Brolga is a large,
beautiful
Australian grassland bird.
Famous for their spectacular courtship dancing, brolgas (Grus
rubicunda)
are
impressively large birds like jabirus.
Even though the two are not
related - the first is a stork and the second belongs to the crane
family.
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Large Wetlands Birds
One of the largest Australian birds, they are up to 140cm tall grey
birds with red head and neck. They are mainly found in wetlands in
northern Australia but they also inhabit grasslands in the inland Queensland,
Victoria
and New
South Wales, where they can be seen walking
slowly with head down, picking up seeds, shoots and insects.
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Life-long Pair Bonds
They live in life-long pair bonds and are often seen in pairs, but can
form large flocks of up to 12,000 birds in wetlands during the dry
season. In the wetlands, their nests are often mounds of
vegetation, but on the arid land sometimes no more than a few
sticks and grass. Female lays two eggs in November and both sexes
incubate the eggs. They perform a broken-wing display when a
predator is approaching the nest. Chicks can leave the nest only a few
days after hatching, but remain hidden from predators in the vegetation
for a while.
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Beautiful Courtship Dance
They are known for their
courtship dances, it is really quite a performance with two large
graceful birds dancing on the open plains. They shake their wings, bow
their heads and throw grass in the air, then step forward and back,
leap into the air and float back to the ground. Because dancing
maintains the
pair bond, you can see it at any time of the year, but more
often during the breeding season.
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Good Places to See Brolgas
They are not rare to see anywhere around wetlands and on the open
grasslands. Some good places to see them include Lakefield National
Park, Atherton
Tablelands and Townsville Common in north
Queensland, and Mary River National Park in the Northern
Territory.
Note:
This site uses
British English, which is the English we use in Australia. You will
find words like "traveller", "harbour" and "realise", and they are all
correct in the language used in Australia.
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