Brown honeyeaters do this to our hibiscus plants in our garden in inner Perth
David Bruce
-----Original Message-----
From: Birding-Aus On Behalf Of
Philip Veerman
Sent: Monday, 16 October 2017 8:44 AM
To:
Subject: exoctic nector "theft"
So in these cases the plants appear to be missing out and have not yet caught
up. Presumably there are other individuals or species of birds or insects.....
that are doing it right for the plants and doing the pollination.
Philip
-----Original Message-----
From: Birding-Aus On Behalf Of
John Leonard
Sent: Monday, 16 October, 2017 11:05 AM
Cc: <>
Subject: exoctic nector "theft"
In Central and South America there are finches whose modus operandi is
precisely this.... The Flower-piercers.
John Leonard
> On 16 Oct 2017, at 10:23 am, "Barney Enders" <>
wrote:
>
> While trying to get some good photos of the Yellow-bellied Sunbird
> feeding on beautiful large Hibiscus flowers I found most of them
> never came to
the
> front of the flower to
>
> put their head in to get the nectar out but stayed hidden behind the
> back
of
> the flower where they drilled a hole to put their beak into the base
getting
> the nectar that way.
Watching Noisy Miners in the golden trumpet trees, I see that they are piercing
the bases of the large flowers to access the nectar. I had heard of birds doing
this with introduced blooms the world over but had not seen it before. I'm
guessing Darwin never got to see this.?
For those collecting such data, this exotic genus, used as street trees in
Brisbane for their brief but spectacular blossoming, (& flowering a bit later
up here,) are as follows - "Tabebuia aurea is a species of Tabebuia native to
South America in Suriname, Brazil, eastern Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, and
northern Argentina."
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabebuia_aurea>
Judith
SEQ asl 500m
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