Noisy miners: when good birds go bad

August 17, 2024 6:41 AM

Noisy miners: when good birds go bad. Noisy miners (Manorina melanocephala) are a type of honeyeater that will do anything to protect their patch. Noisy miners will harass or kill smaller birds. But by choosing the right plants, we can help them and other birds to co-exist in Australian cities. This is an 5 minute video from the Australian documentary series, The Secret Lives Of Our Urban Birds by nature journalist Dr Ann Jones.

The noisy miner colony unites to mob inter-specific intruders and predators. The noisy miner will approach the threat closely and point, expose eye patches, and often bill-snap. Five to fifteen birds will fly around the intruder, some birds diving at it and either pulling away or striking the intruder. The mobbing continues until the intruder remains still, as with a tawny frogmouth (Podargus strigoides), or it leaves the area. Mobbing of snakes and goannas is particularly intense, and most species of bird, even non-predators, entering the territory are immediately chased. The noisy miner has been recorded attacking an Australian owlet-nightjar (Aegotheles cristatus) during the day, grebes, herons, ducks and cormorants on lakes at the edge of territories, crested pigeons (Ocyphaps lophotes), pardalotes, and rosellas. Non-predatory mammals such as bats, cattle, sheep, and wallabies are also attacked, though less vigorously than birds.

Noisy miner attacks are not limited to chasing the intruder, and aggressive incidents often result in the death of the trespasser. Reports include those of two noisy miners repeatedly pecking a house sparrow (Passer domesticus) at the base of its skull and killing it in six minutes; one noisy miner grasping a striated pardalote (Pardalotus striatus) by the wing, while another pecked it on the head until it died; and a sacred kingfisher (Todiramphus sanctus) being chased and harassed for over five hours, and then found dead with a fractured skull.

posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (2 comments total)

A valuable window into how naive plant selection (and plant marketing by nurseries in my experience) can depauperate a landscape leading to its collapse.

Is that concrete in the wetland aerial - I hope it is a clay pond liner? If concrete that will make for an 'interesting' (and very expensive) landscape.

So many people want to see plant selection as simple, when every plant species is unique especially regarding what eats it, what parasitises it it .. and what eats the parasites. But also in how different plant species deal with water, and air and soil pollutants.

I wonder if there are any plants that reduce the fecundity (breeding rate) - or behaviour - of noisy miners, without impacting on other birdlife. There's been some research done with rabbits and hares where certain plants disrupt ther oestrogen cycle and reduce their numbers - but it also does the same to sheep (but no other grazers afaik), there's usually a solution in biology, or human culture buty can take ages to find.
posted by unearthed at 10:04 AM on August 17 [1 favorite]

We've seen the noisy miners gradually taking over our Sydney neighbourhood in the six years we've been here. When we first moved in we had impressive diversity, considering how urban our surroundings are. We have a big tallowwood gum in the back yard that used to attract kookaburras, butcherbirds, currawongs, magpies, channel billed cuckoos, koels, and loads of lorikeets. We participate in the backyard bird count every year, and it's like documenting the decline of species. This past year we were down to only noisy miners and lorikeets during the count week, but even the lorikeet numbers have declined significantly. I won't be surprised if this year's count is only noisy miners. They are so vicious and unpleasant.
posted by amusebuche at 7:29 PM on August 17 [2 favorites]