Like many sensible birds, they come to sunny Queensland for the winter
- and give the micky miners a run for their money round the banksia
flowers.
Regards, Laurie.
On Friday, April 20, 2007, at 02:40 PM, Philip Veerman wrote:
Message below asks: Are Noisy Friarbirds known to migrate? Is anyone
interested in the timing of such a thing?
Yes to both. Absolutely they migrate. Although the "New Atlas" doesn't
obviously show that. This is what my book "Canberra Birds: A Report on
the first 21 years of the Garden Bird Survey" says about them.
Relevant bits highlighted in bold. (Is bold permitted to go through
the filters?). Though this is just based on Canberra.
Noisy Friarbird Philemon corniculatus
In its conspicuous size and aggressive dominance of the honeyeater
community this species is the only rival of the Red Wattlebird and
when present the two species display considerable mutual aggression.
However the abundance patterns of the two species are totally
different. This species is very consistent each year in showing the
typical double peak of common summer migrants. If there is a reason
why this species migrates, it may relate to the bald head of this
species and the cold Canberra winter. There are very few between May
and August, in some years there are none. Numbers rise rapidly in
September to peak in October, then they dip in November and December
as many birds go into nearby woodland to breed. January to March has a
second peak before the birds almost all depart during April. Abundance
was high in Year 1, especially high in Year 2 as with many summer
migrants but has declined smoothly since then to a low in Year 13,
then increased slightly again with another small peak in Year 19. It
may relate to changing conditions in northern Australia or the impact
of the increasing population locally of the Red Wattlebird.
This species has the most breeding records by far of any summer
migrant. Breeding frequency was low only in Year 2 (because of
drought) and Years 10 to 14. Their nest can be conspicuous and this
species can be aggressive, even attacking people, in defence of their
nest. Dependent young are conspicuous by their calling. Activities at
nest commence soon after arrival with some nest building as early as
third week of September but most start later. There are a few
dependent young from the end of October. The majority of records are
of activities at nest before December and dependent young from early
January until late February with just a few in late March.
Graphs on page: 98, Rank: 12, Breeding Rank: 7, Breeding graph on
page: 106, A = 0.97264, F = 94.15%, W = 44.2, R = 39.240%, G = 2.48.
Philip
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