I am hoping the brains trust out there will help us to answer this. A friend
has been observing Eastern Spinebills in her garden in the lower Blue Mountains
for many years. She posed these question about their nesting habits:
> My observations on eastern spinebills’ nest-feathering has prompted me to ask
> more questions around “which came first :- the feather or the egg?”. When we
> first moved to the mountains in the early 1960’s, Sulphur-crested cockatoos
> were not seen regularly, & certainly not in the large flocks of today.
>
>
>
> the Spinebill nest in our front hedge a few summers ago was completely lined
> with feathers, & more than 90 % of them were white. so I wonder if
> previously the Spinebills may have used other white birds’ feathers (like
> chooks??), or used a different coloured feather for the main nest-lining &
> side-walls. I also wonder if the abundance of available white feathers these
> days has stimulated successful nesting behaviour in Spinebills, & also of
> course if in areas where large white feathers are not available, the
> Spinebills breed at the same rate as the white-feather-nest-liners. Or if
> the whole white-feather-lining is just a localised behaviour, or just
> happened in our front yard once... it would be very interesting to hear any
> other observations, please.
>
>
>
Julie Neumann
0247393063preferred. 0429130679
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