Peter wrote
"Many a winter trip to central NSW has been followed with complaints (and
sore hands) from banding large numbers of 'piano-playing' honeyeaters.
Surprisingly (at least to me) I have never had a treecreeper even grip my
hands with their seemingly long and strong claws."
Would that be because tree creepers don't perch on sticks, twigs etc but
spend there time on flatter broader surfaces (tree trunks), they even
roosting at night on flat surfaces I believe, and so presumably their feet
have adapted to a different clasping response. Most arboreal+ type birds -
honeyeaters, miners etc would have the automatic 'closing onto a perch' type
response? Fingers being a close appproximation.
Wendy
ps Maybe the honeyeaters et al are better described as 'baton grasping',
rather than 'piano playing'?
===============================
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
===============================
|
