canberrabirds

skinks in the garden

To: "" <>
Subject: skinks in the garden
From: Mark Clayton <>
Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2017 02:07:01 +0000

Over the last few months I have been demolishing my “garden” in the backyard as it was overgrown and senescing (a bit like its owner!!). Prior to doing this I had seen the occasional small skink but only very infrequently. I had forgotten how many rocks were in the garden until I removed all the grass and general accumulation of debris. Once the garden was opened up I started seeing skinks all over the place. I do have a Grey Butcherbird (on one occasion there were 2) that has been visiting the yard every week from late February through until the end of April this year, it missed all of May but has been back for the first two weeks of June. In that time I never saw him drop to the ground chasing skinks. Even my resident group of magpies appear to miss seeing the skinks but they find just about everything else.

 

The only geckos that I find in the garden are in a very large pile of old wooden fence palings that I am slowly working my way through as firewood. I have never seen them in any other situation and it would be highly unlikely that the butcherbird ever sees them.

 

I don’t have Noisy Miners in the vicinity except as very rare passage birds and even then there is usually only a couple. In my part of the world, Kaleen, there is certainly no relationship between butcherbirds and miners.

 

Mark

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the Canberra Ornithologists Group mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the list contact David McDonald, list manager, phone (02) 6231 8904 or email . If you can not contact David McDonald e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU