mantra wrote:
If there is a disease ravaging their numbers on the east coast - it will probably spread
I could do with that disease at my place. Magpies don't like Kookaburras or Crows, but are too gutless to take on Crows. They wait for the Noisy Minahs to harass them in to moving on, and then the Magpies tail the Crows as they're leaving. I once saw a Kookaburra fly off with a Magpie chick in its mouth.
mantra wrote:In the last couple of months the butcher birds have disappeared.
Still got plenty of Butcher birds. The little grey bodied ones around my camp, and the larger black and white ones around a cleared area up near the road.
I know black fellas don't like Willy Wag-tails, but I used to 'coz they're cheeky little characters. That was until one sitting on a power cable above while working on the panel van I used to drive shat on me and started shitting on my washing while living on a farm about 50km away.
So I trained one of the larger Black and white Butcher birds to keep the Willy wag-tails away from the house. I could feed him by hand on my back porch, and he would bring his young in for a feed, but wouldn't let them take food from me. He had to take it and then feed them himself - playing Boss.
He got a bit too game though and just walk through the back door right in to the house.
Then the Magpies started standing over him for the food. So I had to toss it so he could catch it mid air, which Magpies can't do. Then they started chasing him for the food, so it became sling shot warfare.
One time I spotted a young Magpie on a star picket out the back. So I snuck around the shed and shot him in the head with a Macadamia nut from about 20 metres just as he took off. Knocked him stupid for a few seconds while he hovered doing two 360s. Then went off complaining to its parents and the Magpies kept their distance.
There are a couple of manic Koel birds attempting to nest in one of my trees. ... When they're circling the trees they look like hawks.[/quote]
Don't know what Koel birds are.
A few years ago Galahs tried moving in and were driving the Rainbow Lorikeets out of their holes, so I shot one and they moved across the road. They tried moving in again during which time I watched the Hawk hunt them. They haven't come back.
A couple of nights ago I heard a weird noise in the long grass beside my Western boundary. I went out with a head torch and then heard another strange bird sound. I went over and found a hollow stump about 5' high, shone my torch on it and two White cheeked Rosellas came out. One dropped to the ground and Fred grabbed it (had bugger of a time getting it off him). then I noticed a 4' long Brown Tree Snake aka Night Tiger aka Dolls eye snake on the top of the stump. It was raiding the nest.
I went to get a camera, after taking a potentially poison bird off Fred, but upon return the snake was gone. I could still hear this weird squawking, so shone the torch and aimed the camera in to the hollow and got ...
Oct16#63 - White cheeked Rosella chicks (cut @ 60%).jpg
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If Donald Trump is so close to the Ruskis, why couldn't he get Vladimir Putin to put novichok in Xi Jjinping's lipstick?