‘The Bush Mafia’
Jun 23rd, 2008 by andrew skeoch
Honeyeaters are probably a nuisance to many small forest birds. They can be numerous, and are often quite territorial, with a habit of mobbing and chasing off smaller species.
In some, such as Bell Miners, this trait can lead to them being seen as a significant pest – sometimes even to other honeyeaters! Take the example of the Helmeted Honeyeater, the Victorian faunal emblem, a critically endangered species with only a few dozen birds surviving in the wild, in a handful of restricted areas east of Melbourne. Here they are threatened by the unwelcome attentions of Bell Miners – to the extent that programs have had to be enacted, removing the Miners to defend the Helmeted Honeyeaters.
Now here is the curious thing. The Helmeted Honeyeater is *very* closely related to a much more common species; the Yellow-tufted Honeyeater. Indeed they look almost identical, and some ornithologists viewing the Helmeted Honeyeater as only a race of the Yellow-tufted.
Yellow-tufties are found throughout eastern Australia, and are most common Honeyeater species found on our bush property. Here we frequently get to see their highly territorial behaviours, which have lead us to affectionately call them ‘The Bush Mafia’.
But this obnoxious behaviour is a mixed blessing for other small bush birds. Yes, they frequently get chased off, but the Yellow-tufties’ also perform a benevolent service – their piping alarm calls are a sure sign to all that a predator is in the area. As soon as I hear these calls in the bush, I look up and scan, often catching sight of a goshawk or eagle.
This recoding is of that moment. But this time I wasn’t there to look up. My microphones were quietly recording away by themselves, ambiently documenting the landscape (in hopes of recording our rarely-heard Chestnut-rumped Heathwren that lives in the Daphne Heath out the front of our house).
A pity I wasn’t there to look, as on this occasion, it was an equally uncommon visitor overhead who was the source of the alarm; a Peregrine Falcon. You can hear him approaching with hoarse cries, and then the Honeyeater’s piping alarms. It is possibly, by his cries, that the Peregrine was also being harrassed by something larger, maybe a magpie or raven, but sadly, I wasn’t there to tell.