canberrabirds

Spoonbills at Kelly's

To: "COG List" <>, "martin butterfield" <>
Subject: Spoonbills at Kelly's
From: Julian Robinson <>
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:03:19 +1100
This afternoon (Wed) there was one spoonbill sleeping in the tree.  Then another flew in carrying a long and awkward stick.  It handed the stick to the now-awake bird, there was a bit of shilly-shally as they both had hold of it, then the stick dropped into the water.  Immediately the two birds started what might have been courting tai-chi - crests raised, waving of neck and head, mouth open yawn-like but held for more than a few seconds and a bit of beak-beak interaction.  Then this stopped and they resumed just sitting there and doing nothing in particular.   My interpretation was that stick carrying was related to courting and not nest building.

Julian


At 05:07 PM 29/10/2008, martin butterfield wrote:
As Anthony has replied positively about the Odd Ob I will try to keep an eye on the site until the deadline for CBN.  However that propbably means only another 3 or 4 visits.  Could I ask that any other observers who notice any development of the nest pass the message on to me for inclusion in the article.  I'd expect to attribute observations (unless asked not to do so).

Paul Fennell:  Are there any breeeding records for Royal Spoonbill in the COG General Record?

Martin

On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 9:40 PM, martin butterfield <> wrote:
Thanks to all for the responses.  I will put in an incidental "nest building" record.  Looking at the last ABR, Steve Wilson's book, and the 2nd Atlas it seems that breeding for the species is not usual for the area. 

Anthony: is this worth an Odd Ob summarising the comments for the benefit of those not on this chatline.

Martin


On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 8:47 PM, Alastair Smith < > wrote:

Martin et al,

Geoff Duggan and I saw a spoonbill carrying a branch to the tree in the middle of the pond on Sunday afternoon.

Cheers

Alastair

 

From: martin butterfield
Sent: Tuesday, 28 October 2008 6:27 PM
To: COG List
Subject: [canberrabirds] Spoonbills at Kelly's

 

This afternoon two Royal Spoonbills were perched in the tree on the small island in front of Cygnus hide.  They appeared to be quite friendly - for a while I thought a CO record was in the offing.  However the bird on the right in the attached image appeared to be on a defoliation mission WRT the tree, stacking its booty around its feet.  I got the distinct impression it was building a nest but couldn't get a good enough view to confirm this.  Other observers might like to keep an eye on this.

Martin


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