So I have been reading the Pizzey & Knight Australian bird field guide, and it says (in the section about using bird habits as ID tools) that you can tell sittellas from treecreepers by their movements on tree trunks - the creepers work their way up from the base, sittellas start at the top. Pretty cool thing to know I reckon. I hope I get to see these birds soon.
the interesting thing about that is Australian creepers are named after northern hemisphere tree-creepers which work their way up the tree trunk, and sittellas are named after northern hemisphere nuthatches which work their way down the trunks.
the interesting thing about that is Australian creepers are named after northern hemisphere tree-creepers which work their way up the tree trunk, and sittellas are named after northern hemisphere nuthatches which work their way down the trunks.
the interesting thing about that is Australian creepers are named after northern hemisphere tree-creepers which work their way up the tree trunk, and sittellas are named after northern hemisphere nuthatches which work their way down the trunks.
I think you missed the point of my post, which was that the Australian creepers and sittellas were named after the northern hemsiphere birds on account of their similar appearance and yet they exhibit the same foraging behaviour as those counterparts (up the tree for tree-creepers, down the tree for nuthatches/sittellas). They aren't opposite, they are the same. I rather suspect too that if you forced a nuthatch down the toilet it would spiral and drown in the same way as a sittella.
I think you missed the point of my post, which was that the Australian creepers and sittellas were named after the northern hemsiphere birds on account of their similar appearance and yet they exhibit the same foraging behaviour as those counterparts (up the tree for tree-creepers, down the tree for nuthatches/sittellas). They aren't opposite, they are the same. I rather suspect too that if you forced a nuthatch down the toilet it would spiral and drown in the same way as a sittella.
Ah ok. I thought you meant that birds with the same name went up the tree in the northern hemisphere but down the tree in the Southern Hemispherebecause whoever named them mixed up the behaviour.
