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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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