canberrabirds

Feathering (or barking) the nest

To: "chat line" <>
Subject: Feathering (or barking) the nest
From: "John Layton" <>
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 15:22:15 +1100
At Campbell Park on Sunday morning we saw a male Spotted Pardalote on the ground vigorously gathering what, at first, we thought were fragments of dry grass. Inspection through the binoculars showed it was picking up tiny shreds of dry bark that had peeled from a small piece of broken tree limb. Its white-spotted, black head and wings and orange (tangerine!?) rump positively glowed as it swiveled about in the sunlit grass.
 
It flew off after about two minutes, and we turned to admire some flowering Common Fringe Lillies. It seems a bit incongruous that the name of this exquisite little wildflower is saddled with the word "common", but perhaps we should be grateful they're fairly common in some areas of our grassy woodlands.
 
After no more than a minute we glanced towards the bark source again and saw it was attended by a Grey Fantail. When it left, we inspected the bark briefly and found it was dry but soft and resilient, seemingly just the stuff for lining nests and nest chambers. It would have been nice to sit for an hour to see what other nesting denizens of CP helped themselves to the bark.
 
I guess this little episode emphasises how important fallen limbs, bark etc are to the woodlanders.
 
John K. Layton
 
 
 
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