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Masked Lapwings Vanellus miles novaehollandiae nesting in urban and peri-urban areas generate several management issues, such as their ground-based nests being vulnerable to destruction and their aggressive, defensive behaviour towards humans and pets. This paper reports on a four-year study of Masked Lapwing breeding attempts at two peri-urban sites in western Sydney, Australia. The mean […]

Many birds cannot colonize cities, but for those that can having the phenotypic plasticity to adjust to urban conditions and/or being preadapted for them is critical. Other factors potentially facilitating avian synurbanization are the capacities to dominate aggressive resource competition with established species and exploit the specific advantages of urban flocking. We investigated the foraging […]

Three taxa of the Silvereye Zosterops lateralis were confirmed to occur on Broughton Island, New South Wales. In bird banding activities carried out in 2017-2019, we identified 404 Silvereyes to subspecies level. Subspecies cornwalli (Z. lateralis cornwalli) was present all year and some birds of that subspecies either were resident on the island or were […]

There has been a considerable focus on behavioural flexibility and innovative exploitation of novel anthropogenic food resources in avian synurbanization, but the possible influence of preadaptation has received less attention. Interspecific interference competition may be a significant influence on synurbanization, but its influence has also not been very widely examined. Accordingly, we studied Galahs Eolophus […]

Seven sources, the BirdLife Australia Atlas database, birdlists submitted to eBird, the Atlas of Living Australia, the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service Wildnet database, Birding-Aus, personal observations and personal communications to me, provided 142 unique records of the occurrence of the Striated Grasswren Amytornis striatus in central Queensland. These records were mapped to define the […]

The identification of nest predators provides a better understanding of how particular predators and their foraging modes shape the evolution of anti-predator behaviours in nesting birds. We monitored nests of the Pink Robin Petroica rodinogaster, Flame Robin P. phoenicia, Grey Fantail Rhipidura fuliginosa, Tasmanian Thornbill Acanthiza ewingii and Brown Thornbill A. pusilla in Tasmania to […]