A pair of noisy miners outside the Eastlands Shopping Centre were living up to their name. An unbelievably loud “pwee pwee pwee’’ resonated across the tables of the alfresco dining area of a restaurant there, making it impossible for me to hear what a relative I had met for coffee was saying.
Each morning in summer and spring, I was told, the noisy miners woke him at dawn. Only this was not spring, it was barely into the last month of winter. The hint of spring carried on the winds of a warm and sunny day had put a male miner into a wooing frenzy. He perched in an ornamental tree, singing what could hardly be described as a song, fluttering wings and tail frantically.
A female lured to the tree was most impressed.
Such noisy miner antics are common on the Eastern Shore, hardly worth a second glance unless the commotion is interrupting conversation, but I was fascinated, so much so I ordered a second cup of coffee to continue watching the performance.
I don’t get to see noisy miners in my neighbourhood of Dynnyrne, where the thick forested slopes of the Waterworks Valley form an environment not to the miner’s liking.
They prefer the dry sandy areas fringing the Derwent, and the area surrounding the Eastlands complex with its scattered white gums makes an ideal home for them.
Noisy miners are not popular with the birdwatching fraternity because they tend to dominate the neighbourhood and send other birds on their way. The miners might only be the size of a starling, but they show no fear when it comes to a challenging much bigger birds, like magpies and butcherbirds, for food.
Noisy miners might be members of the honeyeater family but they behave in a remarkably un-honeyeater fashion. Although they will lap up nectar and pollen with their feather-like tongues, they also fly to the ground to probe the dry earth for insects.
Miners are often confused with the introduced mynas of the south-eastern mainland, which are members of the starling family, and it is easy to see why. The noisy miner not only has a name that sounds similar to the ear, the honeyeaters behave in a similar fashion. And like the mynas, they have learned to live in man’s world and to exploit resources like discarded food, particularly lollies thrown to them by children in playgrounds.
The noisy miners have become so established in the city environment that research shows they has even moderated their songs for an urban setting, singing louder to overcome competition from traffic noise.
City miners are also bolder. At the sight of danger they do not fly as far as their cousins in more rural areas – they will only fly a shorter distance to a safe perch, and assess the situation from there.
The noisy miner is identified by its mostly grey body and black crown and cheeks. The bill is yellow, as are the legs and the naked skin behind the eye.
Because I don’t get the opportunity to study miners in my neighbourhood I swotted up on them when I got home. I soon realised the female being courted by the male would be in for a long and torrid spring and summer. The female constructs the nest and incubates the eggs alone, although the male chips in finally to help care for and feed the young birds.