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The brolga (Antigone rubicunda), 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. [4] The brolga is a common, gregarious wetland bird species of tropical and south-eastern Australia and ...
The white-faced heron (Egretta novaehollandiae) also known as the white-fronted heron, [2] and incorrectly as the grey heron, [3] or blue crane, [2] is a common bird throughout most of Australasia, including New Guinea, the islands of Torres Strait, Indonesia, New Zealand, and all but the driest areas of Australia.
Cranes are very large birds, often considered the world's tallest flying birds. They range in size from the demoiselle crane , which measures 90 cm (35 in) in length, to the sarus crane , which can be up to 176 cm (69 in), although the heaviest is the red-crowned crane , which can weigh 12 kg (26 lb) prior to migrating.
They are large birds with long necks and legs, a tapering form, and long secondary feathers on the wing that project over the tail. [2] Most species have muted gray or white plumages, marked with black, and red bare patches on the face, but the crowned cranes of the genus Balearica have vibrantly-coloured wings and golden "crowns" of feathers. [1]
There have been three comprehensive accounts: the first was John Gould's 1840s seven-volume series The Birds of Australia, the second Gregory Mathews, and the third was the Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds (1990-2006). The taxonomy originally followed is from Christidis and Boles, 2008. [1]
This is a list of the wild birds found in Western Australia.The list includes introduced species, common vagrants, recently extinct species, extirpated species, some very rare vagrants (seen once) and species only present in captivity. 629 species are listed.
Other birds have been placed in this order more out of necessity to place them somewhere; this has caused the expanded Gruiformes to lack distinctive apomorphies. Recent studies indicate that these "odd Gruiformes" are if at all only loosely related to the cranes, rails, and relatives ("core Gruiformes").
Grey crowned crane with nest in Hellabrunn Zoo, Munich. Grey crowned cranes time their breeding season around the rains, although the effect varies geographically. In East Africa the species breeds year-round, but most frequently during the drier periods, whereas in Southern Africa the breeding season is timed to coincide with the rains. [4]