Fairy Gerygones nest close to painful protector

Nothing to fear from Fairy Gerygone nest, right? Well, might pay to look just a wee bit closer at things in Cape Pallarenda Conservation Park, Townsville.

Crafty birds have nest site close to formidable nesters, native paper wasps. These potent guardians are painfully free with sharp lessons - mostly facial - for the unwary. Don't mess with them!

Nest aside: birds' nest atypical, having entry at bottom rather than side. Very careful inspection will be made after young quit nest.

Getting up to scratch with Australian Raven

Getting up to scratch with interesting and little remarked feeding behaviour by Australian Raven picked up again lately with reappearance of shredded spider leaf nests on the Townsville Town Common Conservation Park road. Bird sat down yesterday for vigorous grooming after landing (below) on the road with small nest and fast finishing off the small inhabitants as they scurried in vain to hide under the road metal.

There may be seasonal elements to the spiders' breeding (beyond scope of this post) and the Australian Raven's liking for the prey, since remnant nests hadn't been seen on the road (where birds can see and run down or uncover fleeing spiders) for some months. Ravens began building or patching up nests about this time last year. As unlikely as it would seem, perhaps breeding and spider-hunting are related? Side note: quick scan of guides finds no mention of tufty crest showing on yesterday's bird.

Honeyeaters help themselves

Seems innocent enough, doesn't it? Male Rufous-throated Honeyeater (Conopophila rufogularis) collects material for nesting. But thieves are ever with us.

Victims of this robbery are the Brown-backed Honeyeaters (Ramsayornis modestus) that defied my prediction of failure with a nest right in front of the Tyto hide. The pair three days ago began an even more noticeable nest outside the hide.

Progress seemed slow and work rather off and on, but that's not too unusual. Today, the nest was being deconstructed by the Rufous-throateds, busy unpicking spider webs binding the nest and carrying them to an islanded paperbark 30 metres away.

The four prominent small honeyeaters in the wetlands are the BBs, the RTs, and the Browns and (slightly larger) Yellows. BBs nests are targeted by all three other species, but I can't recall seeing the thieves' nests being raided until abandoned.

Browns and Yellows hide their nests better. But RTs, like BBs, build their dangling nests in the open, over water usually, and yet escape theft. It may be that the BBs' habit of stop-start work invites the other species to help themselves.

Lot of nothing 'hiding' near hide

'Not much to see here, is there?' visitor one said to visitor two after a minute or so in the Tyto hide today. The second agreed and they pushed off.

Scarcely a thing, I said at their retreating backs (since some people make it very clear they don't want help).

Scarcely a thing, except for:

Drawn-out gurgle from left-front 10 metres off in Scleria. Hello, Little Bittern, nice of you to announce your presence. Yes, I know, that's it for the day. Pity the impatient pair missed it. They wouldn't have appreciated the signal? You're right.

Scolding from two metres up and a metre out from left of hide. Gidday Mr Willie and Mrs Willie, how are the two wagtail youngsters? See for myself? Of course. They look bonny!

Tinkling from paperbark three metres out in front. Morning, Crimson Finches, how are you doing? Goodness only knows how many eggs or young you've got tucked in that nest hole. You'll know in good time, they said.

Churring from directly in front of hide. Hi, Brown-backed Honeyeaters, you're proving me wrong, aren't you? Going ahead with a nest I can touch? Too right, they said, you people can't see what's right in front of you.

Don't forget us, just because we're down here on the water, called three juvenile Comb-crested Jacanas. We don't like too much movement above us, but we'll be here for an hour or so.

So will we, came nervy voices from waters right and left of the hide. Hello, Green-pigmy Geese, starting to trust us, are you? Just a wee bit, they said. Did you know you go blue when backlit? I asked. Whatever, they said.

Hey what about us? chimed in the Australasian Reed Warbler, the Golden-headed Cisticola and some Red-backed Fairy-Wrens. We turn up here most days and you're leaving us till last.

