What kind of bird was this unfortunate creature which was killed by my cat? Green/olive feathers with a white/black spotted breast.

July 3, 2009 4:44 AM

My cat killed a bird which I was unable to identify and I'm wondering what it was. It had a greenish/olivish tinge to its feathers but its breast and underside was white with black spots. Its beak was similar to a doves.

This poor bird somehow managed to find its way onto my balcony at night so my initial thought was that it was a nocturnal bird that somehow got lost, but it didn't really look anything like what I've always imagined night birds to look like (my knowledge of such is Extremely Limited) so I'm thinking that perhaps it wasn't a night bird, it was a day bird of some kind which just, very unluckily, fell out of its night time perch and ended up on my balcony where my incredibly quick cat decided to leap upon it and kill before I had a chance to do anything! I'm in Ipswich, Queensland, Australia. I've done a quick google search for birds but alas, my google searching skills are pathetic and I wasn't able to narrow my search down far enough to get any meaningful results. If anyone could help, it would be appreciated.

posted by h00py to pets & animals (5 comments total)

Perhaps a noisy miner?
posted by b33j at 5:01 AM on July 3

Or an olive-backed oriole

Both of these birds are likely to be in Ipswich, though I've not identified the oriole here.
posted by b33j at 5:09 AM on July 3

And then there's a shining bronze-cuckoo.

There's a really excellent website for identifying Australian birds, but it's currently down at the moment. I'm using Pizzey & Knight's book, The Field Guide to the Birds of Australia.
posted by b33j at 5:19 AM on July 3

Yellow around the beak?
posted by mattoxic at 5:55 AM on July 3

The olive-backed oriole looks like the one that met its unfortunate demise at my house. Thanks, b33j.
posted by h00py at 7:14 AM on July 3