A large bird of prey with a dark grey back and a white head, white chest and white belly. Their legs are also white and have long black talons. They have dark eyes and a light-coloured, hooked beak. When viewed in flight, the undersides of the wings are a distinctive half white and half grey-brown.

First-year juveniles have a buffish and ‘spiky’ head, contrasting with patchy cream and dark brown body and wings; underwing pattern also patchy, but note half-moon at base of tail feathers. Older juveniles have a pale buff-grey tail.

Their nests are massive, made of sticks and branches, usually found in a tall living tree near water or on a remote coastal cliff (on ground if on an island).

Distinctive feature

A wedge-shaped tail, distinctive when seen in flight.

Metallic blue-black on top and light to dark grey on its breast and belly. Its forehead, throat and upper breast are rust in colour. It has grey legs and feet, and its eyes and bill are black. A young Welcome Swallow has shorter tail feathers than an adult and its forehead and throat are a creamy beige (instead of rust).

Distinctive feature

A deeply forked tail with a white band or row of spots on the long tail feathers.

Mostly bright green, with a blue crown, cheeks and colouring on its wings. It has red around its bill, throat and forehead, and bright red patches under each wing. The red on its throat is edged with yellow and its long, pointed tail is purple-red. The female is slightly duller, with a creamy bar under its wings.

Size

About 25 cm; ; Wingspan 32 – 36 cm

A native pheasant up to 1 m, including tail. Plain rich brown above, coppery on wings, deep grey below; legs and feet dark grey, powerful.

Tail of male long and train-like, of two clubbed ‘lyrates’ about 60 cm long usually horizontal; glossy black and rufous above, silvery below, with notched ‘windows’; two slender, curved, ribbon-like guard-plumes’ and 12 lacy filamentaries, black above, silvery below. Moults annually. Full tail acquired at 6-8 years.

Tail of female (and immature male) is simpler, drooping and pointed, lyrates smaller, often hidden; typically looks twisted.

The nest is a bulky mound of sticks, bark, fern fronds and moss; on ground, bank, rock shelf, in stump or head of tree fern or to 25 m in a tree fork.

Males have a rich blue and black plumage above and on the throat. The belly is grey-white and the beak is black. In non-breeding plumage, called eclipse, he is very similar to the female.

Females and young birds are mostly brown above with a dull red-orange area around the eye and brown beak. Females have a pale green gloss, absent in young birds, on the otherwise brown tail. Both sexes possess brown legs.

The nest is dome-shaped consisting of grass, moss, rootlets, twigs, spiders webs and other bramble. Found low in tussock, shrub or bracken.

The male is unmistakable in full breeding varying from cobalt-blue in the east of its range to violet-blue in the west with a pale blue head. Wings and long tail are brown with a blue wash. In non-breeding plumage, called eclipse, he is very similar to the female, being pale brown above and white underneath although he retains the blue wash on wings and tail. The young look like the females.

Distinctive feature

The magnificent blue colour of the male.

Size

14 cm

Commonly known as the muttonbird in Australia.It is one of the most abundant seabirds in Australian waters. They migrate to Australia in enormous flocks and often a number of birds are washed up on beaches and die as a result of exhaustion, sickness and bad weather.

Dark smoky brown body with a paler coloured throat, slender bill, light brown feet, narrow wings pointed at the tip, brown to grey-brown underwing colouration (some have whitish underwings), short rounded tail, body up to 43cm long, when flying black toes extend just past tail tip.

Nests on grass and leaves, and in burrows underground.

Size

40 – 45 cm long

Stocky, medium-sized migratory shorebird with a short black bill and short orange legs. Back, head and upper chest is marked with black-brown and pale areas (tortoise shell-like) with a white breast. The bill is wedge-shaped and slightly up-tilted. In flight, there is a distinctive black and white pattern.

Distinctive features

The distinctive marking and dark and white pattern in flight make the Ruddy Turnstone unmistakeable, along with their habitat of turning over stones.

A fleshy reddish wattle (skin flap) is on the side of the neck. Plumage is grey-brown on body, with prominent white streaks and yellow on belly. Face is pale and tail is long with a white-tip. Young Red Wattlebirds are duller than the adult and have a brown, rather than reddish, eye. The wattle is also very small and pale.

Its nest is an untidy saucer of sticks, leaves, and grass lined with bark-strips, fur, and hair; 2 - 16 m high in the fork of a tree or on a branch against trunk.

Size

33 - 37 cm long

A small native bird with a black head and breast, electric blue shoulder patches and white wing spots. Upperparts are bright olive-green, sometimes a silvery green-blue. The only pitta in the Darwin region, and Australia’s only pitta with a black head and breast.

Its nest is loose, interwoven sticks and dead vines, usually dome-shaped but can be a cup, with entrance at side or near top. It can be in a fork, on a branch, against butress root on the ground, from ground level to 8 metres above.