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Charmain,
Interesting ideas. If I can offer a link...... I suggest the
relevance of a cuckoo about, and if there is any connection at all, is that
it would a baby cuckoo in the nest (which maybe you can't see into) to have
turfed out the Magpie-lark chicks. Parasitic cuckoos do this. If so it would be
most likely a Koel chick. There is no particular reason why you would have seen
an adult cuckoo around some weeks earlier laying in the nest. I am not saying it
is. It is just something that links the possibilities. Just as likely (or more
likely) due to not skilled parents or a predator that took the chicks and
got disturbed in the process........
Philip Veerman
24 Castley Circuit
Kambah ACT 2902
02 - 62314041
Hi
there
A while ago I
emailed about the failure of the rubber red bellied black snake to keep the
peewits (mudlarks) off my rear vision mirror. The peewits make an awful
mess of the car in a very short time, and I get sick of cleaning it
off.
So the other day I
thought I would try the cable ties used by cyclists on their helmets, to deter
swooping magpies.
Well, they work.
They are easily tightened round the mirror with bits sticking up, can just be
slipped off the mirror before I drive off, and they don't hurt the birds. Success!!
On a sad note, this
morning I found two little dead chicks below the peewit nest in the gum tree in
the front yard. An adult seems to be still on the nest. The chicks are very
small (one much smaller than the other). Can anybody suggest what might have
happened to the poor little things? Tony wondered if there is a cuckoo about but
I haven't seen one. I have seen a noisy friar bird in the tree not far from the
nest but I don't suppose it has had anything to do with their
deaths?
These peewits really
don't have such a lot of failures - it's sad.
Charmian
Lawson
Holder
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