Ineffective begging

[Martin Butterfield <>]

For the past 4 years I have often found one or two Eastern Yellow Robins in my GBS site.  About 3 weeks ago I noticed one of the robins carry a former caterpillar into some dense shrubbery, which believed to be a "carrying food" breeding record.

For the last couple of days an Eastern Yellow Robin has been in the site making a continual, grating and somehow plaintive,  call which I can best express as "chuck chuck".  I wondered whether this was a chick from the presumed nearby nest and have spent some time watched to see if another robin responds by feeding the noisy one.  So far that hasn't happened.  However during one of the periods I was following the bird it was inspected- within about 3 minutes - by Grey Fantail, Brown Thornbill and White-browed Scrubwren.    

None of them actually fed the scrounger but it does suggest that this call could be added to pishing and squeaking as a means of attracting curious, and probably tone deaf, birds.

--
Martin Butterfield

http://franmart.blogspot.com.au/