Very interesting Geoffrey, Wilf Hedley informed me this morning that Grey Butcherbirds had built a nest in his backyard in Rivett. This is similar timing to 2017 when he had a rare example of successful double nesting for this species.
We wrote up together in CBN, so I’m very interested to see if it happens again. I’m also interested if any young birds help at the nest, as they appeared to do in 2017, which also seems to be rare.
Jack Holland
From: Geoffrey Dabb <>
Sent: Thursday, 29 August 2019 1:16 PM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] Grey Butcherbird
A pair is showing signs of nesting in the small neighbourhood park of Rocky Knob. They are of a confiding nature, coming to the backdoor for a scrap of flung meat. Below snap taken just now of the pair in the Feijoa tree from 2m away.
The upper out of focus bird has the dusky plumage of a younger bird. Their catching ability while on the wing is remarkable. A piece of flung mince from 2m is taken at the mid-point (ie 1m from the flinger)and the bird is able to reverse direction with a
couple of wingbeats before flying quickly away..
