canberrabirds

Grey Butcherbird

To: "" <>
Subject: Grey Butcherbird
From: Mark Clayton <>
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2019 04:54:56 +0000

I have a sneaky feeling that the two Grey Butcherbirds that moved in on us a year or so ago in Kaleen may be breeding. We have suddenly gone down to the adult male who regularly carries food scraps off in a certain direction. Last year they raised three young but at a later date than at present. The local Red Wattlebirds are also probably feeding young as they too fly off with scraps that we throw out. I think they are nesting next door -this is the first year that I have not found their nest. My resident Australian Raven pair is also down to one and again  I suspect they are nesting but haven't been down to the local park to check out their usual nest tree.

Mark

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 m("iinet.net.au","gdabb");"><>
Sent: Thursday, 29 August 2019 1:16 PM
To: m("canberrabirds.org.au","canberrabirds");">
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..

 

A small
            bird perched on a tree branch
            Description automatically generated


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