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A JOURNEY IN THE OUTBACK OF AUSTRALIA
All Rights Reserved By: G. A. ABBATE, Sr.

On February 17^th, 1999, after a long, long trip I finally arrived in Sydney, Australia.  After a couple of hours of waiting for Mr. John Quatro of Sydney, finally we are on the way to my first visit to Mr. Quatro's residence. (There was a lot of traffic that day in Sydney because as I was told the Greek community was  protesting about some political issue). – If anyone doesn't like the law of the land they should go back to their old country and do the fighting there. Don't create a mess for the clean, decent, law abiding citizens. That goes for America too! If you don't love America go back to where you came from.—(These are my my thoughts).

I had the pleasure of meeting John Quatro in New Orleans a few years ago, where we spoke briefly.  For the next few years after New Orleans I have been searching to find John Quatro everytime I went to Sydney.  Although I know a lot of  bird fanciers in the Sydney area no one ever heard of John Quatro! One day by browsing on the Internet I ran across "Siskins of the World". I went through the whole site. I never saw so much good information in any book about Red Siskins, as well as Carduelans, in general.  Guess what, I read the whole thing and I enjoyed every bit of what was on Mr. Quatro's Web Site.  So, immediately I E-mailed Mr. Quatro, telling him that I would be there on the 17^th of February.

I was very impressed with his feelings towards the Red Siskins and all the other endangered species.  His goal is to achieve maximum results, through the Internet, his Web Site,  in educating bird fanciers all over the world how to preserve and propagate the Red Siskins as well as the other endangered species.  In other words, he is strictly for the conservation and perservation of all the endangered species.  For years Mr. Quatro has been researching the species and he has traveled in many parts of the world visiting the Carduelan's natural habitat.

Mr. Quatro said to me, "I only keep four pairs of Red Siskins and four other pairs of various other Carduelan species.  It's all the time that I have to give the proper care for this number of birds.  My work schedule and other commitments prevents me from having more numbers of paired birds." 

Mr. Quatro houses and breeds each pair of  Red Siskins, as well as the other birds, in small aviaries measuring about 2ft wide  5ft deep and 7-1/2ft high.   Some of these aviaries are inside a well finished building unattached to his house and some are in his back yard.

I asked John Quatro many questions about the environment, diet, everything that has to be known to take good care of the birds,  especially the Red Siskin.

Ironically, Mr. Quatro's method of feeding his birds is very very simple and at the same time is a difficult and tedious one.  He said, "I feed my birds plenty of thistle."  (Niger seed is growing in Australia now and is not sterilized like here in the USA, so therefore niger seed is a good source of food for all birds in Australia). Those Australian fanciers sure are lucky?

In addition to niger seed he also feeds a variety of seed, such as canary seed, small white millet, spray millet, some rape seed,  good quality shelled fresh sunflower seed and also small whole sunflower. He supplies this fresh on a daily basis.  In addition,  a variety of greens and seeding heads are fed to all the birds everyday.

I asked Mr. Quatro, "How do you make your egg food, nestling food or soft food?"   He replied, "I don't use any soft  food."  I asked him,  "How do the parent birds feed their youngsters without nestling food and soak seed?"  With my 50 plus years of experience with Red Siskins and other cage birds I know as a fact that seed alone is not a well balanced diet that birds can thrive and reproduce themselves.  Furthermore, if we use your method of feeding in America, I or most of the other breeders would not raise any number of birds to talk about."   He continued by saying, "I used to feed sprout seed and egg food and I had a lot of problems."  Again I asked him, "How do the Siskins feed their young without soak seed and nestling food?" He said, "I go on the countryside and I gather buds and I supply them to the Siskins, plus I keep a dry biscuit in each cage and that is how they feed their young."--Mr. Quatro, by saying he feeds the buds he means seeding heads from weeds and grasses, such as the dandelion, chickweed, plantain, wild millet, plus anything else he can gather on the countryside.

