A curious thought there: Whilst we can say anything is possible. By mid January it could easily be well past the breeding season. According to the COG Atlas,
most breeding activity is from October to end of January. Certainly in some past years, they already had chicks in the nest at the time of the COG Blitz at end of October (that was my observations). I am interested to know from Barbara if breeding was down
last year for this and similar species……. Plenty of time by now for breeding to have already been completed. And pretty normal for them to be starting moving through the suburbs now. As shown in this extract from The GBS Report. Of course it is possible that
it did not breed this year if too dry but you can’t know that from one passing through.
Leaden Flycatcher
Myiagra rubecula
This species shows the twin peaks that are typical of common summer migrants.
It is almost absent from
May to September then quickly arrives and becomes conspicuous, achieving a first peak in October then the
numbers decline as the birds mostly move into the woodland reserves for breeding. Enough birds stay
around the suburbs or breed in woodland within GBS areas to keep up summer numbers.
Then the numbers
rise again in January to a higher peak in February before declining as most birds migrate north for the winter
during March and April. Not only is this trend obvious
from the pooled data, it also often shows on individual
records. Many records consist of the same number of birds over a period of several weeks when they first
arrive, followed by a late spring to early summer hiatus before the birds are again observed. If they are the
same individuals, they probably did not move far away. They then often return through those same areas,
sometimes as adult pairs with young that result in the higher numbers observed. It appears that the great
majority of records are closely linked to sites that are close to major reserve areas and very few in the newer
or undeveloped suburbs. So this birds’ occurrence in the suburban habitat is probably dependent on proximity
of woodland reserves, where the species breeds. Numbers have fluctuated widely over groups of years with
no consistent pattern and no trend in these figures.
All breeding records are near reserves,
activities at nest in late November and December and dependent
young from December to early March. One breeding event
took 12 weeks from early December to late
February, Year 1 at Site 32.
Graphs on page: 101, Rank: 59, Breeding Rank: 47, A = 0.03078, F = 20.89%, W = 23.4, R = 2.212%,
G = 1.39.
Philip
From: calyptorhynchus . [
Sent: Monday, 13 January, 2020 7:17 AM
To: Canberra Birds
Subject: [canberrabirds] birdy stuff in Hughes
Just as I was getting back to our house this morning after a walk a Great Egret flew over (#102 for the house list).
Just as I was appreciating this I noticed a female Leaden Flycatcher in our front yard. The first Leaden Flycatcher we have had here since 1995 (in fact only the second time I have recorded one here). Nice, but a bit sad because it's probably
given up trying to breed because of the drought and has begun to wander back north.
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