on 8/10/02 4:27 PM, at
wrote:
>
> While at Chiltern Box-Ironbark National Park during the last week, we came
> across a Mistletoebird imitating the following species which had me briefly
> flummoxed as I could not see any of these birds nearby. The calls were just
> snippets of these taxa.
>
> Grey Shrike-Thrush
> Magpie lark
> Eastern Rosella
> Superb Fairy Wren
> Thornbill species
> Weebill
>
> The bird was a male, at chest height and less than two metres away, allowing a
> close approach. We suspected he had a nest nearby.
>
> Has anyone else observed this in Mistletoebirds. We found it quite
> extraordinary.
>
I have quite often observed, and sometimes recorded, Mistletoebird mimicry
in Capertee Valley NSW. As someone else has observed on Birding-Aus, always
the mimicry is just brief snippets of many species calls, all strung
together, and in my own observations the mimicry is interspersed with a
peculiar rattling call. One one occasion when I had a good view of the
bird, the male Mistletoebird giving the mimicry was displaying, fanning his
tail and quivering his wings. Doubtless the female was nearby, and it was
during the breeding season.
Vicki Powys
Capertee Valley NSW
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