Chosun Juan
Given to Fly
I thought I would start this thread to document some behaviour I witnessed, and see what folks think of it, and to see what else, if anything, pops up ....
I was walking alongside the riparian area of some Grassy Box Gum Woodland in the Central West NSW, when I saw something that I'd never seen before.
On a very large, mature Blakely's Red Gum growing in the, at that time, dry, creek, was a Galah about 15-20m up on the solid main trunk chewing some bark around a smallish (~5-10cm? in diameter) grey broken branch stump. It was working diligently away. The thing that really struck me was that it would have taken ~ perhaps ~ 50 years to form a usable hollow of the size needed - likely beyond the lifespan of the bird. It was likely that that particular hollow project would have taken many years and decades even of constant dedicated work to form a suitable hollow.
Not a photo of the occurrence, but was something similar to this -
photo credit: http://www.mfgowoodlandexperiment.org.au/MFGOpublications.html
This behaviour struck me as totally altruistic - working away for something that almost certainly wouldn't have benefited the individual. .....
Is that the right take on it? Has anyone else witnessed this or something like it in Australia? Are there any studies or research on it? and are there other different examples from around the world?
Chosun :gh:
I was walking alongside the riparian area of some Grassy Box Gum Woodland in the Central West NSW, when I saw something that I'd never seen before.
On a very large, mature Blakely's Red Gum growing in the, at that time, dry, creek, was a Galah about 15-20m up on the solid main trunk chewing some bark around a smallish (~5-10cm? in diameter) grey broken branch stump. It was working diligently away. The thing that really struck me was that it would have taken ~ perhaps ~ 50 years to form a usable hollow of the size needed - likely beyond the lifespan of the bird. It was likely that that particular hollow project would have taken many years and decades even of constant dedicated work to form a suitable hollow.
Not a photo of the occurrence, but was something similar to this -
photo credit: http://www.mfgowoodlandexperiment.org.au/MFGOpublications.html
This behaviour struck me as totally altruistic - working away for something that almost certainly wouldn't have benefited the individual. .....
Is that the right take on it? Has anyone else witnessed this or something like it in Australia? Are there any studies or research on it? and are there other different examples from around the world?
Chosun :gh:
Last edited: