Manorina melanocephala

4 Noisy Miner at Fadden, ACT

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Identification history

Manorina melanocephala	16 Mar 2024	MatthewFrawley
Manorina melanocephala	16 Mar 2024	CarbonAI
Manorina melanocephala	16 Mar 2024	ChrisBlunt

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User's notes

Spotted at Hannah Community Park in Fadden

4 comments

MichaelBedingfield wrote:

18 Mar 2024

Hi Chris. It looks like the bird is eating the feral honey bees. This is a very interesting behaviour. Can you confirm? Also, can you please add a separate sighting of the bees, and tick the box for "Bee nest present".

ChrisBlunt wrote:

18 Mar 2024

Hi Michael. I took the photo from about 20m away so couldn't observe the behaviour at the time. It wasn't until I got home and cropped the photo that I could see the nest and what looks like the noisy miner which is a honeyeater eating a bee. Unfortunately, this photo is now a few years old so the nest is unlikely to still be there. Incidentally, I have seen other nests over the past few years in the same area which I do have photos of.

MichaelBedingfield wrote:

19 Mar 2024

Thanks Chris. Honey bees are very persistent. There is a Honey Bee nest on Urambi Hills which has been in a tree hollow at least 10 years. We are quite interested in feral bees because they are a threat to insect biodiversity and also take over tree hollows and exclude native birds and mammals. So recording the location of the bees nest would be of value.

ChrisBlunt wrote:

19 Mar 2024

Hi Michael, thanks for enlightening me. I wasn't aware that nests could still be active years later. I have now added a separate sighting as you suggested.

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Location information

Coordinates 149.117451 -35.407451
Places Fadden, ACT

Sighting information

1 Abundance
16 Oct 2018 01:05 PM Recorded on
ChrisBlunt Recorded by
Collections
Photographic Competition - best habitat image Featured ChrisBlunt Canberra & Southern Tablelands NatureMapr Honeyeater Other Birds Birds

Species information

Manorina melanocephala Scientific name
Noisy Miner Common name
Not Sensitive
Local native
Non-invasive or negligible
Up to 895.3m Recorded at altitude
375 images trained Machine learning
External link More information
Synonyms
Manorina (Myzantha) melanocephala

Record quality

Images or audio
More than one media file
Verified by an expert moderator
Nearby sighting(s) of same species
GPS evidence of location
Description
Additional attributes

Australian Capital Territory

New South Wales

Queensland

Northern Territory

Western Australia

South Australia

Victoria

Tasmania