RE: Silver Gulls hawking [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

[Megan Mears <>]

I saw about 20 Currawongs doing this same 'hawking' yesterday in North Watson. It took me a while to figure out what was happening. I eventually noticed a rather large amount of what I'd call ants on the ground, which I realised were also flying ants/bugs. Whatever the insects were, the Currawongs were loving it. Their aerial display was very graceful. A few other bush birds joined in, but not the magpies.

Megan

On Wed, Nov 16, 2016 at 6:01 PM, Baird, Ian <> wrote:

Susan,
I wouldn’t say its particularly common, but Henry Nix and I wrote a short note about it in a note in Canberra Bird Notes* many years ago (late 70s/80s). On that occasion they were hawking after many orange-‘winged’ flying beetles over Lake Burley Griffin. We didn’t identify the beetles on that occasion, but from what I remember they were probably Lycid beetles, possibly Porrostoma sp. (you can look that species up online on Canberra Nature Map). Those beetles, or very similar-looking ones, were irrupting in large numbers on that occasion. It would be interesting to know whether its the same or a similar beetle genus this time.

*I can’t give you the reference to the note in CBN now, but could do so if anyone’s interested

Cheers,

Ian Baird

 

From: Susan Robertson [
Sent: Wednesday, 16 November 2016 4:31 PM
To: m("canberrabirds.org.au","canberrabirds");" target="_blank">org.au
Subject: [canberrabirds] Silver Gulls

 

This afternoon in the area of Parkes Way, ANU and the lake, there were 100 plus Silver Gulls flying about.  They looked to be hawking for insects although I couldn’t see any obvious insects.  However I could see some gulls flying with their beaks open so I assume that’s what was going on.  HANZAB mentions hawking behaviour.  They were in this area for about an hour.  Is this common behaviour?

Cheers,

Susan Robertson

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