On land, Button-quails scrape their platelets with their feet, then peck
over the cleared ground.
I recall seeing a Buff-banded Rail at the zoo foraging in a kangaroo
paddock - carefully flipping over the droppings and pecking at
earthworms and insects. I don't recall that it used its feet at all.
But Purple Swamp-hens use their feet a lot - I saw one last weekend
pulling up grass, taking the bunch in a foot, and then eating the grass
from its foot. They can chop through the rhizomes of Cumbungi (alias
Bulrush) with their sharp beaks and then use a foot to yank the section
of root out of the mud - a real feat (?feet) of strength. The root is
then held in the foot and chewed with the beak to release starchy juices
which are swallowed or fed to young birds - the fibres are discarded.
I have seen a Spotted Crake wading in shallow water - it repeatedly
turned back to check if it had stirred up something edible.
Anthea Fleming
On 16/05/2013 6:29 PM, Laurie Knight wrote:
G'day Peter,
Very few of the BBR I have seen have been foraging in mud. BBR seem
to be the least water dependent of all the rails in Australia. They
seem to be quite at home in thick grasses and garden beds.
The BBR on islands that are free of surface fresh water are an
interesting group. I have seen them foraging on tidal flats as well
as the grassy "paddock" on the West Island of Ashmore Reef and happily
poking about the rainforest resort of Green Island (east of Cairns).
Parrots have a varied diet, but many of them have the ability and
inclination to use their feet when feeding.
Laurie.
On 16/05/2013, at 6:33 AM, Peter Shute wrote:
In the case of the BBR, perhaps it spends so much time foraging in
mud, where the bill works better, compared to the time it forages in
litter that it's not worth working out a better way.
If it changed methods then it would have to change habitat, and then
it might not be a BBR anymore. So what's stopping it? And what's
stopping it from learning to scratch while retaining the ability to
probe? Perhaps it actually does quite well with its bill in the litter.
Are there any birds that probe and scratch?
Peter Shute
Sent from my iPad
On 16/05/2013, at 6:06 AM, "Laurie Knight" <>
wrote:
That's part of it, but there is more to it than that. A species can
occupy multiple ecological niches across its range, and different
species occupying the same niche can behave quite differently.
I think their ancestral history has a fair bit to do with it.
Laurie.
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
===============================
===============================
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
===============================
-----
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2013.0.2904 / Virus Database: 3162/6327 - Release Date: 05/15/13
===============================
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
===============================
|
