Tweet of the Day

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BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Factual: Science & Nature

Discover birds through their songs and calls. 265 programmes of 90 seconds, over a year

Discover birds through their songs and calls. Each Tweet of the Day begins with a call or song, followed by a story of fascinating ornithology inspired by the sound.

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Tweet of the Day 

Tweet of the Day: Bell Miner

Bell Miner

BBC Radio 4 - Tweet of the Day, Bell Miner

Chris Packham presents the bell miner of eastern Australia.

Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.

Chris Packham presents the bell miner of eastern Australia. The sound of a tiny hammer striking a musical anvil in a grove of gum trees signifies that bell miners are in search of sugar. More often heard than seen the bell miner is a smallish olive-green bird with a short yellow bill, with a small orange patch behind the eye. It belongs to a large family of birds known as honeyeaters because many have a sweet tooth and use their long bills to probe flowers for nectar. But the bell miner gets its sugar hit in other ways. Roving in sociable flocks, bell miners scour eucalyptus leaves for tiny bugs called psyllids who produce a protective waxy dome. Bell miners feed on these sweet tasting shelters. Some scientists suggest that Bell Miners actively farm these insects by avoiding over-exploiting of the psyllid colonies, allowing the insects numbers to recover before the birds' next visit. So dependent are they on these psyllids bugs that Bell Miners numbers can often fluctuate in association with any boom-and-bust changes in psyllid population.

Producer : Andrew Dawes

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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