A most informative graphic, thank you Julian. I've
not been to Corroboree Park and must pay a visit. It seems to be a major
centre of activity. I wonder if I shall not see more birdwatchers than
actual corroboree participants?
On the question of neighbours, the below
barely-decipherable offering is an attempt to superimpose the dollarbird map
from HBW on the (now-dated) Common Myna distribution in John Long's 'Introduced
Birds of the World'. The exercise faces the difficulty that different
projections are used which changes both the shape of the land masses and their
relationship to one another. If you can work it out, it shows that in the
breeding season the DB does indeed overlap introduced pockets of the resident detested
myna in Australia. However the birds know one another from elsewhere.
In parts of SE Asia and southern India the 2 are residents side by
side. There is an area in southern China where resident mynas are invaded
by dollarbirds on their summer expeditions northwards.
Incidentally, this is an example of a species with a
significantly non-Australian distribution which now bears an Australian-origin
standard name. According to Gould (who called it ‘Australian Roller’) it
was a ‘Dollar Bird’ to the ‘Colonists’. The other example I can think of
is ‘Swamphen’.
-----Original Message-----
From: Julian Robinson [
Sent: Sunday, 3 January 2010 12:35 AM
To: canberrabirds chatline
Subject: Bad neighbours, Corroboree Park
I thought a picture of the nesting Dollarbirds in
Corroboree Park was posted recently, but can't find it. The Dollarbirds
have been nesting for at least two weeks and I went to check them out again
today. The neighbours are a bit sad, not Noisy but Common. The left
nest was in the adjacent tree to the Dollarbirds, and the other one is 20-30m
away. Maybe CIMAG should do some more selling in the area, or is it one
of the control areas in current Myna studies?
Incidentally a SC Cockatoo was trimming a strip of bark
from in front of a hollow on the recently lopped tree there. Hopefully the tree
will be hosting nests again sooner than some of us thought. Maybe it was the
hollow previously used by the Gang-gangs.
Julian
