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Hi Carol. I'm so glad you
mentioned that paper about the habits of Dubbo Glossies. I didn't
know it existed. Until Janis Hosking and I started looking closely at the
birds in the Goonoo State Forest near Dubbo, it had not been recorded in the
literature that Glossies fed on Allocasuarina diminuta and A. gymnanthera.
I discovered the gap in information through correspondence with Stephen Garnett
who was at that time working with the K.I. Glossies.
Stephen was surprised to hear that
Glossies could actually get hold of the tiny A. diminuta cones - about 1.5 X 1cm
in size. I sent him some sample distal-chewed cones without knowing that
they were supposed to be chewed at the proximal end! No-one told us or our
Glossies about that, and so these cones were chewed at the distal end. My
own thoughts on this are that as the cones are so small it's easier for the
birds to grasp the cone while it's attached to a branch, rather than to detach
(by holding the distal end) and then chew the free (proximal) end. My
explanation may not sound very clear - but it works if you visualise the bird
feeding.
Judie Peet
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