 All the Australian bird fanciers that I know and have known, regardless of the species of birds, either small finches, large and small parrots, budgerigars, canaries, etc., they all spend a lot of time in the field gathering seeding heads of the above mentioned. In fact, part of the success of breeding birds in Australia are the seeding heads of grass and weeds.

Myself, I spend a lot of times in the fields gathering seeding heads and seeding grasses for all my birds.  If you remember, I  have been preaching about this for years and years.  Birds should be provided with a good balanced seed diet and also lots of supplements of natural wild food. Success in breeding cage birds comes from dedication and perseverance by the fancier. The birds didn't ask to be put in  cages.  We put them in cages so we must give them the best care which they rightly deserve.

Mr. Quatro and I had intentions to visit other aviaries, but we talked so much that there was no time to see anybody else. as I had an appointment in Brisbaine with a customer of ours who was working in Australia at the time.  In the late pm hours it was time to say good-bye to Mr. Quatro. We shall see and talk again?

I am publishing a couple of pictures of  Mr. Quatro. That's the best I could do with my cameras!  

I traveled by plane to Brisbane which was about an hour from Sydney (I am very familiar with the area as I have been over there several times).  I tried to contact my old friend, Keith Jones. I kept calling him on the phone for four days and no one answered.  Maybe Keith was on vacation for a few days?  This was a drawback for me because Keith always took me all over the Outback looking for birds. It was a very costly venture for me and my friend from Italy to go searching for birds in the Outback.  I had to rent a car (I am a lousy driver on the wrong side of the street); many times we had to take a taxi (expensive).  All that for the birds. HA! HA!

 Ironically, parrots, large and small, stay very close to human habitat. Most back yards have feeders and birds  of all sizes come to feed at the goodies put out by the people.

In one of the areas, there was a row of houses, where all the back yards were facing bushes and trees, in other words natural land or perhaps state owned land preserves?  In that location I have a couple of acquaintances. We spent three hours there one day and literally we saw hundreds and hundreds of birds of all species come to the feeders.  Among others, the following birds were in numbers and were frequently visiting the feeders: Sulphur Crested Cockatoos, Long Beak Correlas, Rose Breasted Cockatoos, many species of Rosellas, some Red Tail Black Cockatoos, plus others that would take a page to list all of them. (This is all recalling from memory). Unfortunately, my very costly and supposedly very reliable Nikon S90, the very best money can buy, I thought, didn't work.  I had a man in a camera store load my camera with 36 exposures of film; I don't know what he did wrong but the film didn't go through. I took 36 pictures there.  It was a waste of time and  a big disappointment.  Luckily my friend and customer  had a couple of cameras and I managed to obtain a couple of photos of those unbelieveable and colorful sights.

All of the above mentioned birds, flocks of them, would come to the feeders every few  minutes.  Some of the parent adults would bring their fledged juveniles. It was a site that words cannot describe. I took some video. Taking photos of birds is a very difficult task. I tried so hard for many many years to take a good picture.  In fact, I have been trying to learn for the last 50 years how to take a better picture; despite the fact that I buy the very best cameras still I am failing.  Oh, I can take a picture of a person very nicely, but birds are very difficult, at least for me.  Any greenish color bird in a luscious green tree the camera can't even see that bird.  I did manage to take a couple of good pictures with another camera which we will publish as many as we can in this article.

I went into the woods searching for nests and I found several nest sites with youngsters and some still with eggs.  Carefully, with the least amount of disturbance, I examined the youngsters crops and noticed they were full of food that you could actually see through their skin.  Whole pieces of corn, whole sunflowers, nuts, plus other kinds of food in very large chunks (Birds in their wild habitat don't  feed on grain dust).  Also keep in mind that birds in the wild state do not, and I repeat, do not eat pellets or any extruded foods. There is no pellets or extruded food tree in the birds' wild habitat.  As I continued to watch the birds in these back yards, I noticed they were feeding on sunflower seeds, as well as canary seed, millet seed, whole corn and other seeds, and also dry corn cobs, and I saw  the large Cockatoos holding the cobs with their feet and tearing down on the corn kernals and immediately these birds would go back into the woods and feed their youngsters.  I saw many birds doing this, going back and forth from the feeder to the woods. In Nancy and John's back yard there were three large seed hoppers; one had sunflowers; another one had millet seed and another one had whole corn.  Nancy and John also have chickens in the back yard and they were feeding the chickens coarse grind corn and wheat, etc., etc.  Many  Parrots were flocked together with the chickens and eating the corn and whatever else the chickens were eating.  Imagine chickens flocking with Sulphur Crested, Rose Breasted and other Cockatoos, as well as other small Parrots?

