Aussie Finch Forum

Thrilled to hear all is going well. Love the puns.
LML

I googled honey eaters WA and came up with 8 different species, the one that looked the closest was the Gray Honey eater. If ever i can get a photo of one in our yard I will post it.They are more a nuisance than a big problem.
Cheers Greg.

Thats strange Greg, never had any issues with honey eaters (fingers crossed)
Do you have any trees in your aviary that they might want to get at for a feed???

Photo of Honey Eater taken outside the aviary.Best photo my camera can take. Don't know what type it is, they are not such a problem now perhaps they were breeding earlier.
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Cheers Greg.

That's a Singing Honeyeater Greg. Very common in all our Perth suburbs. They do get quite terratorial in breeding season, but usually just fly onto the wire of your aviary and once birds in the aviary become used to them no one tends to get injured. They start breeding August/September so have all calmed down now as you've noticed, although I've still got a couple of later hatched juveniles in my back yard who are still loudly begging at times. Generally a great little bird to have around.

You beat me to it Redwing! Awesome Bird... Only ever seen them twice though

I think I know whats going on here,

I have had 4 birds the either die on the ground with one leg or survive 1 legged but have a tough time through life.
WHats happened at my place was...cats they jump on the wire at night time and the scared birds in fright head straight to the aviary wire.
The cats par the wire and get a grip of 1 leg..
Its only happened to prightly coloured birds, Yellow goulds or pied redfaces....grrr.
I think I have stopped it happening this year, by planting purple fountain grass long the frontside of the aviary making it hard for the cats to position themselves.
Always at night...no mice/rat holes.

I had white throated honeyeaters for years - they love the Bottlebrush trees n they nest in them. Horrible territorial things..
But now, minus Bottlebrush and minus White throats...........Instead I have beautiful White cheeked honeyeaters now!
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it was a young owl we've established, have taken a number of measures to discourage it now.

It's usually only agressive, larger honeyeaters that will attack the smaller birds( Noisy Miners etc) The mesh down the sides is a good idea to make attacks a bit harder. My experience with birds with missing legs in the morning is not owl attack but a rat! The birds get a night fright and land on the wire, a rat will hear and see it, climb up the wire and pull the leg through an rip it off, even through vermin proof wire. Try setting a rat trap close to that spot for a couple of nights and see what happens. A rat is far better equipped to do this than an owl who normally would have to seize the prey with its tallons first before putting beak into action.

I'm tending to agree with Tintola- a rat or possibly a native carnivorous marsupial eg phascogale.
But you're not on your own.
A mate of mine in Melbourne woke up to find his Red-tailed Black cockatoo suffer the same fate- one leg ripped off clean from the hip;the other leg torn at the knee- and the bird survived!! he never found out exactly what it was but suspected foxes.