Peter Shute wrote:
>Ten minutes is pretty big - several suburbs. Even back in the days when
>no one had native plants in their gardens I'd expect to find at least a
>little native vegetation within a ten minute block. I wonder if you
>could assume that it wasn't very common in the areas where it wasn't
>breeding (i.e. most of Melbourne).
As this species is so easy to pick up by call, I'm nearly always aware of it
as I travel around suburban Melbourne. It never ceases to amaze me what
barren spots it turns up in, and my suspicion is that they're very mobile in
rather large 'home ranges' in many parts. They get seen in unlikely places
up to 1km from otherwise suitable habitat, regularly.
- In East Melbourne I've seen them in a bare deciduous tree in a concrete
yard near the old Mercy Hospital (birds from about 200m away in Treasury
Gardens?).
- In Alphington (inner NE) about 500m from the Darebin Creek corridor in
a Cootamundra Wattle in an expanse of mown grass.
- Also in Alphington, up in Plane Trees in deep suburbia.
- In Hawthorn West (inner E) where I work, in a small copse of Melaleuca
surrounded by concrete and train lines about 1km from the Yarra River
- etc.
They seem to forage in the lowest vegetation stratum most of the time, and
if there's no ground or middle layer, that's in the canopy ... and I'd be
very surprised to find them nesting in any of these spots I've mentioned.
--
++++++++++++
Lawrie Conole
28 Reid Street
Northcote 3070 AUSTRALIA
0419588993
lconole at gmail dot com
http://b.tinyurl.com/69qz34
++++++++++++++++++++++++
===============================
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:
===============================
|
