John and Mary Kormendy: Australian Birds

Effective 2022 March 5, 167 bird species are illustrated. The ordering of birds is as in Simpson and Day's "Field Guide to the Birds of Australia". The taxonomy also follows that book unless I am aware of an update in the current Clements World List. We follow Clements world-wide.

Pictures are copyrighted and should not be used without permission. I will add more as time and new trips permit.

Emu (We have seen them most often around Canberra.)

Australian brush-turkey (scanned print)

Painted buttonquail (near Deniliquin)

Little buttonquail (night birding near Deniliquin)

Red-chested button-quail (Poor colors overall, especially where overexposed, during night birding near Deniliquin) (This is John's life bird.)

Wedge-tailed shearwater (scanned prints) (These are among our first life birds ever, on Dunk Island. At night, the shearwaters come back to land to roost and nest. During mating season when we were there, they wail like crying babies, louder and louder, more and more excited, long into the night. In our cabin at the end of the beach, their cries dominated the evening. Finally, we went outside to look for them. This was before we really were birders, before we had binoculars, indeed: before we even had flashlights. A few feet from our cabin door, in the almost-darkness, we finally realized that there was a bird between us and our door, sitting on our doorstep. Mary jumped about 2 feet straight up and made a noise that I have never heard before or since. It was the only sound all evening that competed realistically with the birds. Since then, we have seen them also in Hawaii. They are among our favourtite ocean-going birds.)

Australasian gannet (SE coast)

Australian pelican

Australian darter

Magpie-geese

Black swan

Plumed whistling-duck

Australian shelduck (female -- scanned print)

Radjah shelduck

Pacific black duck

Australian wood duck (male above; female below; seen roadside near our house in Perth)

Green pygmy-geese

Blue-billed duck

Buff-banded rail (This is also a poor scanned print, but again, it shows one of our first life birds, seen daily on Dunk Island. They run around your feet in the dining hall. They take the initiative immediately if you leave your table even for a moment. The birds on Dunk Island helped to persuade us to become birders.)

Black-tailed native-hen (scanned print)

Black-tailed native-hen

Great-billed heron (scanned print -- near Cairns: This is our life bird.)

Pied heron (Fogg Dam, Darwin)

White-faced heron

Striated heron (juvenile)

Nankeen night-heron

Straw-necked ibis

Straw-necked ibis

Black-necked stork (Kakadu National Park)

Plains-wanderer (night birding near Deniliquin)

Australian pratincole

Comb-crested jacana (Kakadu National Park)

Brush stone-curlew (scanned print)

Masked lapwing

Hooded plover (Now Thinornis cucullatus: This is our life bird, at Bremer Bay, SW Australia.)

Hooded plovers mating, just a few minutes later

Black-fronted dotterel

Black-winged stilt

Black noddy (This was one of our earliest life birds, on Dunk Island. During breeding season you hear their "krik-krik-krik" calls all day, as they (you should forgive the expression) nest in the trees all around you. It's the sound that we most associate with Dunk Island. We felt like we were living in a David Attenborough special. Black noddy helped to turn us into birders.)

Osprey (This was taken in SW Australia, but we have seen Osprey elsewhere in Australia and, indeed, world-wide.)

Black kite (Darwin)

Brahminy kite

White-bellied sea-eagle (Darwin)

Little eagle (near Canberra)

Collared sparrowhawk (ID based mainly on skinny legs)

Brown falcon (dark morph, near Darwin) (Thanks to Mr. John Grylls for the correction.)

Brown falcon (Deniliquin trip)

Nankeen kestrel (NE of Perth)

Brown cuckoo-dove (scanned print -- at Mount Glorious, near Brisbane)

Crested pigeon

Diamond dove

Chestnut-quilled rock-pigeon (near Darwin)

Common bronzewing (Seen often; this is in our yard in Perth)

Common bronzewing (SW Australia)

Brush bronzewing (SW Australia)

Palm cockatoo (scan of a bad print -- Cape York Penninsula)

Red-tailed black-cockatoo

Yellow-tailed black-cockatoo (scanned print)

Carnaby's black-cockatoo (This is one of a small flock of our life birds, in Porongurup National Park, SW Australia. Note the short bill. The gray eye-ring identifies this as a female.)

Carnaby's black-cockatoo (This is a male.)

Baudin's black-cockatoo (This is our life bird, in Porongurup National Park, SW Australia. We never got closer.)

Gang-gang cockatoo (Barren Grounds National Park)

Galah (ubiquitous, but we have seen them most often around Canberra)

Long-billed corella (inland, betweem Canberra and Adelaide)

Little corella (These are our favorite birds -- every time we have seen them, they have been playing. The quiet joy of watching almost a whole flock engaged in various kinds of play is wonderfully infectious. I would never doubt that the most intelligent birds -- Little corellas among them -- have well developed self-consciousness. They know how to have fun. These birds were in Kakadu National Park, near Darwin, but we have seen them also in the interior between Canberra and Adelaide.)

