Fledgling Wattlebird

["Michael Lenz via Canberrabirds " <>]

Early Red Wattlebird fledglings

This winter has been quite mild, and suburbia is in general a bit warmer than surrounding non-urban areas. Further, some suburban sites may provide good food sources: e.g. winter-flowering native plants + supplementary feeding by people. In response to these factors birds may respond with early breeding.

Also by all accounts, the Red Wattlebird is still a rather naive hosts to the Koel as the high number of young Koels fledgling from Red Wattlebird nests  attests (see Jack Hollands latest article on this subject: Canberra Bird Notes 51(1) 2026, p. 93-94).

Michael lenz

On Fri, 7 Aug 2026 at 18:27, Philip Veerman via Canberrabirds <> wrote:

Page 106 of The GBS Report provides the graph (and the text on page 69) of the breeding timing of the Red Wattlebird (and other species), so addresses the timing issue. But this is only for the first 21 years of the GBS (1981 to 2002). There has been (little or) no attempt to keep the information consistent, available, compiled or up to date since then.

 

So yes, it certainly is very early but not without precedent. The suggestion of this being to beat the Koels has been put forward often over the last few years. And appears to be a nice idea to explain what could be happening. There can be lots of factors that can influence timing of breeding (or changes of timing). A comment a few days ago about magpies jumped at the idea of climate change.  Note that Koel had not yet been recorded breeding here within the period of The GBS Report (page 61), even though my text shows that I expected it would happen soon.

 

Philip

 

From: Canberrabirds On Behalf Of Terry Munro via Canberrabirds
Sent: Friday, 7 August, 2026 5:21 PM
To: Matthew Larkin <>
Cc: COG list <>
Subject: Re: [Canberrabirds] Fledgling Wattlebird

 

Is this “early” fledging of a Wattlebird to beat the arrival of Koels & their  effect on successful WB breeding

Terry Munro

 

On Fri, 7 Aug 2026 at 12:41 pm, Matthew Larkin via Canberrabirds <> wrote:

One very recently fledged Red Wattlebird in Cook this morning, tracked down after hearing begging calls.

Matthew Larkin
Sent from my iPad
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