Australian Bustard

It must be Wednesday again so today I am showing you the Australian Bustard.  I got the idea after I did the last 2 Wednesday's posts of 

Beach (4 Sept.) and Bush Stone Curlews (11 Sept.) because although the Bustards are enormous in comparison, I thought they looked a bit similar.  You may wish  to compare them.  It was a very hot day in the Tablelands in Queensland and that is why there is haze in the photos and I left in the background so that you could see what other birds and animals were around at the time.  I will intersperse information between photographs.

There are cattle in the background, and a Straw necked Ibis to the left.

The Australian Bustard (Ardeotis australis) is a large ground bird of grassland, woodland and open agricultural country across northern Australia and southern New Guinea. It is also commonly referred to in Central Australia as the Bush Turkey, particularly by Aboriginal people, though this name may also be used for the Australian Brush Turkey as well as the Orange-footed Scrubfowl.

The male is up to 47” tall with a 7.5 ft wingspan.

The average weight for males is 14lbs, with a range from 9.5 to 28.1 lbs.  

The female is quite a bit smaller at 31” tall, with a 5.9 ft wingspan and an average body mass of 7.1lbs in a range of 5.3 to 14.0lbs but is similarly coloured.  

The largest male was shot just outside Victoria and was 32lbs!   It is the largest flying land bird in Australia.  The back, wings and tail are dull brown, mottled black and white markings on the wing coverts. The neck and head appear dull white and the crown black. Legs are yellow to cream coloured.

Because of their great weight, Bustards much prefer to walk, though it is a spectacular sight when they do fly. They have a pale grey neck and belly, and freckled brown wings and tail. Male Bustards have a black crown, while the females have a brown crown.    

Feeding:

Australian Bustards are omnivorous, eating leaves, buds, seeds, fruit, frogs, lizards, and invertebrates. They walk slowly, picking at food items as they wander, usually at twilight and after dark.  They are nomadic in searching for food.

If there is a plaque of mice or grasshoppers, Australian Bustards will gorge themselves on the plentiful food supply.

Behind the Bustard are Sarus Cranes (that's another story)

Breeding season: - October to December, or after rain

Clutch Size: 1   Incubation: 23 days    

Breeding:

Australian Bustards breed once a year. When mating, the males clear a display area, then inflate a large throat sac, producing a loud, deep roaring noise, while they strut around with their tails cocked high. 

The large, olive-green egg may be laid on bare ground or in grass, but usually where the parent bird has a good view of approaching predators. The female sits low, well camouflaged, and she incubates and cares for the young.  Newly hatched chicks are striped dark and light.

The following shots are a Bustard in flight.

The Bustard has a 'snooty' appearance as it walks sedately along, holding its head and neck high. When disturbed, it will walk away slowly, still watching.

 When it does fly, the flight is strong, with the ends of the wing feathers characteristically spread and up-curved. It may be found in small groups or singly. This species is also called the Plains Turkey or Wild Turkey.

This is a group I was away for a few days with and the following photographs are of these Bustards that I spotted on another occasion from the ones above.

Australian Bustards were once extensively hunted and shot for food and with habitat changes made by introduced mammals such as rabbits, cattle and sheep, they are now limited to inland areas. This species is listed as endangered in New South Wales.

Australian Aborigines generally refer to this bird as the Bush Turkey. It is an important food source for Aboriginal people from Central Australia, and is still eaten today. The white feathers of the bird are used for ceremonial purposes.

Key threatening processes include habitat alteration due to human harvesting, altered fire regimes (they need a mixture of open ground for grazing and thick vegetation to hide their young; and some of their fruit/seeds are from fire-sensitive plants), cattle grazing, and invasion by woody weeds. Furthermore, they lay their eggs directly on the ground, so are vulnerable to predation by introduced predators such as cats, foxes and dingoes, and trampling by cattle.

Bustards are unique among Australia’s birds in that they exhibit what is known as an ‘exploded lek’ mating system. Leks are tight aggregations of males that come together to display in specific areas, in order to attract females. A lek arena is regarded as ‘exploded’ if males are well spaced from one another (that is from 100 to 1000 m apart). Usually, among lekking species, it is the larger, more elaborate males that are most successful at attracting mates. 

This has important implications for harvesting bustards, because if bigger birds are preferred for harvest, then the breeding performance of the population as a whole may suffer. Furthermore, as leks are located in traditional arenas, damage to the habitat encompassing the lek arena may prohibit birds from displaying and breeding.

I hope you enjoyed this post about the Australian Bustard as much as

 I did finding them on 2 different occasions.

Thanks you for visiting.

I am linking to Wild Bird Wednesday