My initial thought was that they were Buff-banded rails that I have sighted several times in summer a year ago. However, even with the binoculars I could not see the distinguishing field-marks - conspicuous white stripe over the eye, chestnut patch behind the eye, or the yellow band on the chest.
Checking my Claremont Field Guide to the Birds of Australia (after they flew off), the only other raillids close to the color pattern (brown speckled/mottled back, similarly mottled/banded underside) are Lewin's Rail and Baillon's craik or the Australian craik. However, both of the latter have grey chests and the ones I saw had brownish possible mottled but not conspicuously banded chests - which fits Lewin's rail. Arguing against this is my reading that Lewin's rails are predominantly swamp dwellers and rarely seen in Victoria.
See http://davesgarden.com/guides/birdfiles/showimage/84/ for a Lewin's rail like I may have seen.
Baillon's crake: http://natureshare.org.au/observation/5424/ and http://www.chappo1.com/images/birdswaterbirds/2006%205895.jpg (didn't have the slate grey and the mottling on the back wasn't as coarse as these).
My Natureshare observation of a buff-banded rail
James Booth's obo:
The eye-stripe is too conspicuous to be missed.
I don't think any non-raillid would fit the description - very short tail, horizontal posture, longish legs, long beak. It might be worth keeping an eye peeled for such birds.
In other words, I think I saw a pair of Lewin's rails, but without a photo or another sighting with the field guide in hand and opened to the right pages - I'm not prepared to add an (unexpected) new species for Riddells.
How embarrassing! I finally got a good look at the birds. This time there were three together and they were happy to spend some time in the sun clear of grass clumps so I had time to look at them clearly with the binocs. They were female common starlings.
ReplyDeleteWe don't have a lot of them on the property, and when we do they are usually in the trees. With no males around with their metallic plumage to give the game away, I guess this is a mistake that could be made.
Although the female starlings are conspicuously mottled on their undersides, the mottles don't form clear bars as the Lewin's rails. Also, although the starlings' tails are short compared to many other birds, the feathers are somewhat squared off, and don't converge to form a point as they do in the rail. The other thing that threw me is that the female starlings I saw have a visible chestnut tinge to the upper parts of the folded wings that is not indicated in the field guide.
I'm sorry they weren't rails, though. We had a pair of purple swamp hens that bred several times and shared food with the chooks until we introduced a trio of geese that promptly ran them off. We have also had a dusky swamp hen that stayed around for a few months but finally left when no mate appeared. And then there were the buff-banded rails that may have bred on the property.
Well, you may think this is embarrassing ... BUT ... somehow Starlings haven't made it onto the Birds of Riddells Creek collection in NatureShare, so your story has at least added a new species to the list!
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