canberrabirds

Brood patches are evidentially found on Shining Bronze-Cuckoos despite n

To: <>
Subject: Brood patches are evidentially found on Shining Bronze-Cuckoos despite not being required
From: "Philip Veerman" <>
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 22:54:05 +1100
To those (if any) who don't quite follow this, I will add a simplistic bit. Curiously I find the word "apterium" relates to "without wings" but is not used that way here, but to mean the parts of the bird's body that have gaps in the feathers. Because in most birds feathers are not evenly distributed but are in "tracts". Most (?) birds always have a gap of bare skin in the middle of the abdomen (i.e. ventral apterium), although of course the surrounding feathers usually cover this up. When brooding, this skin usually becomes swollen with increased blood circulation to help the incubation. The question here is do or don't cuckoos (that don't brood eggs), go through the same process. This is bringing up different answers. No reason why the answer should always be the same. Quite possibly they go through the same hormonal processes related to egg laying.
 
It has also raised the second question about whether presence of "brood patch" or "gravid with eggs" can / should constitute a breeding record. I reckon they are better evidence of likely breeding than some of our other accepted categories, but probably not thought of at the time (20 years ago), as those doing the list probably were not thinking in terms of experienced people actually handling the birds.
 
Philip
  
-----Original Message-----From: Geoffrey Dabb [ Sent: Wednesday, 6 November 2013 9:45 AM
To:     Subject: FW: [canberrabirds] Brood patches are evidentially found on Shining Bronze-Cuckoos despite not being required

Geoff's Cartoon deleted for space.......... 

From: John Brown [
Sent: Tuesday, 5 November 2013 6:01 PM
To:
Subject: RE: [canberrabirds] Brood patches are evidentially found on Shining Bronze-Cuckoos despite not being required

 

 

Naomi,

 

Interesting! Thanks for finding and sharing that. It's a shame he doesn't provide any references for his assertion that eye-witness accounts of brood patches are mistaken identifications of the ventral apterium. I'm sure the eye-witnesses disagree! Certainly those at New Chum Road recently do. I'll continue to see if there is anything in the HANZAB that can clarify this.

 

John

 

---

John Brown

 

From: Naomi Langmore
Sent: Sunday, 3 November 2013 9:10 PM
To:
Subject: RE: [canberrabirds] Brood patches are evidentially found on Shining Bronze-Cuckoos despite not being required

 

This is an interesting topic! Here's a link to a paragraph in Payne's book about cuckoos, in which he states that reported brood patches in cuckoos may actually be the ventral apterium and that no brood parasitic cuckoos have brood patches;

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=FX3dzcG-WoMC&pg=PA128&lpg=PA128&dq=do+all+nesting+birds+have+a+brood+patch&source=bl&ots=uTdN-c7zRS&sig=MVfxfxOIGF9m1kuEuLg-hyp_Fuo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0B52UoXbCorukgXhhYH4Dw&ved=0CGUQ6AEwCTgK#v=onepage&q=do%20all%20nesting%20birds%20have%20a%20brood%20patch&f=false

cheers
Naomi


From: Mark Clayton
Sent: Sunday, 3 November 2013 6:38 PM
To: 'Damien Farine';
Subject: RE: [canberrabirds] Brood patches are evidentially found on Shining Bronze-Cuckoos despite not being required

When it come to some of the information on birds, and other topics, on Wikipedia, I have often found mistakes in their data.

 

We have had one Horsfield’s Bronze-Cuckoo (an adult bird) at Charcoal Tank with a brood patch and I have seen bronze-cuckoos elsewhere with brood patches. The majority of the banding team are now well versed in checking for brood patches an all bird species and I often check to be certain. I know that the HB-C was checked by me, and while it was not a full blown brood patch, it certainly was a brood patch.

 

Mark

 

From: Damien Farine
Sent: Sunday, 3 November 2013 6:08 PM
To:
Subject: RE: [canberrabirds] Brood patches are evidentially found on Shining Bronze-Cuckoos despite not being required

 

Perhaps before concluding that Wikipedia is wrong, it might be worth verifying if the brood patches are fully vascularized, or if they are just the loss of feathers around the abdomen/vent. For example pulli/chicks have bare abdomens for some time, even after fledging. It could simply be that the loss of these feathers is linked to some hormonal change associated with breeding, but doesn't necessarily mean that birds have a fully-operational brood patch. 

 

Sorry - its been a while between posts to canberrabirds - but I do still follow it keenly.

 

Damien


From:
To: m("canberrabirds.org.au","canberrabirds");" target=_blank>
Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2013 06:49:02 +0000
Subject: RE: [canberrabirds] Brood patches are evidentially found on Shining Bronze-Cuckoos despite not being required

The wiki entry that "Brood Parasitic Cuckoos do not develop brood patches" is clearly wrong, as Shining Bronze-Cuckoos and Horsfield's are both brood parasites and do not incubate their eggs, but have brood patches. If anyone knows how to correct it, please do! … or before you know it we'll have government policy based on this erroneous "wiki-fact"

 

John

 

 

From: Geoffrey Dabb
Sent: Sunday, 3 November 2013 5:39 PM
To:
Subject: FW: [canberrabirds] Brood patches are evidentially found on Shining Bronze-Cuckoos despite not being required

 

2 snips from Wiki.  Some cuckoos incubate their own eggs so issue might depend on how close to those cuckoos is the relevant parasitic cuckoo



 

 

From: John Brown
Sent: Sunday, 3 November 2013 4:58 PM
To: 'COG_Mailing_List'
Subject: [canberrabirds] Brood patches are evidentially found on Shining Bronze-Cuckoos despite not being required

 

 

Just in case anyone remembers Philip raising the excellent question about whether brood parasites such as Shining Bronze-Cuckoos really form brood patches. Well, I don't have ready access to HANZAB so It's a bit hard to check. However, the Bander's Aid states brood patches found on Shining-Bronze-cuckoos, Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoos, and Black-eared Cuckoos at least. Apart from that I check with the A-Class bander who banded the bird and he confirmed that the bird definitely had a brood patch (i.e. there hadn't been a clerical error) and that he is "90%" sure it was also gravid (pregnant with egg).

 

So despite getting some other bird to brood on their eggs, it appears that the brood patch has lingered on in these cuckoos, and hence that the characteristic has not been extinguished by evolution in these species even though it is no longer required.

 

John

 

 

 

From: Philip Veerman
Sent: Wednesday, 30 October 2013 6:08 PM
To: John Brown; 'COG_Mailing_List'
Subject: Pilotbird breeding records?

 

Pilotbirds are residents so surely they must breed here. The COG Atlas (now very old) has a mention of one nest building from 1988. Presumably they are hard to find breeding. I'm intrigued about "FYI, brood patches were also found on: Shining Bronze-Cuckoo". Do brood parasites also form this? I would have thought this feature would have been deleted over time.

 

Philip

 

-----Original Message-----From: John Brown Sent: Wednesday, 30 October 2013 4:59 PM      To: COG_Mailing_List       Subject: [canberrabirds] Pilotbird breeding records?

 

At New Chum Road mist netting which happened to coincide with the Blitz, we netted a pilotbird with a brood patch. There was some speculation about whether or not there were records of pilotbirds breeding in the ACT?

 

FYI, brood patches were also found on:

 

Shining Bronze-cuckoo

White-browed Scrubwren

Brown Thornbill

Striated Thornnbill

Eastern Spinebill

Yellow-faced Honeyeater

Crescent Honeyeater

White-napped Honeyeater

Golden Whistler

Eastern Yellow Robin

Bassian Thrush

 

John

 

 

 

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