Laurie,
To each their ecological niche.
Carl Clifford
On 15/05/2013, at 22:07, Laurie Knight <> wrote:
> I came across a foraging Buff-banded Rail as I was passing through the Roma
> St Parklands yesterday. Whereas a Junglefowl, Scrubfowl, Turkey or Logrunner
> would be busily scratching away in the leaf litter, the BBR was using its
> bill to fossick for food in a flower bed.
>
> This got me thinking about the nature of ground-feeding species that forage
> with their feet vs species that forage exclusively with their bills.
>
> I suspect there are few examples of shorebirds that use their feet to uncover
> food (I've seen a gull paddling its feet on the water's edge but that's
> pretty much an exception). In contrast, a number of dryland birds are very
> dependent on their feet to uncover food. The thing about the BBR was that it
> was foraging with its bill in a medium that other species would use their
> feet to clear.
>
> So what is it that sets the programming for ground-feeding behaviour? Some
> shorebird species would seem to have feet that could be used for foraging ...
>
> Regards, Laurie.
> ===============================
>
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
> send the message:
> unsubscribe
> (in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
> to:
>
> http://birding-aus.org
> ===============================
===============================
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
http://birding-aus.org
===============================
|
