Blog

Being an animal carer can have its rewards, as a nature-lover who lives in my neighbourhood discovered when a magpie she had cared for came to call. Not just the magpie but her first off-spring. The female magpie had been reared to adulthood after it was brought to the carer as a fledgling. It had been found lying on the ground, and the person finding the skinny ball of feather and bone could not determine if it had fallen out of a nest, or had left the nest too early … [Read more...] about Magpie flies in to say thanks

Love is in the air. The John Paul Young song rings in my head every time I see flocks of sulphur-crested cockatoos flying over my home. The cockies are noisy and chatty in flight and when I catch up with them a little later at the Waterworks Reserve the males are showing off their striking yellow crests to females, perched in the upper branches of the stately blue gums. I have always taken the antics of the cocky cockatoos at face value but during the COVID-19 lockdown I … [Read more...] about Cockies find love in the treetops

“You’ve really started something,” said my wife, nervously eyeing nine black currawongs, who were in turn eyeing her through the kitchen window. The currawongs were lined up on the windowsill, fixing her with their mad, bright yellow eyes. Two were tapping on the closed window, another pecking at the putty holding the pane in place. It was like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s horror movie of the 1960s, The Birds. My wife soon ended the performance, pulling down the blind. … [Read more...] about ‘Boyz’ cause mayhem in the hood

If Australians think the coronavirus lockdown has been tough, spare a thought for the crows. That is the view of one reader who says that a lack of roadkill – caused by reduced traffic on local roads at the height of the pandemic – had resulted in the crows going hungry. The reader phoned to give an account of a vast flock of crows descending on his property at Ouse to fight over the carcass of a single rabbit. He said the flock numbered at least 100 birds. “They were … [Read more...] about Lockdown ruffles crows’ feathers

Cold, dank and grey, even the birdsong was muted during the winter solstice? My hands freezing, my feet like blocks of ice, on the shortest day of the year I was about to turn back home after an early-morning foray to the Waterworks Reserve when a flash of fiery red caught my attention. There on the road ahead of me, the tarmacadam still sparkling with frost, stood the tiny figure of a scarlet robin. There was a time when the sight of a robin would not have been unusual, … [Read more...] about Moggie menace takes huge toll on birds