This morning I saw a yellow-eyed (also called barred) cuckooshrike feeding on figs on our home property at Running Creek (southeast of Rathdowney). I recall having seen them eating figs here way back in the late 80’s, but haven’t seen them since. They are wide-ranging but not really common and I remember the vet at Taronga Zoo being quite excited when I told him we had some at home. I have a (not very good) photo of it with a fig in its mouth on the Scenic Rim wildlife Facebook site http://www.facebook.com/Scenic.Rim.Wildlife. The fig is the one that used to be known as Ficus platypoda but I think has now been put in with F. rubiginosa even though the ones on this side of the border don;t have the rusty colour under the leaves, leaving F. platypoda as the name of others in northern and western (including Uluru!) regions. It was a good morning – I also saw a white-faced heron ‘buzz’ a platypus (presumably trying to catch a fish the platypus had disturbed), and an azure kingfisher (which often follow platypus was sitting just downstream.
Cheers
Ronda
Ronda Green, BSc(Hons)PhD Chair, Scenic Rim branch, Wildlife Preservation Society of Qld http://scenicrim.wildlife.org.au/ platypuscorner@bigpond.com or scenicrim@wildlife.org.au
Find us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Scenic.Rim.Wildlife
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