I have for the first time seen YTBCs from my townhouse in
Weetangera. Three birds (one a
dependent young) have twice visited the almost-dead E. nicholii just outside my
fence, tearing off bark from the smaller branches, so we can assume they were
looking for borers and that that was the cause of the tree’s demise. (It’s
not likely to be the drought). So the
birds must ‘know’ that borers kill trees and come down to
investigate, because I haven’t previously even heard their calls in the
20 years I’ve lived here. The
young bird was making quite a din and was fed once while in the tree.
Phyl Goddard
