Types of birds

Babblers

Description: The Grey-crowned Babbler is the largest of Australia's four babbler species. It is dark brown-grey above, with a distinctive grey crown stripe and a dark face mask that contrasts with a white eyebrow. The chin and throat are white, running into a pale grey lower breast. It has a long, curved bill, short rounded wings with cinnamon brown wing patches and a long tail tipped white. The eye is pale yellow in adults.The Grey-crowned Babbler is a noisy and gregarious bird, usually found in small groups of four to twelve, and is often seen on the ground or in low trees. It is sometimes called the Yahoo, after one of its calls.

Common Bronzewing

Description: Common Bronzewings are medium-sized, heavily built pigeons. The male has a yellow-white forehead and pink breast. Both sexes have a clear white line below and around the eye and patches of green, blue and red in the wing, characteristic of all Bronzewings. The Common Bronzewing is a cautious pigeon, and rarely allows close approach. If startled, it flies away with a clatter, keeping low to the ground while moving in a steady, direct manner. Young Common Bronzewings are duller and browner than the adults. The metallic wing patch is absent or not easily seen.

Diamond Firetail

Description: The Diamond Firetail is a small bird sometimes described as one of the most stunningly coloured birds of the finch family. The top of its body is ash brown with crown, forehead and neck grey. The under feathers are white with a crimson rump. There is a black band across its neck which continues down the flank to be dotted with white. The bill and eye ring are coral, and the legs and feet are dark grey. The female is similar to the male although sometimes smaller. The juvenile Diamond Firetail has a black bill and is duller in colour. They fly low and flocks travel in long lines. This species may also be called the Diamond Finch or Java Sparrow.

Double-Barred Finch

Description: The Double-barred Finch is one of the long-tailed grass-finches and is notable for its 'owl-faced' features, having a white face bordered black. It is grey-brown, with white underparts banded black above and below the chest, giving the species its name. The wings are black, spotted white, the tail is black and the bill and legs are blueish-grey. Juveniles are dulller, with indistinct chest bars. These grass-finches usually feed in flocks and have a bouncing, undulating flight pattern.

Eastern Rosella

Description: Eastern Rosellas are medium-sized colourful parrots with distinctive white cheek patches. It has a red head, neck and breast, with yellowish to greenish upper parts, a yellow underbody and a yellow-green to blue-green rump, with a red undertail. The shoulders are bright blue. Females are usually similar to males, but sometimes duller and young birds are even duller and can be aged by their bill colour, which is yellow or orange, changing to off-white when mature.

Grey Butcherbird

Description: The adult Grey Butcherbird has a black crown and face and a grey back, with a thin white collar. The wings are grey, with large areas of white and the underparts are white. The grey and black bill is large, with a small hook at the tip of the upper bill. The eye is dark brown and the legs and feet are dark grey. Both sexes are similar in plumage, but the females are slightly smaller than the males. Young Grey Butcherbirds resemble adults, but have black areas replaced with olive-brown and a buff wash on the white areas. The bill is completely dark grey and often lacks an obvious hook. They are sometimes mistaken for small kingfishers.

Honey-eaters

Blue- Faced: The Blue-faced Honeyeater is a large black, white and golden olive-green honeyeater with striking blue skin around the yellow to white eye. The crown, face and neck are black, with a narrow white band across the back of the neck. The upperparts and wings are a golden olive green, and the underparts are white, with a grey-black throat and upper breast. The blue facial skin is two-toned, with the lower half a brilliant cobalt blue. Juvenile birds are similar to the adults but the facial skin is yellow-green and the bib is a lighter grey. This honeyeater is noisy and gregarious, and is usually seen in pairs or small flocks. It is known as the Banana-bird in tropical areas, for its habit of feeding on banana fruit and flowers.

Yellow-Faced: The Yellow-faced Honeyeater is a medium to small, plainly coloured honeyeater with a slightly down-curved bill. It is dark grey-brown above, with some brown streaking on the head, and paler below with lighter streaks. It has a distinctive, broad yellow face-stripe, bordered with black. The males are slightly larger but the sexes are otherwise similar. Young are paler and unstreaked on the head. It can be seen in large flocks when migrating, and in smaller groups when feeding.

Yellow-Tufted: The Yellow-tufted Honeyeater is a striking, medium to medium-large honeyeater with a slightly down-curved bill. It is olive-brown above, yellowish grey below, with a black face mask and bright yellow ear tufts and sides of the throat. The males are slightly larger but the sexes are otherwise similar. Young are duller and paler, with yellow areas washed green. There are three subspecies, two of which are fairly similar (L. m. melanops and L. m. meltoni) and one which is much larger, with brighter plumage (L. m. cassidix ). This latter subspecies is known as the Helmeted Honeyeater and is endangered, being restricted to the Yellingbo area of Victoria.

Jacky Winter

Description: The Jacky Winter is a small grey-brown flycatcher with a faint pale eye-line and white underbody. The dark tail has prominent white outer feathers which are obvious when it lands, wagging his tail from side to side. The Jacky Winter typically sits upright on a bare branch or perch, wagging its tail and uttering its 'peter-peter' call. There are three sub-species, with slight geographical variation, darker in the south and paler in the far north and inland. This species is also known as the Brown Flycatcher, Postboy, White-tail or Peter-Peter.

