The Lord Howe Island Currawongs are regarded as a separate subspecies
_Strepera graculina crissalis_. Their voices, loud and mostly melodious,
while clearly recognisable as Currawong are noticeably different from
mainland Currawong voices.
Ian Hutton in "Birds of Lord Howe Island" (1991, published by the author,
PO Box 6367, Coffs Harbour Plaza, 2450) describes the Currawong as
extremely curious - likely to locate hikers and follow them with beady-eyed
curiosity, hopping from tree to tree; and that they are aggressive in the
breeding season, swooping low at walkers passing near their nests. My
experience has been that they will brush one's hat with their wing-tips
(after approaching silently from behind - quite a surprise!), but not peck
like our magpies and butcherbirds.
One alighted in a tree about 50 m from me when I was about to have lunch.
I waved a sandwich in the air and it immediately flew up to perch a couple
of metres above my head. It caught a crust in mid-air and alighted on the
ground, manoeuvred the crust in its beak, then hopped across the ground
towards me until it was only about half a metre away, stared into my face
for a few seconds then flew off on a very direct course through the forest,
no doubt to a nest with young.
It repeated this behaviour a couple of times, always hopping up to look me
in the eye before flying off with the crust. Curious, is it not! Saying
"Thanks", maybe?
Hutton also records that when he was trying to photograph a nest with
chicks, an adult swooped low over him then flew off calling loudly. "A few
minutes later it returned," Hutton writes, "with four cohorts that stood
guard over the nest."
Lord Howe, like most small remote islands, has a very limited number of
bird species, but many of them seem delightfully eccentric. Where else,
for example, could one expect to see a Nankeen Kestrel chasing Sooty Terns
out to sea? The Kestrel, 35 cm long (female); Sooty, 46 cm long, according
to Hutton.
(And my heartfelt thanks to Tim Peach for recommending "The Song of the Dodo".)
Syd Curtis at Hawthorne.
H Syd Curtis
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