BIRDS OF OUR BUSH 



considerable variation. The most usual colour is a faint 

 pink ground, with red or reddish brown spots, especially 

 about the larger end. 



The native Miner is a noisy bird of the Honeyeater 

 family, with a bad reputation among sportsmen. The 

 ground for their complaint arises out of the warning alarm 

 notes spread far and wide by the Miner on the approach 

 of an intruder. It is a quietly coloured grey bird, but a 

 patch of bare yellow skin around each eye gives it a rather 

 peculiar appearance. Once, and once only, have we enter- 

 tained hopes of photographing one of the species, and we 

 were mightily excited about it, too. A pair, rather more 

 trusting than usual, had built their nest in a very small 

 bush on the banks of a creek at Meredith. We watched 

 the nest in the building, and rejoiced when we saw the first 

 egg. The following day a flood removed the nest and the 

 egg, and our hopes also. 



The Wattle Bird is another Honeyeater, just as noisy 

 as the Miner and its hoarse barking call is even less 

 musical than that of the latter species. At Cowes, Phillip 

 Island, there are a great number of Wattle Birds, 

 attracted, apparently, by the Banksia trees which grow 

 there in profusion. The usual bullying habits of the 

 Honeyeaters are well maintained by this bird, and we be- 

 came quite annoyed at the action of a pair which discovered, 

 as we did, the nesting hole of a family of Orange-tipped 

 Pardalotes in one of the Banksias in the front garden. They 

 gave those Pardalotes absolutely no rest from daylight to 

 dark. As soon as the smaller bird arrived in the nesting 

 tree with food for its brood, or left the nesting hole to 

 search for more, the larger one swooped down upon it 

 furiously. 



Almost all Honeyeaters show a tendency to bully 

 smaller birds. The Noisy Miner, we think, is the most in- 

 offensive of the family. 



In the Greensborough district we have more than once 

 happened across colonies of the White-browed Babbler, a 

 very noisy, sociable, and energetic inhabitant of the 

 medium-sized timber. It is a brown bird, having a long, 

 slim body, a long tail, a white eyebrow, and an everlasting 

 chatter. The nest is a large stick one, untidy, and with 

 the entrance in the side. As a matter of fact, the bird 

 usually builds two or more nests, but uses one only. Just 



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