Wildlife December 2011

[mark smyth]

Photos have appeared on N Irish bird blogs of sparrows and Blackcaps with Phormium pollen on their heads

[Lesley Cox]

It's very common here too with bellbirds and tuis. The flowers are shaped in such a way that the birds have to push their heads past the pollen sacs in order to reach the nectar. Then of course they take that pollen past the stigmas of the next flowers/plants. Various birds, especially the native wood pigeons eat the black seeds in due course. If it were not for that I'd get rid of the large, tatty and extremely ugly great clump in my garden tho' it would take a front end loader to dislodge it now.

I have at last seen live shining cuckoos in the garden. We seem to have at least six and I hear them every day without fail but they are very elusive to see and in the past I've only seen a dead one after it crashed into a large window at our previous place. They are about the size of a bellbird, or a slim starling and are bright olive green on their backs, creamy on the front, speckled with tan. They sound nothing like a cuckoo at all. It may have been a family of parent/s and young I saw yesterday, flying between gum trees and still calling madly.

[Anthony Darby]

I would be surprised if shining cuckoos went round as a family unit as the female lays each egg in the nest of the grey warbler and abandons it. The resulting chick evicts the warbler chicks or eggs and is reared by the adult warblers. In the autumn it will head off to the Solomon Islands to overwinter.

[Lesley Cox]

You're right of course Anthony. I didn't think of that, so maybe they just gather together for some social time, once the young are laid (excuse me). There were six here all singing the same distinctive song, if it can be called that, flying between the gum trees. I only saw them in silhouette against the sky, but no mistaking the sound.

[Anthony Darby]

I love cuckoos. Heard them often, but saw them rarely, in sunny D. I do remember seeing lizard cuckoos in Jamaica. They are quite special and spectacular. I still have my copy of Bond, James Bond. I must look out for cuckoos here.

[Anthony Darby]

Spotted this cicada in the garden today.

[Lesley Cox]

Your cicada, taking the spots as eyes, looks quite coy.

[Anthony Darby]

Yes, Lesley, plus the two huge compound eyes.

[Anthony Darby]

The little springbok mantids have more than doubled their size since I last photographed them, and some have turned green.

[Lesley Cox]

White shorts will be the next development.

[Anthony Darby]

White shorts will be the next development.

I'm sure they'll be praying for them? White socks and sandals too:

Here are some pics of my emperor gum (Opodiphthera eucalypti) caterpillars, which are second instar, with some moulting into 3rd.

[Lesley Cox]

Very handsome beasties but boy! they can get through the gum leaves! I could do with some here. I spend hours raking up the blasted things. They don't ever rot down to leaf mould.

[Anthony Darby]

I could send you some eggs if a female hatches tonight or tomorrow?

[Giles]

This might amuse  http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/12/26/cat-kitten-loft-ladder-youtube_n_1169884.html

[mark smyth]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3GJycgu-cs[/youtube]