A couple of notes about grey butcherbirds have been received recently - one about their song, and one about their family dynamics.
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The grey butcherbird is a great songster, very noticeable at this time of the year. Many of its notes are pure, and sometimes they form a short tune of 20 or more notes.
At other times the call is faster, with a few harsher notes included.
It is not uncommon for one butcherbird to start a song, then have its mate complete it without a noticeable gap.
This is what our correspondent has noticed in Ballarat's Botanical Gardens, commenting on "at least two or possibly several birds" giving the "beautiful clear song".
As far as family dynamics are concerned, grey butcherbirds normally live in pairs or small family groups.
A Mt Clear reader reports that a long-term pair has had a bossy male youngster for six years.
It seems that there have been no surviving butcherbird chicks for that time because of his aggressive behaviour.
This is an odd situation.
Butcherbirds, along with others such as magpies and kookaburras, sometimes (but not always) have immature youngsters from the previous year helping to raise youngsters of later broods.
In most such groups, the senior breeding male would be intolerant of a younger male, so the Mt Clear situation is very unusual.
We would expect young males to be driven away first, especially after the first year. This young male has never been observed helping other family members.
Last spring, he made a "brutal vicious attack" on a younger male, which was not seen again.
From a human viewpoint, this aggressive bird seems to be extremely jealous of any butcherbird newcomers, but - surprisingly - his father still allows him to remain.
At six years old, he should have moved off four or five years ago to find a territory of his own.
Adult male grey butcherbirds are clean-cut black, white and grey birds.
Females are slightly paler, and immatures are browner.
HOUSE CENTIPEDE
A Australian native creature known as the house centipede occurs both inside and outside. A report from Scarsdale describes it as a "speckled crawling insect that is quite common both in my house and in the garden".
Not closely resembling other, more typical, centipedes, this one is greyer, with a speckled body, and has just 15 pairs of much longer legs. It has two long antennae.
A rapid mover, it feeds on spiders, cockroaches, silverfish, beetles and other similar small creatures, which it captures by speed.
