Thursday, January 05, 2006

Soft Touch Blackheads?

Murray Lord writes : Just before Christmas, I visited the Peter Murrell Reserve(at Kingston). In the course of an hour and a half, I saw eight out of Tasmania's twelve endemics, plus plenty of other interesting species. A young Pallid Cuckoo was observed being fed by Strong-billed Honeyeaters. When the strongbills flew off a Black-headed Honeyeater came along and fed it too. This is not the first time I have seen two species feeding a young cuckoo. Both previous occasions were also in Tasmania and the common link is that on each occasion one species involved was the Black-headed Honeyeater. The other species involved were a Scarlet Robin and a New-holland Honeyeater. Has anyone else seen this? Does this mean that Black-headed Honeyeaters are unusually gullible? Murray's pix: left, Strong-billed, right, Black-headed.



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