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Noisy Pitta prey item

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Subject: Noisy Pitta prey item
From: Paul Burcher <>
Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 09:16:07 +1100
Hi Tom et al

The head looks like a young sugar glider or feathertail though I can't see any gliding membrane. You'd think a ground mammal like an Antechinus would be a more likely prey item for a Pitta but still unusual as they'd put up a great fight unlike snails. I don't think it's a Tapir - well outside their distribution.

Paul
On 4/01/2012 2:33 PM, Chris Corben wrote:
Hi all

Sure doesn't look like a snail!

I think I can see a head and a rather dislocated-looking arm to the left of the Pitta's bill. If so, I am not seeing a bat (no membranes, no long fingers). I would expect a Feathertail Glider to look more cold grey above and very white below (though maybe below is invisible).

There seem to be lots of bits missing, and those visible seem to be represented in far too few pixels! But it looks like a small mammal, or part thereof to me.

For what it's worth, what I think I can see is head, maybe a couple of ears and one forelimb left of the bill, and bits of another limb out to the right of the bill. At first, the stuff on the right side looked like a baby Tapir, or maybe a cross between Tapir and Aardvark, but now I see that one Tapir's ear is part of the Pitta's bill, and the other is a gap through which you can see the background. So forget the Tapir!

A fair bit of imagination required, I think! Nice pictures, though!

Cheers, Chris.


On 01/03/2012 06:30 PM, Tom Tarrant wrote:
Recently whilst observing a Noisy Pitta nest at Mount Glorious SE Qld we
photographed one of the parents carrying a large prey-item, which may be a small bat-species (possibly a baby?......Chris Corben are you out there?)
I've uploaded some rather poor pics onto Picasa at
http://picasaweb.google.com/110205168839616870680/MtGloriousNoisyPitta?authkey=Gv1sRgCJHt0-vl1Ke1pQE
They were taken with a Canon EOS7D with an extreme ISO setting (6400) to
avoid using a flash.
For obvious reasons I won't give any precise locations of the nest at the moment as the young are currently about to fledge, but I would welcome any
comments regarding the prey item.

Tom

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