Our experience is similar, we get the occasional ES in winter zipping in for a feed, then zipping away before the omnipresent Noisy Miners notice.
John Leonard
On 24 Jun 2016, at 9:48 AM, Con Boekel <> wrote:
Eastern Spinebills used to be sporadic in our garden but we now get constant visits by one or two individuals. They target our grevillea flowers. There seems to be no relationship between the Spinebill visits and the presence or absence of other birds. The
flowering eucalypt at the front has been taken over by Red Wattlebirds which chase the Spinebills away. The grevillea flowers are small in number and are scattered through the garden. It sort of looks as if the Red Wattlebirds cannot mount a constant guard
amongst the grevilleas against the Spinebills.
regards
Con
On 24/06/2016 9:30 AM, Mark Clayton wrote:
I only ever get Eastern Spinebills as single individuals in my yard.. I would imagine that the distance from the nearest patch of “bush” would have some bearing
on just what turns up in people’s gardens.
Mark
From: Nathanael Coyne [m("purecaffeine.com","nat");">]
Sent: Friday, 24 June 2016 8:40 AM
To: COG
Subject: [canberrabirds] Eastern Spinebill symbiosis
Symbiosis may be too strong a word, but whenever I see Eastern Spinebills in my neighbourhood they're always hanging around with and following a flock of smaller birds, usually Silvereyes or Superb Fairy-wrens.
Anyone else noticed this?
At the ANBG the Spinebills are usually content to forage solo, but here they seem to prefer the company of other species.
Of course, it's entirely possible I'm only noticing the visiting Spinebills that are in the company of large noisy flocks and am missing the individuals who silently and quickly move through the garden.
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