SP behaviour: a detail

["Geoffrey Dabb" <>]

While scrolling through some SP video, I chose 3 frames, only video quality 
of course, that indicate what these birds are doing when they seem to be 
nibbling among the gumleaves.  There are 2 basic methods of lerp-removal. 
One involves picking the lerp off the face of the leaf, with the aid of the 
tongue.  The other involves holding the leaf between mandibles and removing 
the lerp from the lower mandible side with the aid of the tongue. As appears 
from these frames, the lerps are quite small.  When the bird has positioned 
itself where lerps are thick, several lerps can be removed in a few seconds. 
The method becomes less efficient as the birds work over leaves from which 
lerps have already been removed, and when the return does not repay the 
effort I suppose they move on to new lerpfields.

               Geoffrey Dabb
email    :   
ph/fax   :   02 6295 3449

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