Nankeen Kestrel

Description: The Nankeen Kestrel is a slender falcon and is a relatively small raptor (bird of prey). The upper parts are mostly rufous, with some dark streaking. The wings are tipped with black. The underparts are pale buff, streaked with black, and the under tail is finely barred with black, with a broader black band towards the tip. Females tend to be more heavily marked and have more rufous on the crown and tail. Males have a greyish crown and tail, although the extent varies between individuals. Females are larger than males. Young Nankeen Kestrels closely resemble the adult female, with heavier markings.

Parrots

Red-rumped Parrot: Red-rumped Parrots are medium-sized, slender parrots. The adult male is bright green, with a blue-green head, a red rump, and yellow shoulders and belly. The female is a duller, olive-green, with a green rump and faint yellow or light green scales on the belly. Young birds of both sexes are duller in colour.

Superb Parrot: The Superb Parrot is a medium-sized parrot, with a swift and graceful flight. Its tail is long and the wings are backswept and pointed. Both male and female are mostly bright green, though the male has a bright yellow forehead and cheeks, with a scarlet band across the upper chest. The female is duller, with red thighs and patches of pink on the inner walls of the tail feathers. Both have a red iris and bright pink bill. The Superb Parrot is also known as the Barraband or Scarlet-breasted Parrot or the Green Leek.

Red Wattlebird

Description: The Red Wattlebird is a large, noisy honeyeater. The common name refers to the fleshy reddish wattle on the side of the neck. The plumage is grey-brown on the body, with prominent white streaks and yellow on the belly. The face is pale and the tail is long with a white-tip. Young Red Wattlebirds are duller than the adult and have a brown, rather than reddish, eye. The wattle is also very small and pale.

Restless Flycatcher

Description: The Restless Flycatcher has a glossy blue-black head, with a small crest, and is white below, from the chin to the undertail, with a blue-black bill surrounded by bristles. The back, wings and tail are darker grey and there may be a slight orange brown tint on the breast. Young birds are duller grey black above, with the throat and breast washed orange-brown. The slightly smaller northern Australian sub-species, nana, known as the Paperbark Flycatcher, has a smaller bill and has the glossy blue-black colouring extending further down the back. The Restless Flycatcher is an extremely mobile and active bird and is able to hover while feeding, uttering a grinding call that gives it yet another common name: Scissors Grinder.

Flame Robins

Description: Male Flame Robins have a bright orange breast and throat, and are white on the lower belly and undertail. The top of their head and back is dark slate grey and there is a clear white stripe on the folded wing. The bill is black and the legs dark brown. The female is quite different from the male, being mostly grey-brown with a pale buff wing stripe, and a mostly white outer tail feather. Young Flame Robins resemble the adult female, but the brown of the back is heavily streaked with buff and the pale belly is streaked with brown.

Speckled Warbler

Description: The crown of the Speckled Warbler is black with buff streaks. Between the crown and the white eyebrow is a line that is black in the males and chestnut in the females, the only difference between the two. The dark red eye is prominent in the pale face. The back is mottled dark brown but the underparts are cream with bold black streaks. When it flies, its tail shows a black band with a white tip.

Tree Creepers

White-throated: The White-throated Treecreeper is dark brown, with a distinctive white throat and chest, and white streaks on its flanks, edged with black. The wings have a red bar that is visible in flight and the undertail is barred. The female has an orange mark on the sides of the face. Like other treecreepers, spends most of its time foraging in trees and has a short, spiraling flight.

Brown: The Brown Treecreeper is the largest of Australia's treecreepers. It is mostly pale brown in plumage. Birds of northern Queensland are darker brown. The head, throat and upper breast are pale greyish-brown, while the lower breast and belly are strongly streaked with black and buff. In flight, a buff stripe can be seen in the wing. The sexes are similar, except females have rufous edges to the feathers of the upper breast, while in the male these edges are black. Young Brown Treecreepers resemble the adults, but are duller, have less obvious stripes on the underparts and the lower belly is a pale rufous colour.

Varied Sittella

Description: The Varied Sittella is a small, short-tailed, dumpy bird which is usually heard before it is seen in the upper branches. There are five sub-species, differing in the patterns on the head and neck, the amount of streaking and in the wing patterns. The iris is orange-yellow, and the eye-ring, legs and feet are yellow. The bill is long and slender and slightly up-turned. All adults are greyish above and white below, with varied streaking. The upper tail coverts are pale, with dark-barring underneath. The tail is dark with a white tip. The upper wings are dark; in southern and eastern birds the underwings have an orange-rufous band, while in the north the band is white. Males have longer bills than females and tend to feed lower. Sittellas are usually seen in flocks, moving swiftly between trees or foraging busily over branches or the trunk. This species has many names including Black-capped or Orange-winged Sittella, Nuthatch or Barkpecker.

Yellow-rumped Thornbill

Description: The Yellow-rumped Thornbill is the largest and probably the best-known thornbill, with a striking yellow rump. It is mainly grey-olive to grey-brown above to cream below, with a white-spotted black crown and a dark eye stripe. The tail is black, with white tips. The sexes are similar. Young birds have softer, fluffier plumage on the body, but are otherwise similar. Often seen in small flocks feeding on the ground, often with other thornbills and ground-feeding birds.

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