From spangled drongos to the gang-gang cockatoo: how well do you know Australian birds?

What’s the difference between a barking owl and a buff-breasted paradise kingfisher? The answer may surprise you. Composite: Guardian Design/alamy/getty

Since the last Bird of the Year vote in 2019, you may have become familiar with the birds of your neighbourhood in ways you never dreamed possible. With the rest of the world off limits, and the worlds we find ourselves in far quieter than we’ve ever known, many an ardent ornithophobe has had the feathers fall from their eyes and converted to the ways of the bird nerd.

But how much have you learned about the incredible feathered neighbours that we share the continent with? Can you tell a raven from a crow? Can you pronounce zitting cisticola without it sounding like a painful medical condition? Are you able to contain the smirk when you hear about a pair of brown boobies?

Sean Dooley puts your bird-nerd chops through their paces in this quiz that will sort the wheatear from the chaffinch. (Bonus points for those who realise the two birds in that last pun are not native to Australia.)

1. Which Australian bird makes a drumstick to bang out a rhythm to attract a mate?

   1. Superb Lyrebird

   2. Australian Raven

   3. Palm Cockatoo

   4. Magnificent Riflebird

2. Which bird was known for much of the nineteenth century as the Warty-faced Honeyeater?

   1. Regent Honeyeater

   2. Noisy Friarbird

   3. Yellow Wattlebird

   4. Fuscous Honeyeater

3. What is the only Australian cuckoo to build its own nest?

   1. Pallid Cuckoo

   2. Channel-billed Cuckoo

   3. Eastern Koel

   4. Pheasant Coucal

4. What bird did Sonny from the 1960s TV series “Skippy the Bush Kangaroo” imitate in the opening credits by playing a gumleaf?

   1. Golden Whistler

   2. Spotted Catbird

   3. Eastern Whipbird

   4. Spangled Drongo

5. Which of these western birds also naturally occurs in eastern Australia?

   1. Western Whipbird

   2. Western Gerygone

   3. Western Spinebill

   4. Western Bristlebird

6. Which bird had the greatest amount of its habitat burnt in the 2019/20 bushfires?

   1. Kangaroo Island Southern Emu-wren

   2. Northern Rufous Scrub-bird

   3. Central Superb Lyrebird

   4. Gang-gang Cockatoo

7. Which of these Australian birds are the largest member of their family worldwide?

   1. Powerful Owl

   2. Wedge-tailed Eagle

   3. Laughing Kookaburra

   4. Australian Pelican

8. The word “Jabiru” is an indigenous name for a stork from which country?

   1. Brazil

   2. Bangladesh

   3. Indonesia

   4. Australia

9. Which of these birds does not typically nest in a tree hollow?

   1. Barking Owl

   2. Buff-breasted Paradise-Kingfisher

   3. Brown Treecreeper

   4. Gouldian Finch

10. Which was the most recent of these Australian birds to be ‘discovered’ and recognised by western science?

    1. Hall’s Babbler

    2. Eyrean Grasswren

    3. Buff-breasted Button-quail

    4. Eungella Honeyeater

Solutions

1:C - Male Palm Cockatoos on Cape York drum their stick against a hollow tree in order to attract a mate., 2:A - Perhaps if it had a more pleasant-sounding name to begin with, this rare woodland bird wouldn’t be on the edge of extinction., 3:D - This dinosaur-like bird scurries through the dense undergrowth to feed its chicks in a domed nest hidden usually on the ground., 4:C - What’s that, Skip? The whipcrack call of an Eastern Whipbird is actually produced by a pair of whipbirds in what is known as antiphonal singing? Aww, gee!, 5:B - The plain looking but sweet-voiced Western Gerygone has three distinct populations, one in Western Australia, one in Central Australia and the other in the drier parts of Eastern Australia., 6:A - These tiny, poor-flying wrens were burnt out of 68% of their heathland habitat on Kangaroo Island. , 7:C - While the Giant Kingfisher of Africa is sometimes greater in length, there is no kingfisher in the world that outweighs a Laughing Kookaburra., 8:A - Contrary to what many Australians believe, the original Jabiru is a South American stork whose name derives from the Tupi-Guarani language of Brazil. , 9:B - The Buff-breasted Paradise-Kingfisher usually nests in a termite mound on the rainforest floor, creating a hole by repeatedly flying at the mound and bashing it with its bill. , 10:D - A bird of the dense rainforests west of Mackay, the Eungella Honeyeater wasn’t first officially described until 1983.

Scores

1. 10 and above.

   You must be pretty choughed with yourself. For not only are you smug in the knowledge that this is the correct spelling of a member of the crow family called the Red-billed Chough, which was mentioned by Shakespeare in King Lear, but that it is unrelated to the Australian White-winged Chough, which is in a completely different family. Exactly where you’ll end up if you insist on dropping these ornithological tidbits at family gatherings.

2. 9 and above.

   You must be pretty choughed with yourself. For not only are you smug in the knowledge that this is the correct spelling of a member of the crow family called the Red-billed Chough, which was mentioned by Shakespeare in King Lear, but that it is unrelated to the Australian White-winged Chough, which is in a completely different family. Exactly where you’ll end up if you insist on dropping these ornithological tidbits at family gatherings.

3. 8 and above.

   Getting a bit cocky now, aren’t you? Sure you may know that a shrike-thrush is neither a shrike nor a thrush, but would you know the bird formerly known as Little Shrike-thrush has now been split into seven different species?

4. 7 and above.

   Getting a bit cocky now, aren’t you? Sure you may know that a shrike-thrush is neither a shrike nor a thrush, but would you know the bird formerly known as Little Shrike-thrush has now been split into seven different species?

5. 6 and above.

   Getting a bit cocky now, aren’t you? Sure you may know that a shrike-thrush is neither a shrike nor a thrush, but would you know the bird formerly known as Little Shrike-thrush has now been split into seven different species?

6. 5 and above.

   You’re not a total Galah and you may know what to do to avoid a magpie swooping you, but heaven help us if you’re on a plane when a goose flies into the cockpit, knocking the pilot unconscious prompting the cabin steward to run in asking, “Is there an ornithologist on board?”

7. 4 and above.

   You’re not a total Galah and you may know what to do to avoid a magpie swooping you, but heaven help us if you’re on a plane when a goose flies into the cockpit, knocking the pilot unconscious prompting the cabin steward to run in asking, “Is there an ornithologist on board?”

8. 3 and above.

   You drongo. Outside of a chicken shop you may struggle to recognise anything more than the bin chicken staring longingly at your chicken burger.

9. 2 and above.

   You drongo. Outside of a chicken shop you may struggle to recognise anything more than the bin chicken staring longingly at your chicken burger.

10. 1 and above.

    You drongo. Outside of a chicken shop you may struggle to recognise anything more than the bin chicken staring longingly at your chicken burger.

11. 0 and above.

    You drongo. Outside of a chicken shop you may struggle to recognise anything more than the bin chicken staring longingly at your chicken burger.