MFF with a difference - Tallagandra Lanem Sutton

["Philip Veerman" <>]

A huge task was done to scan in all Emus and I think it is complete so yes they are available on computer. Pity I have every one from 1969 to 2009 taking up a whole shelf..............

 

I note that Red-browed Finches particularly like joining in with Superb Fairy-wrens.

 

Philip

 

-----Original Message-----
From: martin butterfield [
Sent: Sunday, 22 May 2011 6:02 PM
To: Geoffrey Dabb
Cc: Jack & Andrea Holland;
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] MFF with a difference - Tallagandra Lanem Sutton

Geoffrey

Is Emu available to mortals - ie
those who are

• not  Raptured; nor
• members of BA

on line?

Martin

On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 5:05 PM, Geoffrey Dabb <> wrote:

Jack  -   A quick word search of the CBNs on the COG website brings to light an article by Kenneth Er 1980 20:4 on counting terrestrial birds.  In this he refers to 2 articles by Harry Bell  -  ‘’Effects of powerline clearing on birds’’  Corella 4  8:19  and ‘’Composition and seasonality of mixed-species flocks of insectivorous birds in the ACT’’  Emu 80  227-232.

 

I regard the Wt Treecreeper as a fairly regular participant in Winter flocks eg at Callum Brae.

 

I would be inclined myself not to limit the discussion to ‘’insectivorous’’.  Red-browed finches frequently join in  -  where there is appropriate habitat and food, of course.  Perhaps because they are a naturally flocking species unlike the WTC and GST.   

---

Date: Sat, 21 May 2011 17:51:56 +1000
From:
To: m("iinet.net.au","gdabb");" target=_blank>
CC:
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] MFF with a difference - Tallagandra Lanem Sutton

Geoffrey

According to the version I have accessed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-species_foraging_flock was last updated on 29 April 2011 so it is possibly not that out of date.  Its content is however very dense and I couldn't really make much sense of it.  This may be because I am averse to terms such as "Nine-primaried oscines" or possibly because it seemed to be heavily focussed on the tropics.

I wonder whether what we term "mixed feeding flocks " are not more like (quoting from that Wikipedia article)  " feeding aggregations, which are congregations of several species of bird at areas of locally high food availability."  Googling the "feeding aggregations" term gave little of relevance to this discussion. 

I googled ‘’Mixed-species foraging flock’’ and the most commonly cited "scholarly" article was  http://www.jstor.org/pss/1942443 from 1969.  As with most scholarly articles it is not available to mortals outside the gleaming halls of academe (unless one pays an exorbitant fee) but hopefully the abstract will give the idea.

Martin