Pied Butcherbird mimicing the call of a Blue-faced Honeyeater

["John A. Gamblin" <>]

Jon Wren <> wrote:

 

Gooday birding-aussers,

 

The Aus $ is high Coal Companies do not want to produce or load coal at a loss, so no trains running on the NCA Project.

 

Scored some time off and have been catching up with work in the yard. For most of the day I have been hearing and observing a juvenile Pied Butcherbird giving a  "queet" begging call (similar to a Blue-faced Honeyeater call) to an adult bird while it awaits another morsel of food.

 

That must be "queet" nice for you eh?

 

Years ago we cared for a young Blue-faced Honeyeater and was surprised to learn of the group caring instinct of this species. We usually had the bird uncaged and would place it in various locations around the yard. Within the space of one day we were being visited by a group of Blue-faced Honeyeaters feeding the young bird and displaying no aggression towards the intruder. We allowed this to continue until the bird was strong enough and eventually released in the yard to join its mates.

 

I was just wondering if anyone has ever observed a feeding relationship between these two species, as the Pied Butcherbirds "queet" call was very similar to that of the BFHE?

 

Can I have permission to use your very interesting info please Jon? I don't have the same

info about what you request but do have nearly the same sort of thing about my local magpie-larks doing the same sort of thing. I think the magpie larks would feed the young wagtail just to keep it quiet whilst mum and dad were away from home searching for food?

 

Cheers and keep your chin up mate .... JAG de ant-agonist.

---

Do you Yahoo!?
Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard