birds of Australia

Introduction

Australia is fortunate in having a diverse range of birds many of which seasonally migrate to remote regions including the far northern hemisphere regions
some bird families are unique to Australia such as the emu, lyrebirds, scrub-birds, pardalotes, Australian mud-nesters, and tree-creeper.

Birds as pests
The native Noisy Miner Manorina melanocephala, a honeyeater, aggressively attacks even larger birds and after colonizing an area they rapidly exclude other bird species reducing biodiversity in that area
- they are grey with black heads and yellow beaks
- they are endemic in eastern Australia from Nth Qld to Sth Aust and favor open woodlands or edges of forests as well as suburban areas
- culling tends to just result in rapid re-colonization
- the solution to reducing their numbers and allow increased bird diversity is probably a combination of culling and revegetation to create dense scrub
- see https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/csp2.12875 and https://www.birdsinbackyards.net/species/Manorina-melanocephala
NOT to be confused with the introduced invasive pest, the Common Myna or Indian Myna Acridotheres tristis which is a dark brown starling with black and blue wings, with black hood, yellow behind eyes, and which is also an open woodland / urban bird (pre-adapted to habitats with tall vertical structures and little to no vegetative ground cover) with a strong territorial instinct and is one of the world's most invasive species
- nests and breeds in protected hollows including house gutters, breeding males will actively defend areas ranging up to 0.83 hectares in size and displace many breeding pairs of native hollow-nesters and can cause considerable damage to ripening fruit, particularly grapes, but also figs, apples, pears, strawberries, blueberries, guava, mangoes and breadfruit, while also damaging maize, wheat crops and spreads the seeds of weeds such as Lantana camara
- first introduced to Australia between 1863 and 1872, in Victoria, to control insects in the market gardens of Melbourne
- it was later introduced to Queensland as a predator of grasshoppers and cane beetles
- due to climate, they are unable to self-sustain populations in Tasmania, Darwin or the arid outback regions, and struggle on the South Island of NZ

Main bird families

emus
- most of Australia except for rainforests
cassowaries
- Southern Cassowary - tropical far north Queensland coast
ostriches
- not native to Australia but farmed in South Australia and some feral ones may exist
grebes
penguins
- the Little Penguin is the only penguin that breeds in Australia (also in NZ)
albatrosses
petrels and shearwaters
storm petrels
diving petrels
pelicans
gannets and boobies
darters
cormorants and shags
frigatebirds
tropicbirds
herons, egrets and bitterns
storks
ibises and spoonbills
geese, swans and ducks
osprey
kites, goshawks, eagles and harriers
falcons
mound-builders
quails and pheasants
button-quails
plains-wanderer
rails, crakes, swamphens, and coots
cranes
bustards
jacanas
thick-knees (stone curlews)
painted snipe
oystercatchers
lapwings, plovers and dotterels
stilts and avocets
curlews, sandpipers, snipes and godwits
phalaropes
pratincoles
skuas and jaegers
gulls and terns
pigeons and doves
cockatoos
- yellow-tailed black cockatoo (SE Aust)
- glossy black cockatoo (NSW coast extending into eastern Vic and SE Qld))
- Gang-Gang cockatoo (mid grey with scarlet head; SE Aust)
- galah (light grey and pink; most of Aust except Tas, tropical far north Qld/NT and SW WA)
- long billed corella (white with bluish skin around eyes; western Vic)
- pink cockatoo (pink with white wings and white skin around eyes; central Australia including western Murray Valley)
- sulphur-crested cockatoo (white with yellow crest; most of eastern Aust. extending to NT tropics)
true parrots
lorikeets
- rainbow lorikeet (green with dark blue head, bright red bill, yellow-green collar, deep violet-blue abdomen; most of eastern Aust. coastal regions extending to York Peninsula and Tas with some around Perth)
- scaly-breasted lorikeet (green including the head, red bill, yellow crescents on breast, flanks and thighs, orange-red underwing; most of east coast Aust.)
- musk lorikeet (bright green; black bill tipped red, scarlet forehead, lores and ear patches; most of eastern Aust. coastal regions extending to York Peninsula and Tas)
fig-parrots
long-tailed parrots
- Aust. king parrot (brilliant scarlet underparts, green back, blue rump, blackish-blue tail, green crescents on abdomen and undertail; male has scarlet head and neck but female has green; most of east coast Aust)
broad-tailed parrots
- budgerigar (common pet; bright green, yellow throat; inland Aust)
- crimson rosella (elegans race: rich crimson and blue; some green immature; 7 races with different colorings; coastal eastern Aust and Murray Valley)
parasitic cuckoos and coucals
hawk owls
barn owls
frogmouths
- tawny frogmouth
owlet-nightjars
nightjars
swiftlets and swifts
kingfishers
- azure kingfisher
- laughing kookaburra
bee-eaters
- rainbow bee-eater
- dollarbird (brown upper, blue throat, red bill and legs, green-blue wings, blue tail)
rollers
pittas
superb lyrebird (east coast wet forests Melb-Brisbane)
scrub-birds
old world larks
swallows and martins
old world pipits and wagtails
- Richard's pipit
cuckoo-shrikes and trillers
- black faced cuckoo-shrike
- white-winged triller
bulbuls
old world thrushes, flycatchers and allies
- Bassian thrush (SE coast)
- blackbird (SE Aust)
- song thrush (around Melbourne region)
- various robins incl. eastern yellow robin (yellow breast), rose robin, pink robin, scarlet robin, flame robin, red-capped robin, hooded robin
- Jacky Winter
- crested shrike-tit
- olive whistler, golden whistler, rufous whistler
- shrike-thrushes
- crested bellbird
- black-face monarch
- leaden flycatcher, satin flycatcher, restless flycatcher
- rufous fantail, grey fantail
- willie wagtail
chowchillas, whipbirds, wedgebills, and quail-thrushes
- eastern whipbird
- spotted quail-thrush
babblers
- grey crowned babbler
old world warblers
- clamorous reed warbler
- little grassbird
- golden headed cisticola
fairy wrens
- superb fairy wren (SE Aust extending to SE Qld and Yorke Peninsula)
- variegated fairy wren (inland Aust)
- southern emu wren (coastal Aust except tropical and subtropical north)
bristlebirds, scrubwrens, gerygones, and thornbills
- pilotbird (east Vic, SE NSW coast)
- white-browed scrubwren
- weebill
- white-throated gerygone
sittellas
treecreepers
honeyeaters
chats
sunbirds
flowerpeckers
pardalotes
white-eyes
true finches
old world sparrows
weavers, waxbills, grass-finches and mannikins
starlings and mynahs
orioles and figbirds
drongos
bowerbirds
birds of paradise
Australian mud-nesters
magpie-larks
woodswallows
butcherbirds and currawongs
ravens and crows