Well it's certainly good to hear what people have been saying about CSTs
(one of my favourite birds also).
Obviously trees with stringy bark is a constant theme in report of their
distribution (what was that word?'decorticating' bark, very good word).
Also it was widely agreed that they were unpredicatble and sporadic in
their occurence, though some people said that they knew of reliable spots.
I was interested to hear about the possiblity of different populations in
the Lamington area; the first time I ever saw this sp was in, is it
Paterson NP, west of Esk in se Queensland? where they were feeding inside
those big leaf-sheath things you get at the top of palms and making a
terrible racket. Most of the other places I have seen them have been in
mountainous areas around the ACT and se NSW, usually in forest with
stringy-bark type eucalypts. I guess their loud calls would be important in
a species that occurs in widely scattered places (to help post-breeding
dispersal flocks find other flocks). The exotics I saw them in the ACT were
willows by Lake Burley Griffin, and willow has a bark which, if not
decorticating, is at least soft and deeply fissured and might be worth a
peck or two from a passing CST.
The ACT Atlas reports them as found mainly in the Manna Gum woodlands of
the ranges, in the ACT.
I see that Pizzey notes that they are found, like almost every other
Australian bird, on golfcourses, and I was pleased to have this confirmed
from Melbourne:-)
And yes, what a beak!
John Leonard
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
John Leonard (Dr),
PO Box 243,
Woden, ACT 2606,
Australia
http://www.spirit.net.au/~jleonard
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
To unsubscribe from this list, please send a message to
Include ONLY "unsubscribe birding-aus" in the message body (without the
quotes)
|