We got Western corella thanks to a report of a flock in the small town of Goomaling.

Western corella (Goomaling, SW Australia)

Major Mitchell Cockatoo (near Deniliquin)

Sulfur-crested cockatoo (on our deck in Canberra)

Sulfur-crested cockatoo (too much partying?)

Rainbow lorikeet (near Croajingalong National Park)

Red-collared lorikeet (Trichoglossus rubritorquis is now split from Rainbow lorikeet in the Clements world list. Thanks to Mr. John Grylls for the update.)

Australian king parrot (Canberra -- scanned print)

Regent parrot (near Adelaide)

Cockatiel (inland from Adelaide: scanned print)

Budgerigar (scanned print -- inland, between Canberra and Adelaide)

Red-capped parrot (SW Australlia)

Crimson rosella (Canberra)

Eastern rosella (Canberra)

Australian ringneck (near Canberra)

Australian ringneck (The SW Australia race is Barnardius zonarius semitorquatus.)

Mulga parrot

Hooded parrot (near Darwin)

Elegant parrot (This is our life bird, in SW Australia.)

Rock parrot (We watched a small flock feeding quietly along the Bremer Bay coast of SW Australia and got the movie below.)

Here is a a movie of a Rock parrot feeding.

Horsefield's bronze-cuckoo

Shining bronze-cuckoo (This is our life bird at Cheynes Beach Caravan Park, near Albany, SW Australia coast)

Channel-billed cuckoo (scanned print)

Pheasant coucal

Rufous owl (This was John's 1000th life bird. We saw it at the end of a birding trip to Cairns. It's a poor-quality scanned print.)

Tawny frogmouth (scanned prints of our life bird)

Papuan frogmouth

Marbled frogmouth (near Mount Glorious, inland from Brisbane)

Marbled frogmouth and at least 2 chicks (perched directly above the road between Mount Glorious and Brisbane)

Australian owlet-nightjar (Canberra)

Azure kingfisher (near Cairns -- scanned prints)

Laughing kookaburra (Canberra)

Laughing kookaburra (Perth)

Blue-winged kookaburra (near Cairns)

Yellow-billed kingfisher (Cape York penninsula, in one of the wildest places we have ever been -- scanned print)

Rainbow bee-eater

White-throated treecreeper (just north of Canberra)

Rufous treecreeper (We especially like treecreepers. At Stirling Range National Park, SW Australia)

Black-tailed treecreeper (near Darwin)

Superb fairy-wren (females above and male below)

Splendid fairy-wren (Back yard of our rental house in Perth)

Splendid fairy-wren (On the drive back to Perth, in the rain, this male -- very territorial, as always -- "fought" with its reflection in our car's rear-view mirror.)

And here's why: Splendid fairy-wren, with female

Splendid fairy-wren (wet after rain)

Splendid fairy-wren (This female was photographed back at Cheynes Beach Caravan Park.)

Blue-breasted fairy-wren (This is our life bird, in SW Australia)

Purple-backed fairy-wren (Bad picture; wonderful bird)

White-winged fairy-wren

Red-backed fairy-wren

Red-backed fairywren (female)

Striated pardalote (scanned print -- near Canberra)

Eastern bristlebird (This is our life bird, at Barren Grounds National Park.)

White-browed scrub-wren (Almost always on the move; therefore hard to photograph: so I include several pictures. This one was near Deniliquin.)

White-browed scrubwren (Sericornis frontalis maculatus in SW Australia; the lower picture was taken at Cheynes Beach Caravan Park on the coast near Albany)

Yellow-throated scrubwren (scanned print -- near Brisbane)

Western [rufous] fieldwren (This juvenile is our life bird. This is the kind of hard-to-identify bird for which you really need a guide, especially in an area that you don't know well.)

Western [rufous] fieldwren (adult, later the same day)

Red wattlebird (Anthochaera carunculata carunculata in Canberra)

Red wattlebird (Anthochaera carunculata woodwardi in SW Australia)

Spiny-cheeked honeyeater

Striped honeyeater (This is our life bird.)

Noisy friarbird (scanned print)

Noisy friarbird

Blue-faced honeyeater (near Darwin)

Blue-faced honeyeater (Deniliquin trip)

Noisy miner

Yellow-throated miner

Lewin's honeyeater (scanned print)

Graceful honeyeater (near Cairns)

Singing honeyeater

Singing honeyeater (near Perth)

White-eared honeyeater (juvenile)

Yellow-plumed honeyeater

Purple-gaped honeyeater (Not a good picture, but this is our life bird in SW Australia.)

White-fronted honeyeater (Wongan hills, NE of Perth)

White-cheeked honeyeater (SW Australia)

New Holland honeyeater

New Holland honeyeater (on the drive south from Perth to Albany)

Tawny-crowned honeyeater (Not a good picture, but this is Mary's life bird. John had seen it before. This is at Stirling Range National Park, SW Austrlaia.)

