Highway patrol officers in a town in Switzerland reeled in shock when they studied radar images of speedsters – among the pictures of the local hot-rod hoons was a duck.
The mallard was caught travelling 52 km/h in a 30 km/h zone and what’s worse – the bird was believed to be a repeat offender. It turned out that a similar-looking duck was captured flying in the same spot at exactly the same speed, on exactly the same date seven years previously.
At year’s end I always provide a selection of entertaining stories about birds over the previous 12 months. The speeding mallard in the town of Koniz, near Bern, is one that captured the headlines worldwide.
Across the Atlantic in the United States, a hawk was reported using traffic patterns to target prey, just like a Tom Cruise stunt in the film Mission Impossible.
In a tactic worthy of Cruise’s Ethan Hunt character, a Cooper’s hawk was seen to watch as traffic built up at a beeping pedestrian crossing. Then it used the line of cars as cover to launch an attack on unsuspecting victims.
Researchers studying bird of prey behaviour made the discovery during the school run in West Orange, New Jersey, when they spotted the young hawk emerge from a tree near a road junction. The bird flew close to the pavement behind a queue of traffic that had stopped at a red light before taking a dive at a flock of sparrows.
Back home in Australia, a flock of crafty cockatoos have surprised researchers in Sydney with a new trick. The cockatoos first hit the headlines last year when it was reported they had learned to open garbage bins secured with special latches to stop them stealing food. Now the cockatoos have worked out how to manipulate drinking fountains so they can take a drink on hot days.
The cockatoos were filmed operating the fountains by using a co-ordinated action with both feet to open the valve controlling the flow of water.
Returning to the US, emus have been giving police the run-around during the year.
In a classic understatement, one newspaper said several incidents involving emus had “highlighted the unique and sometimes bizarre challenges that law enforcement officers faced in their daily operations”.
An emu was first reported to have led officers on a wild goose chase in Guernsey County, Ohio. The officers tried in vain to catch and restrain the giant bird until the owner turned up and the errant emu surrendered.
Further south, in Cottonwood, Arizona, an emu named Frank was chased down after running through traffic and attempting to attack passers-by.
The police had little success in capturing the bird until one officer twigged that emus could not walk backwards. They used this fact to corner Frank against a fence and take him into custody safely.