything readily available, or found something to their liking elsewhere, as we haven’t seen them in the past few days. We’ll look forward to their next visit.

The winter solstice has passed and days are getting longer, but early mornings and evenings are still chilly

We are hearing whistling tree frogs calling throughout the night in the pond nerar our house. Most other frogs are silent now, except the clicking froglets along the creek. We’re not seeing many frogs, but I did find a large green tree frog in a neighbour’s toilet last week.

Rose robins and golden whistlers are visiting our valley, which they usually do in winter when the forests of higher altitudes have less insects for them to find. We have also been seeing mixed species flocks – a mostly winter phenomenon, while the insectivorous birds are not yet defending breeding territories. Birds of different species with different styles of foraging, such as  shrike-thrushes, thornbills, silverfeyes, pardalotes,  ‘robins’ (Australian robins are not rteally robins) and fairy-wrens travel along togther, each hoping to catch insects  the others disturb. Grey fantails dance around in the air or sit restloessly on neighbouring branches, ready to catch any insect making a break for it on the wing.

Close to the house we  a family of brown quail and a family of red-backed fairy-wrens that have been regularly working their way through the vegetable garden, and the quail sometimes take the risky step of helping themselves to a bit of dog food when the owners of the bowls aren’t looking. Just beyond the vege garden a couople of mornings ago a red-necked wallaby was quietly cropping the freshly-mown grass – probably more nutritious than the grass of  their usual foraging areas on the higher slopes which have been affected by recent frosts.

This morning a small group of yellow-tailed black cockatoos flew overhead towards the sheoaks, calling to one another, sounding like branches rubbing toegther in the wind.  While the red-tailed and glossy black cockatoos eat the seeds of the sheoaks, I mostly see the yellow-tailed delving into the bark of the branches, apparently looking for grubs.

This is about the time of year the platypus usually settle on where they will be foraging throughout breeding season, so we’re starting to keep a mor watchful  eye on the three parts of our creek they have most often used for this. Last year we didn’t have any breeding, as they had all disappeared with the severe flooding of January 2008 (the first tie in almost three decades we haven;t had them here). They have however made a re-appearance just recently, so we hope things will soon be back to normal (though whether with our original individuals or different ones, we have no way of knowing).

I’ve recently joined BatCare Brisbane, and just before Christmas was contacted by the president Louise Saunders who told us there were two 5-week-old black flying fox orphans in need of care. They are now almost seven weeks, and have been hanging from a clothes airer next to our Christmas tree most of the day, having bottles four times a day and bits of steamed apple and other soft fruits (no stone fruit – we don’t want them to learn smells that will attract them to orchards later on) and being tucked up in towels in a cosy wooden cage at night. They will soon graduate to the aviary where they can practise flying and stay awake at night, which is better for their species than for our own (and our house is not really designed for clumsy winged babies flying into objects at all heights).

Darren gives Theaschen some climbing practice: note the long thumb and long toes

Tica practices flapping

To become a bat carer, you must nowadays be vaccinated against rabies in case you have the misfortune of being bitten or scratched by a bat with lyssa virus – a rare event despite the paranoia in some quarters. To date there have only been two deaths in Australia, but it’s best to be safe. Anyone taking a risk is risking the bat’s life as well, because when someone is bitten the bat is destroyed so that it’s brain tissue can be tested. Darren, Denis and I all had our rabies shots before going to Brazil some years ago, and our recent tests show we still have protection.

Theaschen and Tica will head to a creche at the end of January to remind them they are bats, not humans, and by the time they are released into the wild will have had plenty of practice at flying, tearing apart pieces of large fruit, and socializing with their own speices