“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. The currawongs, joined by about six others, immediately moved to the railings of our balcony, looking for movement inside the house. We were under siege. It felt like there was no escape.
My wife has long grown used to my eccentricities involving birds which includes feeding a succession of ravens over the years and this has never been a problem. Until the arrival of the currawongs.
The latest raven – I call her Gloria – who has discovered my home is a source of hand-outs, calls to me each morning from the roof and I duly toss her scraps from the evening meal or a raven favourite, cheese.
I did not notice, however, that a lone black currawong had observed the feeding ritual and picked up items of food missed by the raven. Word soon got out on the currawong grapevine and suddenly a handful of birds arrived. They were not a problem at first; I called them the “boyz in the hood”.
But soon they numbered more than a dozen and, with numbers on their side, they began to challenge the raven, stealing her hand-outs.
Until this year, the black currawongs – called “black jays” in country districts – had been relatively rare in the Waterworks Valley. The species is more at home in alpine environments, being common on kunanyi/Mt Wellington, and when they first arrived they were a welcome addition to the checklist of birds spotted over the years in my garden.
But my glee at watching the comings and goings of the currawongs soon turned to despair as they took over the garden. The female raven still arrived to watch me forlornly from the roof of a neighbouring house and I devised what I thought was a clever strategy, drawing the attention of the raven to a large piece of cheese in my hand, and then tossing it onto the lawn so she could get to it before the currawongs arrived.
It seemed to work for a few days before the currawongs became aware that, if they made their presence obvious, the bounty might also fall to them. I foolishly started to toss them smaller pieces of cheese but soon realised the situation was rapidly spiralling out of control. For days, my house was surrounded by raucous currawongs.
Finally, my wife called a halt to the ritual. The raven still gets her feed, but she has to show a little patience until the empty-handed, or empty-clawed, “boyz” have moved on.