Thank you, Paul Walbridge, and to Alan Morris for the lucid account
of Little Raven and Forest Raven ranges.
Because I am most familiar with the Torresian Crow, and then the
Australian Raven, I was very interested while in Tenterfield to see
that the town's pamphlet, 'Guide to Tenterfield Birdwatching' lists
the Little Raven as their only corvid, to be seen at the rubbish tip
(and at the Anglican church in town). According to my field guides,
the Little Raven was certainly possible, but the Torresian Crow
should be in the area too, though it had not been listed in the
pamphlet. Given the type of country in which the town sits, the
Relict Forest Raven did not occur to me at all as likely for this
dryly rural upland environment.
Since the church seemed a rather confined designation, I decided to
take a trip out to the tip. This installation was closed when I
arrived; however, I could hear the cries of corvids over the hill, so
I followed the sounds till I saw, in a nearby paddock, the birds
themselves.
Two trees were chiefly involved. In one, a group of smaller-looking
birds sat, largely silent, some of them nestled in pairs. When these
birds did move around, it was to peck at and riffle through the bark
and twigs, apparently looking for insects (- I saw this behaviour in
similar birds later, up closer, in the town, and those birds seemed
certainly to be finding food on the branches). The other tree in the
paddock, by contrast, seemed to be more a base from which somewhat
bulkier birds flew out, calling and crying with a sound very similar
to the Torresian crows of SEQ, and wheeled over the paddock, back and
forth across the hill face. A couple of times I saw these birds land
- and there was a definite wing-shuffle.
When I later saw the lighter birds again in the town, they were
involved in a quarrel with a pair of galahs. I cannot imagine galahs
engaging the QLD Torresian Crows in that way.
All of this led me to deduce that the 'Guide to Tenterfield
Birdwatching' pamphlet might be incorrect in citing only one corvid
for their town's area, i.e. it seemed to me that the Little Raven,
though listed for the area, was not the sole species present.
Anyone located near Tenterfield might care to go and take a look...?
Regards,
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Judith
Lukin-Amundsen
S-E Qld
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--------------------------------------------
Birding-Aus is now on the Web at
www.birding-aus.org
--------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message 'unsubscribe
birding-aus' (no quotes, no Subject line)
to
|
