Constant Competition

I arrived back in Parkerville today after a month away and did the routine nest-box check at my parents’ block. This was what I saw when I looked straight up the trunk of this Lemon-scented Gum next to the driveway: an Australian Ringneck seeing who was knocking on her door!

I climbed up to inspect the box and count how many eggs she was incubating, and as I opened the lid, this is what I saw...

The three smaller white eggs belong to the ringneck, but the larger ones are much to big! These belong to Australian Wood Ducks, which have already been observed using my other nest boxes, sometimes in tight competition with other species (see the ‘Ducking Around’ and ‘Wood Ducks’ stories for more info). If you look really closely, you can also see a few pink feathers inside the nest box, which belong to Galahs, showing that they, too, have been inside this box.

Somehow I don’t think the ringneck is big enough to sit on the duck eggs, but I wonder if having such enormous things right in the middle of her nest bothers her at all?