Thanks Scot, I'm following the contingent narrative theory of causal
explanation to try and begin to engage with post-storm ecological
transformation and raise some questions at the very least about potential
short and long term implications for bird life!
So ... I reckon the different behaviour I'm observing in the Noisy Miners
might just as usefully be conceptualised as "re-calibration" of group and
territorial dynamics. Now of course such processes are predictably
ongoing - under more everyday situations perhaps barely noticeable from a
human observer's perspective - but after significant broadscale ecological
events/incidents re-calibration practices (e.g. "suspension of
territorialism") are thrown sharply into view (and not just for human's
doing the looking: I imagine Goshawks must be finding it all too easy to
score a tasty, sweet Miner dislodged from the usual tight band formation).
It's just a theory.
cheers
Craig
>
> You said that number of the noisy miners dropped from 20 to 6? So
> maybe food competition is not such a threat anymore but reproductive
> predation and predation in general is. Hence they've stopped
> harrassing their food competitors (other honeyeaters) and started
> even on their resident predators sespecially those ones (such as
> Butcherbirds) which will kill the young ones that the group will
> inevitably need to produce in good numbers this spring. How that
> explains the Goshawk, I don't know ... maybe they don't feel they
> have the numbers anymore.
>
> scot
>
>
> On 21/06/2007, at 1:24 AM, wrote:
>
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