Richard Lewer: The Birds

With so much going on in the world, it's easy to lose sight of what's happening in our own backyards. Richard Lewer’s bird studies highlight a selection of threatened, vulnerable and endangered birds from Australia and New Zealand. Despite their precarious existence, there is something reassuring about Lewer's paintings — somehow, his subjects seem determined to carry on with their dayto-day lives in spite of everything going on around them.

Richard Lewer Helmeted honeyeater, 2020 acrylic on steel 38.5 x 48.5 cm, AUD $5,500

The helmeted honeyeater (Lichenostomus melanops cassidix) is a passerine bird in the honeyeater family. It is a distinctive and critically endangered subspecies of the yellow-tufted honeyeater, that exists in the wild only as a tiny relict population in the Australian state of Victoria, in the Yellingbo Nature Conservation Reserve. It is Victoria's only endemic bird, and was adopted as one of the state's official symbols.

Richard Lewer Yellow-tailed black cockatoo, 2020 acrylic on steel 22.5 x 30.5 cm, AUD $3,300

The yellow-tailed black cockatoo (Zanda funerea) is a large cockatoo native to the south-east of Australia measuring 55–65 cm (22–26 in) in length. It has a short crest on the top of its head. Its plumage is mostly brownish black and it has prominent yellow cheek patches and a yellow tail band. The body feathers are edged with yellow giving a scalloped appearance. The adult male has a black beak and pinkish-red eye-rings, and the female has a bone-coloured beak and grey eye-rings. In flight, yellow-tailed black cockatoos flap deeply and slowly, with a peculiar heavy fluid motion. Their loud, wailing calls carry for long distances.

The yellow-tailed black cockatoo is found in forested regions from south and central eastern Queensland to southeastern South Australia including a very small population persisting in the Eyre Peninsula. Two subspecies are recognised, although Tasmanian and southern mainland populations of the southern subspecies xanthanotus may be distinct enough from each other to bring the total to three. Birds of subspecies funereus (Queensland to eastern Victoria) have longer wings and tails and darker plumage overall, while those of xanthanotus (western Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania) have more prominent scalloping.

Unlike other cockatoos, a large proportion of the yellow-tailed black cockatoo's diet is made up of wood-boring grubs; they also eat seeds. They nest in hollows high in trees with fairly large diameters, generally Eucalyptus. Although they remain common throughout much of their range, fragmentation of habitat and loss of large trees suitable for nesting has caused population decline in Victoria and South Australia. In some places yellow-tailed black cockatoos appear to have partially adapted to recent human alteration of landscape and they can often be seen in parts of urban Canberra, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne. The species is not commonly seen in aviculture, especially outside Australia. Like most parrots, it is protected by CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention), an international agreement that makes trade, export, and import of listed wild-caught species illegal.

Richard Lewer Masked owl, 2020 acrylic on steel 38.5 x 48.5 cm AUD $5,500

The Australian masked owl (Tyto novaehollandiae) is a barn owl of Southern New Guinea and the non-desert areas of Australia. They breed when conditions are favorable which can be any time of the year. The nest is usually built in hollow trees with soil, mulch or sand. Some populations are known to use caves or rock crevices for nesting and roosting. The female lays two or three eggs and incubates them while the male hunts for food. The young are white or off white when they first develop feathers. They can leave the nest at two to three months of age but return to be fed by the parents for another month before going on their own.

Richard Lewer Grey Grasswren, 2020 acrylic on steel 22.5 x 30.5 cm AUD $3,300

The grey grasswren (Amytornis barbatus) is a passerine bird in the Australasian wren family, Maluridae. It is found on arid inland floodplains of Australia where it is endemic. The grey grasswren is a rarely seen elusive bird that was first sighted in 1921 but not taxonomically described until 1968. Its greyish coloration and very long tail distinguish it from all other grasswrens. While some recent research has been conducted, there still remain many gaps in the knowledge about the ecology of this cryptic bird.