Incredible find in shopping centre car park stuns shoppers: 'So many'
Photos taken in Cairns show dozens of spherical objects crafted from what appear to be sticks huddled together in the tree.
Numerous “spectacular” orbs seen hanging from a tree in the middle of a popular shopping centre car park have amused Aussies.
The “pretty cool” sight in Cairns earlier this week prompted one customer to pause and snap several photos, however she said online she was careful not to get too close. The photos show dozens of spherical objects crafted from what appears to be sticks and grass dripping from the numerous branches.
“I like how they pick a tree and build so many nests,” the woman wrote on a Facebook page dedicated to native birds, after which members revealed the “apartments” belong to metallic starlings.
“Nesting by the hundreds. Very common this time of year. Noisy buggers too,” one local man responded. “Sometimes they fly down from the hills in a shining, iridescent avalanche. Very nice,” another added.
'Gregarious' birds nest in colonies, attracting other animals
Staff at the Queensland Museum confirmed to Yahoo News Australia the birds spotted living in the car park are indeed metallic starlings, which are native to Queensland, Moluccas in Indonesia, New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.
“Metallic starlings are gregarious,” a Queensland Museum spokesperson said. “They travel and feed in flocks and they roost and nest together in colonies. Many nests in the same tree is normal. The birds often return to favoured nesting trees year after year.
“In north Queensland most of the metallic starling population is migratory and thought to travel to New Guinea for the non-breeding season. The birds begin to return to Australia in August and October.”
The communal nests have attracted some of the densest animal aggregations ever recorded, Aussie scientists declared in a 2016 study published by academic journal PLOS ONE.
The gatherings in a single tree “create dense and specced-rich fauna ‘hot-spots’, attracting a diverse assemblage of local consumers that utilise this seasonal resource,” it states. Flying invertebrates, nocturnal birds, reptiles, and amphibians were seen gathering beneath the poison-dart trees where starlings are known to nest.
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