Interesting discussion. How do they
deal with this issue in other jurisdictions, eg, UK, does anyone
know?
From:
Philip Veerman [
Sent: Tuesday, 31 January 2012
6:19 PM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] Koels
breeding in GBS sites
All sounds fine to me. About the aspect of
survival of the the species, sure I go along with that but there is the aspect
of what we perceive as important and whose survival are we interested to
monitor. A cuckoo's breeding survival is the host's non-breeding survival.
Martin's preference for data is entirely valid in the situation that one more
or less Red Wattlebird nesting, hardly matters, in terms of GBS records but
Koel breeding records are more interesting.
However, take it the other way (and it
could almost have been a GBS record). Some few years ago when we had the
nesting colony of Regent Honeyeaters on the northern edge of Canberra suburbs
and found one nest to have been successfully parasitized by a Pallid Cuckoo (I
think Jenny Bounds had that history covered). Yes that is an aspect of about
survival of the species for the Pallid Cuckoo but equally and
arguably more important to us, due to concern over its status, was the (in
this case non helpful to the survival of the species) for the failed
nesting of the Regent Honeyeaters. So I wouldn't like us to miss the
information on the Regent Honeyeater. Also with the postulation I have
that in such a case the Pallid Cuckoo raised by them may grow up to prefer to
parasitize another Regent Honeyeater nest and create ongoing impact there. (No
direct evidence for this, just a strong suspicion.)
For what it is worth, I had assumed that,
like the King Parrot for which all breeding records are dy, I expect that other
cuckoo breeding records are of nests (far) outside GBS areas and young
have followed the parents into GBS areas. This is clearly not so much the case
for Koels & Wattlebirds.
-----Original
Message-----
From: martin butterfield
[
Sent: Tuesday, 31 January 2012
5:43 PM
To: Philip Veerman
Cc:
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] Koels
breeding in GBS sites
My philosophy is that
breeding is primarily about survival of the the species. From that view
the DY of a Koel being fed by a Red Wattlebird is certainly about the Koel and
not the Wattlebird.
Terry's situation, if his very reasonable assumption is carried through, will
be the first in-nest record of a cuckoo. There have been some records of
'preliminaries' (Display and Copulation) but none of "Nest with eggs"
or "nest with young".
In terms of logic there must be a time at which the nest contains eggs and
young of both species, but without great luck (or a cherry-picker) it
will only be possible to infer, rather than observe that. Having had the
application to identify what is going on there may be a chance that Terry will
observe the Koel chick in the nest. In that case I believe it should be
recorded against the species of the chick not the parents.
However the parents could quite reasonably be recorded as Carrying food for the
young cuckoo - indeed if the nest was outside Terry's GBS site he may well have
recorded the parents carrying food within his site. A similar situation
arose on the Kama Wednesday Walk where we saw a Superb Fairy-wren feeding a
Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo (out of nest).
At the risk of causing confusion I wonder whether there might not be a need for
an additional breeding code. I'd suggest CU for feeding CUckoo attached
to the Parent bird (whether the feeding is in or out of nest). This could
be easily linked to the DY or NY records for the cuckoos in the same site and
week.
Analysts could then do as they wish to infer when the Koel eggs were laid etc.
Martin
On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 5:09 PM, Philip Veerman <> wrote:
And indeed a dy for the host species too?
Although maybe we should clarify that. I point out the situation is
new. At the time I wrote The GBS Report, there had never been an in nest
observation of any species of cuckoo for the history of the GBS. Only dy
observations. So I did not discuss the problem in The GBS Report. As Koels
(unlike other cuckoos) are common in suburban Canberra and rare outside the city environs,
the breeding is occurring in nests in GBS areas. In Terry's note below (and
similar for others) what we likely have is a ne, a ny and if successful a dy
set of records for both the cuckoo and the host. Is it sensible to call it a dy
for the wattlebird? I could argue both yes (from the point of view of the
wattlebird) the wattlebird has dy, or no, from the point of view of the
cuckoo, there are no dy wattlebird chicks from that nest.
Of course at the time I wrote The GBS
Report, I wrote for the Koel "No breeding records - yet" Which
indicates my now correct prediction that such records would start soon. BOCG V2 tells us even less.
Pity that there won't ever be an update of
The GBS Report to explain the history and results of the project to clarify
these things.
-----Original
Message-----
From: martin butterfield [
Sent: Tuesday, 31 January 2012
4:22 PM
To: Terry Munro
Cc:
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] Koels
in Watson
Terry
Can you (and anyone else who has Koels or other cuckoo breeding records in a
GBS site) record the event carefully with notes on the Chart. If a
juvenile Koel emerges it should be recorded as DY for that species.
Martin
On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 4:06 PM, Terry Munro <>
wrote:
I've been watching a Wattlebirds nest that I believe has been
parasitised by a Koel. A young dead Wattlebird chick is hanging outside the
nest & the chick being fed by the adult Wattlebirds isn't making the normal
bzzzt bzzt calls of a young wattlebird. I can't see inside the nest because it
is too high. Over the past month there was a lot of Koel activity in the area.
I am keeping a close eye on what happens.