John is a bird fancier and he said, "I used to breed a lot of Parrots in cages just for the pleasure of it.  Now I don't have  to do anymore cage breeding; I watch the birds in my back yard.  As you can see, it is a beautiful sight."  I agreed with him 100%.  It was a wonderful sight. John also said, "That since sunflower has been introduced in Australia the population of the birds, despite the fact that farmers kill them by the thousands, the birds continue to multiply like rabbits.

John went on to say, "Our back yard birds depend on our feeding them sunflower.  Look at the plumage of those birds, nice and  shiny.  Sunflower seeds are very good for birds.  We have one particular Cockatoo that has been with us for the last 10 – 12 years.  This particular bird has a ring on his leg. He must be an escapee or perhaps someone turned him loose because they didn't want him anymore.  This bird actually talks and comes to eat out of my hand.  Maybe he will show up any minute. This bird, as well as the others, has been eating sunflower, at least in my back yard, for 10-12 years. Look at the healthy and shiny plumage on the bird. Also, look how many youngsters they bring here to the feeder." He pointed to a feeder where two adult Rose Breasteds with their two youngsters were feeding on sunflower seeds.   

Also, most of the birds in the wild habitat feed on insects and worms which are present in decaying trees.  Among other birds I  spotted a Red Tail Cockatoo spending at least 15-20 minutes on the stump of a decayed tree feeding on the worms inside it.

After spending four days in the Brisbane area I moved further north on the Gold Coast, to a small community not even shown on the  map.  I also saw there so many Cockatoos, Rosellas and other species of birds that would make any bird fancier think why couldn't I have any of those birds?   In that area I saw Sulphur Crested Cockatoos, Rose Breasted Cockatoos, in addition so many other birds feeding on the buds and seeds of the Eucalyptus tree. The ones I can identify were: Musk Lorikeet; Little Lorikeets, King Parrot; White Cheeked Rosella, plus many other varieties of birds that I could not identify.  One day, unexpectedly, a bird that looked like an American Robin showed up and came almost three feet away from my hands looking for a handout. I asked a local person, "What kind of bird is that?" He replied, "It is a Chestnut-breasted Cuckoo. The bird was mimicking coo, coo, coo.  It was funny. I also saw numerous Red-tailed Black Cockatoo and other Black Cockatoos that I could not figure out the species.  They were moving fast, faster than the eye could follow. 

The highlight of that day was when I was sitting with some other people in a small coffee shop on the outskirts of  a small settlement.  While sipping a cup of tea and munching on a biscuit, half a dozen Rainbow Lorikeets showed up.  I reached out my  hand with the biscuit in it and the Lorikeet landed on my hand and devoured the biscuit. Additional Lorikeets kept on coming.  I would say at least a couple dozens of Lorikeets showed up trying to get food from my hand. There was a garbage can with discarded food in it; many of these birds were perching on the edge of the garbage can.  On the bottom of the can was a discarded hot dog bun. It was full with like chili sauce. I picked it up and I held it in my hand. Literally dozens and dozens of Lorikeets tried to get a piece of the discarded bun.  After a while many people seeing that pleasant sight came closer so I shared the bun with some Japanese tourists, who took millions of pictures. The Lorikeets were either in full color adult or in juvenile plumage.  Beautiful feather conditions and full of vigor. What a colorful and pleasurable sight!

