birding-aus

The sunbird and the Golden Orb spider

To:
Subject: The sunbird and the Golden Orb spider
From: Del Richards <>
Date: Fri, 28 May 2010 14:44:55 +1000
This week my neighbour bought my attention to his grim find of a female Olive-backed Sunbird hanging in the web of a Golden Orb Spider at the entrance to his car shed. She was very still in the hope of not being noticed however it was too late to be thinking that way. As we took stock of the situation the very large female spider moved toward the sunbird feeling along the web as she went. When within the sunbird's reach the bird briefly grabbed the front leg of the spider which then retreated to a safer distance. Within a few minutes my neighbour and I released the sunbird from the web. She has two young in a nest on the next door verandah. So the outcome is that we still have three sunbirds and one Golden Orb Spider. However upon retreaval she was still securely "tied up" by the elastic strands of the web. This is the fourth species that I have records of in these spider's webs, the others being Scarlet Honeyeater, Chestnut-breasted Mannikin and Red-browed Firetail. ` I find it interesting that the sunbird defended itself against the spider which it would have been familiar with. It would be like a man kicking an approaching five metre crocodile in the nose!

Del. Richards, Fine Feather Tours, Mossman, NQ.





E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.1.0.447)
Database version: 6.14880
http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 8.5.437 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2900 - Release Date: 05/27/10 
18:30:00
===============================
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: 
===============================
<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU