canberrabirds

skinks in the garden

To: "" <>
Subject: skinks in the garden
From: Con Boekel <>
Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2017 05:56:43 +0000

I have just had a quick squiz through HANZAB.

Over time, GBs have been reported as having increased or declined in various circumstances.

HANZAB states that GBs eat invertebrates and small vertebrates 'especially small birds and nestlings.'

regards

Con


On 6/24/2017 12:07 PM, Mark Clayton wrote:

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


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