No, I'm not, because here's a Yellow Honeyeater almost at touching distance and those White-breasted Woodswallows on the hand rail deserve a mention, and I'd almost forgotten the Buff-banded Rail darting for cover as I arrived and the Great Egret who stalked closer and closer to the hide before getting hungry for elsewhere and the Magpie Geese squadrons overhead and the Hardheads and Pacific Black Ducks and Wandering Whistling Ducks splashing close by and the squeaky-cushion noises from the unseen White-browed Crakes.

Besides, you birds are beautiful, but so too are the dragonfles, the damselflies, the butterflies, and that tree frog there right in front of the hide, sunning every day low on the Scleria.

But after all that there's scarcely anything here, right? Wrong, but that's another story.

Can't collar the Azures

And today's mystery visitor to the Azure Kingfisher tunnel site in the rainforest is ... a Collared Sparrowhawk. Just a fast flash through the tallest trees, about five metres below the canopy and gone again - followed by a few shrill honeyeater warning calls (too late, as usual).

Got a bit crowded at times. Large-billed Gerygones at nest, Willie Wagtail working bank, Shining Flycatchers too, Brown-backed, MacLeay's, Brown, and Graceful Honeyeaters here and there, White-browed Robin and Little Shrike-Thrush poking about, Fairy Gerygones and Silvereyes near forest's edge, Spectacled Monarch and higher up an Emerald Dove at speed and Pied Imperial Pigeons passing by.

But no sight or sound of Azures. Will quit the area for a week and try again next month. (Gently measured tunnel with a soft branch: 75cm straight in!

Quick Tyto circuit chanced upon Crimson Finches continuing to line their tree-trunk nest with white feathers. Thought you might like another burst of colour (bit noisy - still playing with high ISO settings).

Nest news good and bad

First, the bad news. Not only no sight or sound of the Lovely Fairy-Wren (Amurus amabilis) but the nest was today one egg light and the surviving egg felt a bit cool. A quad bike had left minor skid marks on the dirt road right beside the nest. But the rider was probably a pig hunter, licit or illicit.

My suspicion is a cuckoo. Soon after reading about cuckoos supposedly carrying eggs to plant in nests I witnessed the end part of more probable behaviour. A Brush Cuckoo (Cacomantus variolosus) flew into view with a small white egg in mouth, landed on a branch, swallowed the egg, and flew off.

Many birds have demonstrated the capacity to distinguish between small numbers. If the preyed-on wrens know two from three, it makes sense that the parasitic predator does also. It would also make sense not to waste food by throwing the host bird's egg(s) away. Wren watch continues tomorrow.

The good news was stumbling upon Large-billed Gerygones (Gerygone magnirostris) and a White-browed Robin (Poecilodryas superciliosa) at their nests, the first about 750mm long dangling over a rainforest creek, the latter in plain view about two metres up in a dying Tulip Tree sapling in Tyto.

There is no thick rainforest in Tyto but the fire trails lead a kilometre or so southwest to a dense 4sq km patch of forest, swamp and riverine jungle, all largely hidden from the highway by stands of pines and conifers and semi-ringed by sugar cane and flood grasses.

Chasing the high-pitched 'zeep' of an Azure Kingfisher (Alcedo azurea), I edged down a steep creek bank, spooked a duck lurking in the dark-shadowed long pool - topped up by unseasonal rains - and found two Large-billed Gerygones flitting about in trees across the water in front of me. One was carrying nest material.

The bird flew toward me to the nest - which dangled with entry hole almost right in front of me - popped the additions in place and headed away for more. Another site to keep an eye on. I left them to it. Cuckoos may not however.Cuckoos also make use of White-browed Robins, which usually build low on horizontal branches in shaded groves. Today's find appears to break every building code. Will try for better picture tomorrow, and see if clambering up nearby tree allows a view into the nest.

More good news, but stop reading if you hold all creatures equally sacred.

Feral pigs (Sus scrofa) began running amok early last year. After months of failed action, the shire got a professional trapper in. Nine shot in one trap at the edge of the main lagoon today brought his kills to more than 80. Tough on the pigs, but left alone they churn and destroy huge areas, and cost cane farmers a lot of cash.