At the spot near Sutton where Mark was monitoring the Regent
Honeyeater family I was surprised to find numbers of Little Lorikeets, a few
Black Honeyeaters, and several nesting White-browed Woodswallows. This is
exactly the assemblage that had turned up at Mulligans Flat. The two
locations are less than 10 kms apart, so the possibilities range from these
being but 2 of several nearby woodland locations being used by different
individuals of the same 3 species to the Mulligans Flat birds having moved to
Sutton.
Surely the 3 species are not at the same place for the same
reason, except in the general sense that they need food. The WB
Woodswallow occurs in large numbers a 100km or so to the west of Canberra, usually nesting
in loose colonies at this time of year. Every few years in Spring these
arrive in numbers around Canberra,
apparently pursuing emergences of large insects (grasshoppers, cicadas,
beetles). Recently we seem to have had a few of them each year,
presumably because food is scarce further west. However with locust and
other heavy insect emergences in the riverina in recent years they might well,
I think from my observations, have had some good breeding seasons and the
consequent overflow could be pushing further east. (Some hold a similar
theory for the Superb Parrot influx.)
The Black Honeyeater is a notorious blossom-chasing
wanderer, and is much rarer in this locality. Perhaps its preferred flowering
shrubs, needing short but heavy rain, have failed in its usual haunts further
west.
On the other hand, the Little Lorikeet, as I understand it,
is not so much a seasonal traveler but an opportunistic follower of the
flowering eucalypts along and on the coastal side of the dividing range. No
doubt the present dense eucalypt-flowering has attracted it. If it is the
drought that has prompted the flush of blossom, the presence of the 3 species
could all be related to the dry spell, but in different ways.