One day I went out of my way towards the central part of Australia looking for Budgerigars and Cockatiels, and other birds of course.  The situation there was desert like. In the vicinity there were cattle ranches. There was a man made water hole, obviously for the cows? Well at the water hole everything was coming there to drink.  That day was so hot; the temperature was over 100 degrees and dry.  I saw  Zebra Finches, Budgerigars, plus many other Finches I could not identify, plus an array of Parrots.  Again, Sulphur Crested, Rose Breasted, Corellas, etc., etc. Also some Bourke's Parrots.  I believe that I also saw a couple of Turquorise Parrots; however, I am not too sure.  After a full day in the middle of nowhere I moved on to Northern Australia,(York Penninsula) Darwin—a beautiful city only about 20 years old.  Many of you perhaps recall that Darwin was completely flattened by a typhoon, which means in the last 20 years they had to replant trees; rebuild every building; everything was destroyed by the typhoon. The city is very modern, clean and no graffiti!  You can't even find a cigarette butt in the street.

I went into the back country in search of the Gouldian Finch.  It was a very difficult task to spot any.  However, one day when I gave up hope of seeing anything, among several  tumbling weeds, I spotted a group of birds flying from one place to the other. I approached very cautiously without making any noise, with a camera in my hand, and my heart palpitating I noticed about a dozen or so Gouldians flocking together with Zebra Finches and other birds, feeding on the dry grasses (on the seeding of the dry grass and weeds?) When I got close enough to try to take a picture they split like lightning. I spent the whole day looking for nest sites, endangering myself and my assistant going through snake infested areas.  Unfortunately, I couldn't spot another Gouldian no matter how hard I tried. 

Gouldians are very elusive birds.  I estimate there are plenty of Gouldians in their wild habitat because I heard the calling of youngsters  begging for food from their parents. 

Gouldian Finches are among my preferred birds. I breed them by the dozens in my outdoor planted aviary. The inside of my aviary resembles the natural habitat of the York Penninsula in Northern Australia.

In addition to Parrots and well known Finches, I spotted so many others which appeared to be softbill song birds.  There was melodious bird songs coming out from the trees and bushes along with the natural noises of nature. Although stressful for me because of the tremendous amount of walking; the temperature was simply outrageously hot and uncomfortably humid; the sun would burn anybody's skin; it still was a pleasant and rewarding trip!  Was it? I have learned a lot more about birds, their habits, their nutritional requirements, and basically what the birds eat in their wild habitat, also I came to the conclusion that the majority of the birds in Australia and perhaps other parts of the world depend on handouts by the people, such as back yard feeders and domestic agricultural produce, such as sunflowers, corn, wheat, oats, etc.  All birds depend on what man has planted. As I said before, farmers shoot and kill with the permit of the government hundreds and hundreds of birds, perhaps thousands and thousands. I was told that one fruit farmer that produced pears, apricots, peaches, apples, couldn't even sell one kilo of fruit one year.  Everyone of the fruit on his large farm was pecked by either the Lorikeet or other nectar feeding birds.  This particular farmer shot and killed perhaps tens of thousands of birds—or so I was told. 

I noticed in a few of the fancier pet shops that a Sulphur Crested Cockatoo or a Rose Breasted Cockatoo would go for less than  $100.00.  In some of the lesser shops or aviaries I could have bought if I wished, many breeds of Parrots, including the Rose Breasted Cockatoo for less than $15.00 each or even less.

Budgerigars sold for $2.00 each.  European GoldFinches and GreenFinches with very bad plumage because of improper diet were selling from $2.00 up to $10.00 each.  The price was determined by the location, but if anyone tried to negotiate a price he would get it for less.  Guess what, ironically the seed was very expensive!

In some pet shops in fancy shopping malls I saw a kilo of canary mixture for $6.50 Australian dollars.  Also I saw one kilo of  sunflower (small grey) selling for $5.00 for 500 grams. Nestling food of a very inferior quality in one shop, resembling just ground up grains, selling for $3.50 for 500 grams. I saw an American made handfeeding formula l00 grams for $4.00.

In the next article I will describe my experience of sighting European birds which are plentiful in the countryside and in the  middle of the towns throughout New Zealand.