> Hello Birding-aus viewers,
> Like Richard, I too have observed this behaviour by Fire
> tails but it was Beautiful Firetails @ Melaleuca in far sw
> Tasmania during Orange-bellied Parrot volunteer work. The
> behaviour Richard describes was similar in most respects except
> the male bird held an enormous length of grass stem while
> 'bouncing' up and down on a branch attached to the OBP feed table.
> The bird was singing at the same time and managed this with its
> beak closed (so it didn't drop the grass?). No other bird was
> visually present to us at the time but often a female would fly up
> to the branch and immediately the male would lift his tail and
> drop his head so as to display his superb red rump to the female.
>
> In two weeks of observing this behaviour in 1994, only once did we
> see the male 'succeed', with an interested female flying off
> behind him when they departed the table. I haven't checked
> whether this is typical display behaviour by Firetails but it is
> interesting to note birds at different ends of the country acting
> in a similar way.
I have seen this grass stem display with Diamond Firetails in Canberra;
the sight of a Diamond Firetail with a 1-1.5 foot grass stem in its beak
is quite impressive. From memory, the text section in the back of
the Simpson & Day field guides describes the behaviour, and I think has
a picture.
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Paul Taylor
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