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Hi All,
Last year or earlier, Ian
Fraser and others commented on cog-list about the Diamond Firetail
sometimes using flowers in the entrance of their nests. It is a rather curious
thing. Well this abstract from the next Emu is of relevance (in case
you are interested). This was posted via their "early alert" service and I have
simply copied it from there. The work cited here has nothing to do with me
(although I too have seen this behaviour). I hope this is not a
problem.
Philip
Nesting success and apparent nest-adornment in Diamond Firetails
(Stagonopleura guttata)
Angela
McGuire A and Sonia
Kleindorfer A , B
A
School of Biological Sciences, Flinders University, Bedford Park,
SA 5042, Australia.
B Corresponding author. Email:
m("flinders.edu.au","sonia.kleindorfer");">
Abstract
The nesting biology of Australia?s endemic Diamond Firetail (Stagonopleura
guttata) is poorly known. However, Diamond Firetails are known to weave
flowers into the entrance of their nests sometimes, although the function of
this behaviour is not known. This study used field and aviary data to address
the following questions: (1) What proportion of nests in the wild have flowers
woven into the nest-entrance? (2) Are nests with flowers more successful than
nests without flowers? (3) Does the vegetation of the nest-site predict nesting
outcome? (4) How often do wild birds reuse nests across years for breeding? (5)
Do birds have a preference for stem-length or presence of flowers when selecting
nesting material in aviaries? The field data showed that 70% of nests had
flowers woven into the entrances, but with significant annual variation in the
number of flowers at nest-entrances, with > 30 flowers per nest in 2004 and
< 10 flowers per nest in 2005. Most (96%) natural nests were depredated (100%
in 2004, and 91% in 2005), and we could not examine the role of vegetation of
the nest-site in determining predation outcome. Using artificial nests with and
without flowers we found no effect of the presence or absence of flowers on
predation outcome, which suggests that flowers do not increase the
conspicuousness of the nest for predators. However, there was an effect of nest
concealment. Nests more exposed on the sides and below were depredated more than
nests with greater concealment. Aviary data showed Diamond Firetails had a clear
preference for longer stems over shorter stems for nest-building, irrespective
of the presence of flowers. We conclude that the flowers observed at nests were
a by-product of the preference for stem-length for nest-building. This finding
helps to explain the inconsistency among anecdotal studies reporting the
presence of flowers at nests of Diamond Firetails across Australia.
Emu 107(1) 44?51
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