Feijoa, bowerbird, currawong ... and Wye River report

[Harvey Perkins <>]

> Question - have any other birders out
> there observed either of these birds eating Feijoa petals (or
> other flower petals)? ... or other bird species doing so?  Satin
> Bowerbirds are apparently known to
> eat leaves as well as fruit, but I've found no mention of them eating
> any flower parts.  Likewise,
> Grey Currawongs are fairly omnivorous and opportunistic - but I don't
> know about flowers.
> Apparently this behaviour is well known by birds in the Feijoa's home
> range centred on Brazil, and
> in New Zealand (which bird species??),
> and seems to be 'designed' to facilitate bird
> pollination.

Lawrie,

I wrote a very short note on just this for Canberra Bird Notes a couple of years ago - in this case it was Red Wattlebird and Pied Currawong eating the feijoa petals (in fact a Pied Currawong was eating petals from the same bush again just last weekend and this morning). Text follows:

Red Wattlebirds feeding on feijoa petals and trumpet creeper nectar

On the side of our driveway is a feijoa Feijoa sellowiana bush (syn Acca sellowiana and also known as pineapple guava) which flowers fairly profusely in late spring. The feijoa belongs to the family Myrtaceae (the same family to which the eucalypts, paperbarks, callistemons, ti-trees etc belong), and, though native to South America, is fairly commonly planted in Canberra's gardens. The flowers are characterised by large showy tufts of long crimson stamens, the corolla being a rosette of five pale pinkish or greenish petals, each about 10 mm in diameter, slightly fleshy and curled at the edges. They are supposedly edible (Botanica, Random House, Sydney, 1997)

On 4 December 2001 I watched a Red Wattlebird eating the petals of these feijoa flowers by going from blossom to blossom and decisively grasping and tugging or twisting off the petals, usually only a single petal from each flower, and swallowing them whole. I was reminded of a similar event about two seasons previously when I had watched a Pied Currawong Strepera graculina do exactly the same thing.

Consultation of HANZAB (Vol 5, p.470) revealed only a single reference to Red Wattlebirds using feijoa as a food plant, erroneously listing the leaves as being the part eaten. The reference is to an observation by Otto Mueller of Perth, WA, who stated simply that "Red Wattlebirds also take the white, fleshy, sweet petals of Guava, Feijoa sellowiana, which flowers for about six weeks in Spring." (West Aust Nat 18: 234, 1991).

While looking through this section of HANZAB, I also noticed that the only species of the family Bignoniaceae listed as food plants are jacaranda Jacaranda mimosaefolia and cape honeysuckle Tecomaria capensis (syn Tecoma capensis). Throughout summer and into autumn our common trumpet creeper Campsis radicans (syn Bignonia or Tecoma radicans) is continuously occupied by one to two extremely possessive Red Wattlebirds. The flowers of this plant, which originates from the south-eastern USA, are large orange-red trumpets about 90 mm in length and about 70 mm across the flared corolla, borne in showy terminal panicles. Since they are too deep for the wattlebirds to reach the nectar through the throat of the flower, the birds instead pierce the upper surface of the base of the corolla tube, just above the sepals, in order to gain access. The flowers are clearly little affected by this treatment as they persist for about a week and apparently continue to produce nectar as the wattlebirds repeatedly probe previously breached flowers.

Perkins H (2002). Red Wattlebirds feeding on feijoa petals and trumpet creeper nectar. Canberra Bird Notes 27(1): 27-28.

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Dr Harvey D. Perkins
School of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
The Australian National University
Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia
ph +61 2 6125 2693; fax:+61 2 6125 0313
and:
Pest Animal Control Cooperative Research Centre
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Editor, Canberra Bird Notes
(Journal of the Canberra Ornithologists Group)
42 Summerland Circuit, Kambah, ACT 2902
Ph: (02) 6231 8209  mobile: 043 886 9990

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