Brown honeyeater

Eastern spinebill (Mt. Stromlo Observatory: This was taken one evening in springtime when hordes of male honeyeaters were competing for mates and pairing up right in front of me. They paid almost no attention to me -- they were totally focused on competing with each other. It was a magical moment.)

Western spinebill (SW Australia)

White-fronted chat

Logrunner (Mt. Glorious, near Brisbane: poor quality scanned print)

Chestnut quail-thrush (near Deniliquin)

Gray-crowned babbler (on the way back to Canberra from Deniliquin)

Eastern yellow robin

Western yellow robin (This is our life bird.)

White-breasted robin (The bottom two pictures were taken at Cheynes Beach Caravan Park, near Albany, SW Australia coast)

Southern scrub-robin (This not-very-good picture shows our life bird.)

Southern scrub-robin

Jacky-winter

Crested bell-bird (Again: not a very good picture, but this is John's life bird.)

Rufous whistler (female)

Gray fantail

Gray fantail (Cheynes Beach Caravan Park, near Albany, SW Australia coast)

Rufous fantail (One of our earliest life birds in Canberra, this is a video capture, back in 1996, when we had only a video camera and no binoculars.)

Willie wagtail

Restless flycatcher

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Figbird

Paradise riflebird (female, on our porch at Mt. Glorious)

Satin bowerbird (female on our deck in Canberra)

Satin bowerbird (male -- scanned print; near Canbera)

Great bowerbird

White-winged triller (Adults are black and white. This is a juvenile.)

Masked woodswallow (This is our life bird.)

White-browed woodswallow

Black-faced woodswallow (near Perth)

Gray butcherbird at Tianjara Falls, NSW

Black-backed butcherbird

Australian magpie

Australian magpie (back yard of our house in Perth)

Pied currawong

Australian raven

White-winged chough (very clannish -- near Canberra)

White-winged choughs versus Australian magpie

Apostlebird (inland from Canberra)

Welcome swallow (not a very good picture -- SW Australia)

Australian bushlark (Juvenile, during night birding near Deniliquin)

Golden-headed cisticola (Fogg Dam, near Darwin)

Double-barred finch

Crimson finch (Darwin and Fogg Dam)

Red-browed finch

Red-eared firetail (near Albany, SW Australia)

Beautiful firetail

Diamond firetail (These bad pictures are the only ones that I have gotten so far.)

Chestnut-breasted mannikin

Mistletoebird

Silvereye (Zosterops lateralis chloronotus in SW Australia)

Nourlangie Rock, now known by its Aboriginal name of Burrungui (Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory). It is known for its Aboriginal rock paintings.

Aboriginal art at Burrungui: It is appropriate to acknowledge and be grateful to the Aboriginal people for their stewardship of Australia over many centuries. They live in a partnership with the rich wildlife that we would do well to emulate.

Our bird pictures from around the world follow standard ecozones approximately but not exactly:

Birds from the USA and Canada:   our house,   Hornsby Bend and greater Austin,   Texas,   California,   Hawaii,   Canada,

Neotropic birds from Central America and the Caribbean:   Honduras,   Costa Rica,   Panama,   Trinidad and Tobago

Neotropic birds from South America:   Ecuador,   Ecuador 2017,   Brazil.

Western palearctic birds:   Europe: Germany, Finland, Norway,   Europe: United Kingdom,   Europe: Spain,   the Canary Islands,   Europe: Lesbos, Greece,   Israel

Eastern palearctic birds:   China

Birds from Africa:   The Gambia,   South Africa

Indo-Malayan birds from   India: North-west (Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand)   India: North-east (Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya)   India: Central (Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh)

Birds from   Australia,   New Zealand.

For our 2014 December trip to India, see this travelog.

For our 2016 May-June trip to India, see this travelog.

For our 2017 April trip to High Island, Texas, see this web site.

For our 2018 March trip to India, see this travelog.

For our 2018 May trip to China, see this travelog.

For our 2018 November trip to China, see this travelog.

For our 2019 April trip to High Island, Texas, see this web site.

For our 2019 July trip to China, see this web site.

For our 2021 April trip to High Island, Texas, see this web site.

For our 2021 December trip to Ecuador, see this web site.

For our 2022 January-February trip to Peru, see this web site.

For our 2022 July-August trip to Australia and Papua New Guinea, see this web site.

For our 2022 September trip to Bolivia, see this web site.

For our 2022 November-December pre-trip to Argentina (before our Antarctic cruise), see this web site.

For our 2022 November-December cruise to Antarctica, see this web site.

For our 2023 January birding in Chile, see this web site.

For our 2023 January-March cruise from Chile to Antarctica and around South America to Miami, FL, see this web site.

For our 2023 March-April birding in south Florida (after the Seabourn cruise), see this web site.