As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Sunday 14 July 2019

Long-tailed cuckoo identified as fearsome predator of New Zealand's smallest bird



Catrin Owen09:06, Jun 30 2019
New Zealand's tiniest bird, the tiny endemic rifleman, has a new predator - the long-tailed cuckoo. 
University of Auckland PHD students, Ines Moran and Yen Yi Loo, discovered the long-tailed cuckoo or koekoeā snatched tiny rifleman chicks from a nest, while checking footage to make sure camera traps were working.
Moran and Loo both got a big surprise to see the cuckoo snatching the chicks.
"Our work is focused on studying rifleman behaviour and interaction between parents and chicks so when I saw the cuckoo footage, it came as something of a shock," Moran said.
"It's quite unique to discover a new predator of an endemic bird and cuckoos were not on the predator list for rifleman – well not until now anyway."

Continued


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