It’s Spring! And the wildlife is….well….wild

[ALittleTeawithmilk]

https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSLK5VMJy/

Magpie Season - good luck out there.

Ugh, evil little fuckers they are!

Weirdly enough, where I am in Vic it's the miner birds more than the magpies you have to look out for. They're smaller but they're fast and nasty.

These little buggers can rotate 360 degrees in the air to take multiple shots at you in seconds. At least their beaks are smaller when they do get you but fuck I hate them!

I didn’t know that about miner birds. Interesting. Are they Australian native ‘Noisy’ miner birds or the non native ones?

We have lots of Kookaburras where we live. They are great at catching spiders and small snakes etc, I watch them dive for worms and they manage to unearth witchetty grubs. When they’ve caught something live, they hold it between their beaks and bash them on a fence or tree limb - not sure if it’s to kill their dinner or to tenderise it. I was watching one kookaburra the other day and it played with a spider in between it’s beak for about 5 minutes before swallowing. They’ll swallow a strip of meat, fed to them, very quickly though.

Magpies do sound lovely at times though.

Jeeze, somehow lost a paragraph.

@Dustyblue I can understand you not liking a bird who can turn 360 in air in order to repeatedly attack. Ouch.

Yes pretty sure they're noisy miners. One local walking track has 2 trees on either side where they nest, picture me & DS7 running, yelling & waving arms frantically 😄

😂

I live in a small suburb surrounded by large national park. (When a twig brushes my leg I jump, and only feel better when I register it’s a twig). I can well imagine the two of you running yelling and flailing arms to ward off attacking birds.

Yes! Kookaburras (even baby ones) seem to take their food and bash it against something hard (like our back deck).

Slight derail here, but for those of us (like me) who are tempted to feed birds like magpies & kookaburras- I read a brilliant book by Prof Darryl Jones from Griffith University "Feeding the Birds at Your Table".

This is a short for the book. So interesting! I thought I could feed them raw meat but it's more complicated than that.

The Garden Clinic

I was in Darling Harbour the other day and watched a kookaburra lift a slice of prosciutto from someone’s pizza. It even had to fly in under the restaurant’s canopy to nab it, you kind of have to admire them!

@Dustyblue You are right about not feeding them raw meat. . I read that if you are going to feed them it should be mice - something with bones. They need the calcium or something, and raw meat doesn’t doesn’t give them all the nutrients to survive. I haven’t read more than that, but I warned my partner off feeding them because of this. Mice are okay to feed them apparently. But damned if I want frozen mice in my freezer and then thawing on the kitchen counter.

I can’t read your link but thank you. I’m sure the link is fine, it’s my internet connection playing up tonight. I’ll try opening the link tomorrow.

Great article in The Guardian today about this, even quotes the professor I mentioned. So interesting!

Australians are always told ‘don’t feed the birds’ – if you really must, here’s how to do it properly | Australia news | The Guardian

Noisy miners are the swoopers where I am, and are a plague. The local council culled Indian mynahs and the gap has been filled by the native ones. One noticeable thing is that the native species that co-existed with the IMs; scrub wrens, spine bills, wattlebirds, as well as blackbirds, have all gone - chased off by the very territorial NMs. Only the butcherbirds and rainbow lorikeets can hold their own in the garden.

Yes! They're horrid little creatures. The magpies here are totally chilled in comparison.

I didn't know about the other types being seen-off by noisy miners. Although I am biased- for 3 years I had a relationship with a LOUD wattlebird who set up in a tree outside my bedroom. They're so territorial nothing will shift them. The worst alarm clock ever. I'm not sad to hear about the semi-eradication of those fuckers.

Noisy miners are so mean to my puppy dogs.
Never seen them swoop at people though!