The first presentation will be by Sue Lashko who will show and discuss the “Birding highlights from her recent trip to West Java and Southern Sumatra.”
The main presentation will be by Jessica McLachlan, who has recently completed her PhD work at the Research School of Biology at the ANU, on “Communicating about danger: alarm calls and information use in the New Holland Honeyeater“.
Knowledge about the presence of a predator could mean the difference between life and death, but animals do not always have to spot the predator themselves, as many species give alarm calls which warn others of danger. This means that animals have access to multiple sources of information about predators: they can detect danger themselves, listen to their own species’ alarm calls, and eavesdrop on the alarm calls given by other species. In her talk, Jessica will present research from her PhD on New Holland Honeyeaters in which she addresses what information honeyeaters communicate through their alarm calls and how honeyeaters integrate the information available to them from different sources.