The brolga, formerly known as the native companion, is a bird in the crane family. It has also been given the name Australian crane, a term coined in 1865 by well-known ornithologist John Gould in his Birds of Australia.
The Mallee Cliffs National Park is a protected national park that is located in the Sunraysia region, in the south-west of New South Wales, Australia. The 57,969-hectare (143,240-acre) national park is situated approximately 790 kilometres (490 mi) west of Sydney and 30 kilometres (19 mi) east of the Murray River city of Mildura, Victoria.
The megapodes, also known as incubator birds or mound-builders, are stocky, medium-large, chicken-like birds with small heads and large feet in the family Megapodiidae. Their name literally means "large foot" and is a reference to the heavy legs and feet typical of these terrestrial birds. All are browsers, and all except the malleefowl occupy wooded habitats. Most are brown or black in color. Megapodes are superprecocial, hatching from their eggs in the most mature condition of any bird. They hatch with open eyes, bodily coordination and strength, full wing feathers, and downy body feathers, and are able to run, pursue prey and, in some species, fly on the day they hatch.
The malleefowl is a stocky ground-dwelling Australian bird about the size of a domestic chicken. It is notable for the large nesting mounds constructed by the males and lack of parental care after the chicks hatch. It is the only living representative of the genus Leipoa, though the extinct giant malleefowl was a close relative.
Egg incubation is the process by which an egg, of oviparous (egg-laying) animals, develops an embryo within the egg, after the egg's formation and ovipositional release. Egg incubation is done under favorable environmental conditions, possibly by brooding and hatching the egg.
A bird nest is the spot in which a bird lays and incubates its eggs and raises its young. Although the term popularly refers to a specific structure made by the bird itself—such as the grassy cup nest of the American robin or Eurasian blackbird, or the elaborately woven hanging nest of the Montezuma oropendola or the village weaver—that is too restrictive a definition. For some species, a nest is simply a shallow depression made in sand; for others, it is the knot-hole left by a broken branch, a burrow dug into the ground, a chamber drilled into a tree, an enormous rotting pile of vegetation and earth, a shelf made of dried saliva or a mud dome with an entrance tunnel. The smallest bird nests are those of some hummingbirds, tiny cups which can be a mere 2 cm (0.8 in) across and 2–3 cm (0.8–1.2 in) high. At the other extreme, some nest mounds built by the dusky scrubfowl measure more than 11 m (36 ft) in diameter and stand nearly 5 m (16 ft) tall. The study of birds' nests is known as caliology.
The red-tailed black cockatoo also known as Banksian- or Banks' black cockatoo, is a large black cockatoo native to Australia. Adult males have a characteristic pair of bright red panels on the tail that gives the species its name. It is more common in the drier parts of the continent. Five subspecies are recognised, differing chiefly in beak size. Although the more northerly subspecies are widespread, the two southern subspecies, the forest red-tailed black cockatoo and the south-eastern red-tailed black cockatoo are under threat.
The Australian flatback sea turtle is a species of sea turtle in the family Cheloniidae. The species is endemic to the sandy beaches and shallow coastal waters of the Australian continental shelf. This turtle gets its common name from the fact that its shell has a flattened or lower dome than the other sea turtles. It can be olive green to grey with a cream underside. It averages from 76 to 96 cm in carapace length and can weigh from 70 to 90 kg. The hatchlings, when emerging from nests, are larger than other sea turtle hatchlings when they hatch.
The glossy black cockatoo, is the smallest member of the subfamily Calyptorhynchinae found in eastern Australia. Adult glossy black cockatoos may reach 50 cm (19.5 in) in length. They are sexually dimorphic. Males are blackish brown, except for their prominent sub-terminal red tail bands; the females are dark brownish with idiosyncratic yellow marking around the neck and prominent sub-terminal tail band of red with black bars. Three subspecies have been recognised, although this has been recently challenged, with a detailed morphological analysis by Saunders and Pickup 2023 finding there is cline in body dimensions over the latitudinal range of the species, with the birds from the north of the range smaller than the birds in the south. Saunders and Pickup argued that with no differentiation in bill morphology, little difference in genetic makeup, no differences in plumage pattern or colour, and no differences in diet, there is no justification in subdividing the species.
The little buttonquail is a species of buttonquail, part of a small family of birds which resemble, but are unrelated to, the true quails. This species is resident in Australia, where it is one of the more common buttonquails.
The powerful owl, a species of owl native to south-eastern and eastern Australia, is the largest owl on the continent. It is found in coastal areas and in the Great Dividing Range, rarely more than 200 km (120 mi) inland. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species also refers to this species as the powerful boobook.
The Australian bustard is a large ground-dwelling bird that is common in grassland, woodland and open agricultural country across northern Australia and southern New Guinea. It stands at about one metre high, and its wingspan is around twice that length. The species is nomadic, flying to areas when food becomes plentiful, and capable of travelling long distances. They were once widespread and common to the open plains of Australia, but became rare in regions that have been used for farming. The bustard is omnivorous, mostly consuming the fruit or seed of plants, but also eating invertebrates such as crickets, grasshoppers, smaller mammals, birds and reptiles.
Bush turkey may refer to:
The white-fronted plover or white-fronted sandplover is a small shorebird of the family Charadriidae that inhabits sandy beaches, dunes, mudflats and the shores of rivers and lakes in sub-saharan Africa and Madagascar. It nests in small shallow scrapes in the ground and lays clutches of one to three eggs. The species is monogamous and long-lived, with a life expectancy of approximately 12 years. The vast majority of pairs that mate together stay together during the following years of breeding and retain the same territory. The white-fronted plover has a similar appearance to the Kentish plover, with a white fore crown and dark bands connecting the eyes to the bill.
The Kentish plover is a small wader of the family Charadriidae that breeds on the shores of saline lakes, lagoons, and coasts, populating sand dunes, marshes, semi-arid desert, and tundra. Both male and female birds have pale plumages with a white underside, grey/brown back, dark legs and a dark bill; however, additionally the male birds also exhibit very dark incomplete breast bands, and dark markings either side of their head, therefore the Kentish plover is regarded as sexually dimorphic.
The Melanesian scrubfowl or Melanesian megapode is a megapode species that is endemic to islands within Melanesia. The Melanesian scrubfowl has a unique strategy of egg incubation in which it relies on environmental heat sources. This bird species is culturally important for Indigenous peoples in Melanesia.
The white-throated nightjar or white-throated eared-nightjar is a species of nightjar in the family Caprimulgidae. It is endemic to eastern Australia; it is a non-breeding winter visitor in Papua New Guinea. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical dry forests.
The eastern three-lined skink, also known commonly as the bold-striped cool-skink, is a species of skink, a lizard in the family Scincidae. The species is endemic to Australia. A. duperreyi has been extensively studied in the context of understanding the evolution of learning, viviparity in lizards, and temperature- and genetic-sex determination. A. duperreyi is classified as a species of "Least Concern" by the IUCN.
Brushturkey, brush-turkey or brush turkey generally refer to birds in three genera in the megapode family, and sometimes to other species such as the Australian bustard:
Broodiness is the action or behavioral tendency to sit on a clutch of eggs to incubate them, often requiring the non-expression of many other behaviors including feeding and drinking. Being broody has been defined as "Being in a state of readiness to brood eggs that is characterized by cessation of laying and by marked changes in behavior and physiology". Broodiness is usually associated with female birds, although males of some bird species become broody and some non-avian animals also show broodiness.
