. Re: Help!

Hi Sue

Currawongs are very smart birds, but they’re also very cautious, probably more so than the yellow robins, When doing fieldwork on frugivorus birds, I had to conceal myself more fully or stay further from the fruiting tree if I wanted to watch currawongs or crows than if it was just honeyeaters, fig birds etc. and I spent a full week at Binna Burra, where although currawongs didn’t hesitate to raid picnic tables and beg for food in the campground, gradually habituating them to a cage trap similar to one that had previously caught a couple of hundred bowerbirds. Finally on the last morning two went in at once and I caught them both – and I’m sure I would never have caught any more after their companions witnessed it. I’ve never had any luck catching them in mistnets. Maybe you could try putting a kind of scarecrow nearby, or life-size statue of a dog or hawk, testing of course to see if the robins are worried by it. I found a hawk statue worked for stopping crows eating our free-range chickens’ eggs and the chickens didn’t seem daunted by it at all..

Cheers

Ronda

> On 3 Sep 2018, at 2:00 am, birding-aus-request@birding-aus.org wrote:
>
> . Re: Help!

Ronda Green, PhD
platypuscorner@bigpond.com

Proprietor, Araucaria Ecotours
www.learnaboutwildlife.com

Chair, Wildlife Tourism Australia
www.wildlifetourism.org.au

Chair, Scenic Rim Wildlife
scenicrim.wildlife.org.au

Adjunct Researcher, Griffith University



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