Who's eating my manferns?

[Tortoise]

In recent weeks, I've been finding massacred fronds on the manferns in my garden. (Sorry about the duplicate photo and photos in the wrong places. You'd think that'd be easy to fix. )

The only thing I've noticed, was on top of another manfern trunk (that hasn't had fronds eaten) - piles of...small possum poo? Maybe ringtail?

I wondered about large rats, but the scats are fairly round on the ends, so maybe not. Any ideas?

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[michael_p]

My thoughts are Wallaby or Possum. Have a scrounge through here and see if anything looks close enough:
https://lens.google.com/search?p=AU55jv ... xudWxsXQ==

[norts]

We have a lot of Man Ferns around our house and each year the Green Parrots come in and strip the fronds.

[myrtlegirl]

We have the same thing happening. The main fronds can't be reached by ground dwellers, and are not broken off. The secondary fronds are pulled off.

I'd say the poop is unrelated to the fern carnage.

[north-north-west]

Quite a few birds do this to various forest species and it's mostly parrots: rosellas and cockatoos. You could try putting some netting up temporarily and see if that helps.

[bernieq]

Koala have scat like that (shape & about 20mm). Obviously, if koala then I'd agree with myrtlegirl that the scat is unrelated to the fern predator.

[Tortoise]

We have a lot of Man Ferns around our house and each year the Green Parrots come in and strip the fronds.

Sounds like they recover if there's more to strip each year?

[Tortoise]

My thoughts are Wallaby or Possum. Have a scrounge through here and see if anything looks close enough:

Thanks for the link, Michael. I didn't realise there's a Poo Flip out. Must get one of those. No wallabies around here.

[Tortoise]

We have the same thing happening. The main fronds can't be reached by ground dwellers, and are not broken off. The secondary fronds are pulled off.

I'd say the poop is unrelated to the fern carnage.

You're probably right. Have you had the problem before?

[Tortoise]

Quite a few birds do this to various forest species and it's mostly parrots: rosellas and cockatoos. You could try putting some netting up temporarily and see if that helps.

Hmm. Sounding like parrots might be the thing. I'm surprised, though, as it seems to happen at night. And the ferns are directly outside my bedroom and kitchen windows, and I spend a fair bit of time in the garden, and I've never seen any parrots around. Just wattle birds, starlings, blackbirds, sparrows and lovely littlies. Come to think of it, sparrows can be very destructive, massacring a crop overnight. I'll see what netting I can find. Could be tricky not damaging the soft new growth, though.

Last edited by Tortoise on Tue 25 Oct, 2022 7:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Tortoise]

Koala have scat like that (shape & about 20mm). Obviously, if koala then I'd agree with myrtlegirl that the scat is unrelated to the fern predator.

Hi Bernie. Thanks for your thoughts too. No koalas in Tassie (unfortunately).

[Tortoise]

Green rosellas are definitely the culprits - I finally caught them in the act. They moved on before I got around to trying netting before, but they're back with avengence. Need to get some soon!