At 6:45P.M. yesterday I was standing on my front porch when I heard and noticed frenetic activity around a large Brittle Gum some 200 metres away at the Holt shops. About
20 Magpie-larks were speeding around the tree and calling loudly. At first I thought they might have been mobbing a raptor so I got in the car and hurried over for a closer look.
Feverish activity still prevailed as I arrived; birds flying around the tree landed on the outer canopy before moving inside or left the tree in small groups as still
more groups arrived. Forty or more Magpie-larks moved about inside the canopy calling and giving what I took to be shrug and wing-flash displays as described in HANZAB Vol 7 p.143, but I saw nothing that I would term as agonistic behaviour and activity was
markedly subdued compared to the raucous barnstorming taking place outside the tree.
I left to go home to dinner just as dusk was setting in with the peewee party still in full swing. I returned shortly after dark and shone my torch into the tree but it
appeared deserted.
John Layton
Holt.