Saving Forty Spotted Pardalote chicks from blood-sucking maggots!

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Bruny Island

A critical problem that is stopping 40-Spotted Pardalotes being able to successfully breed is a parasite. There is a native fly which lays its eggs inside the nests of the pardalotes, and then the eggs hatch, the maggots come out and burrow under the skin of the 40-Spotted Pardalote nestlings and sucks their blood, and it is usually fatal.

Now this is a native fly and it is endemic (restricted) to Tasmania. It has co-occurred with Forty Spotted Pardalotes for aeons.

So there has to have been some sort of balance between these two for them to co-exist, but at the moment that balance is completely out. On North Bruny we're looking at more than 90% mortality of nestlings because of fly parasites.

What has been found is that the rates of fly infection are greater if the winter has been warmer. What we think is happening is that if we get cold weather over the winter, it kills the flies. But as our winters are getting warmer, more flies are surviving and so it's tipped the balance in favour of the flies, and now we've got a major problem for the Forty Spotted Pardalote population.

Bernd dittrich N Vc Cx3 Px8 BA unsplash — A native fly maggot is creating problems for Forty-Spotted pardalote breeding. Image: Bernd Dittrich on Unsplash (NB: not of the local species).

Researchers have come up with a way of treating this, which. It is to take advantage of the tendency for Forty Spotted Pardalotes to line their nests with feathers.

What has been done at an experimental level is to take some chicken feathers, soak them in insecticide, and put them in a dispenser, hang it up in the tree, and then the Forty-Spotted Pardalotes come and collect the feathers and take them and put them in their nest and fumigate their own nest.

And the difference is enormous. They're going from more than 90% mortality of nestlings to less than 10% mortality of nestlings, and going from 0.3 fledglings per nest to 3.8 fledglings per nest. So we're looking at rolling this out at an operational level as a way of increasing reproductive output for Forty-Spotted Pardalotes.

Julian hanslmaier l Y Mb Hxtnt Ro unsplash — Forty Spotted Pardalotes have been fumigating their own nests with insecticide soaked chicken feathers. Image: Julian Hanslmaier on Unsplash

And the difference is enormous. They're going from more than 90% mortality of nestlings to less than 10% mortality of nestlings

Dr Andrew Hingston

Dr Andrew Hingston is an expert in Tasmanian birds.

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Now this is a native fly and it is endemic (restricted) to Tasmania. It has co-occurred with Forty Spotted Pardalotes for aeons.

Researchers have come up with a way of treating this, which. It is to take advantage of the tendency for Forty Spotted Pardalotes to line their nests with feathers.