Crested Shrike-tits are the classic bark-feeders. The beak is really
well adapted for the job - strong, narrow from side to side so it can be
slid under a bark-edge, then turned at right angles to use the
claw-hammer curve to lever the bark away from the tree and very strong
neck muscles - plus the notched tooth-like tip which gives a splendid
grip. They also peck open galls and moth cocoons.
Bird-bander folk-lore has it that it can (and does) rip your thumb-nail off!
As well as the calls, the sound of falling bark always gives away a
feeding party.
Anthea Fleming
On 3/03/2015 1:00 PM, David Adams wrote:
I was out for a few minutes around 7am this morning near my house (Far
South Coast of NSW) and heard lots and lots of bark feeding. This is
usually kind of fun to track down as you can often see birds doing
something interesting. I'm used to seeing White-naped Honey-eaters
play a neat trick of pulling off some bark and then floating down to
catch whatever comes out. And, of cousre, Sitella are great ones for
pulling at bark, one way or another.
Anyway, when I was out this morning and heard the noise I was
figuring/hoping it was a bunch of Sitella...but I didn't hear anything
like them calling. Instead, what I found were a lot of New Holland
Honey-eaters gleaning along the branches, which I don't normally think
of them doing. (They spend their time in blossoms around here in the
day.) I also noticed lots of Lewin's Honey-eaters, maybe five? We've
got a couple of young around right now so numbers are denser than
usual. I saw one on a branch prying open one of those gum leaves that
spiders hide in. Then I saw at least one more going after another one
of those leaves that was still suspended in a spider-thread, they way
they are. At least one of the other looked like he was hunting for
spider leaves.
I'm assuming everyone here knows about those leaves. You see them in
the bush all the time, a single dead leaf all curled up like a scroll
hanging in space suspended on either side by a thread. There's a
spider sleeping in there, or so I've been shown. So, the Lewins seemed
to be targetting them very specifically. It makes sense, they're the
right size bird to get the job done and I'm sure the spiders are a
treat for them...but I'd not noticed this before.
Is there any chance any of you have noticed this? I'd be curious about
bark-feeding observations in general for different species around Aus
as well, for that matter.
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