Greetings all,
As has been widely discussed here, there have been a lot of irruptions of
different bird species in the southeast this past spring - rufous songlarks,
white-winged trillers, black tailed native hens, scarlet and black honeyeaters
come to mind. A couple of days ago my Dad mentioned something he'd seen and I
wondered if this was a widespread phenomenon, and if there was a link. That is
that he saw large numbers of woodswallows during the spring - white-browed and
masked - feeding on emergent cicadas in the Nyah Forest, along the Murray River
north of Swan Hill. Apparently even feeding on the ground, which is unusual for
them. Other birds taking advantage too, such as straw-necked ibis.
Cicadas are known for having long, prime-number based life cycles (13 or 17
years; see http://kottke.org/09/08/cicadas-mating for example). I don't know
anything about the ecology of Australian ones, but could this past year have
been a cicada season, and could that have contributed (along with the spring
rains) to the bird irruptions? Interested to hear thoughts from anyone who
knows more about such things...
Cheers,
Ross Macfarlane
==============================www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
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