I remember seeing a Willie Wagtail land on the bare chest of the late Peter Congreve who was sun-bathing (sleeping) in a chair on the verandah at The Eyre Bird Observatory in the early 1980s. The Willie wagtail then started tugging at Peter’s chest hairs in an effort to collect nest material.
Stephen Ambrose Ryde NSW
The late Australian poet Douglas Stewart wrote a poem called “Nesting Time” describing a White-eared Honeyeater which pulled out his and his young daughter’s hair. Worth reading.
Anthea Fleming
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Apologies for sending this twice, Greg, but I want to explain why it’s so late. When your message appeared on b-aus, I typed my reply immediately and ever since have been trying unsuccessfully to send it. Clicked on “Send and Receive” and all I got was an error message saying that mail cannot be sent to my account because the server is busy, try again later. And this despite the fact that mail is being sent to me at the time if there are any ‘In’ messages to be received. And my message to you just stayed in the Outbox.
But I may finally have found where I was at fault: with your message open I simply clicked on reply. This left the birding-aus details at the bottom. Removed them tonight and apparently my reply has been sent. Again my apologies for all this – I was born too long ago to be computer-competent.
Spot on, Greg.
There is a photo titled “White-eared honeyeater gathering hair for nest-lining” at page 87 in “Bird Wonders of Australia”, by Alec Chisholm (Angus & Robertson, 1948).
The photo carries the credit: “Self-photo: K. A. Hindwood”. And Chisholm devotes Chapter XI – “Birds that steal human hair” to discussing this practice of that species.
Cheers
Syd
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White-eared Honeyeaters are well known for landing on people’s heads and pulling out hair to be used in their nests. I haven’t seen it myself but have seen photos taken, I think by the late Keith Hindwood, in the Sydney area of this practice.
I presume that the Friarbird was doing the same thing.
Regards
Greg Clancy Ecologist Coutts Crossing NSW