Hi all,
As another postscript to the "birds which eat leeches" thread, I just
had to pass on this story sent to me by Karen Thumm:
>Thought you might like the following story: from Alison Siliakus and
Bill
>Tubbenhauer near Alstonville, north NSW. Bill or Alison had just
removed
>one of the many leeches attached to themselves and threw it away
into the
>grass, when down swooped a butcherbird (pied or grey?) and picked it
up. It
>then went up into a tree and "tenderised" it, working it back and
forwards
>in its bill, and then swallowed it. Shortly afterwards it vomited
the leech
>up, which landed on the grass and continued to loop its way away!
>Recently at Alison's and Bill's I only took the rubbish down to the
bin and
>collected 7 leeches without even stopping once on the way. It's been
wet!
>Hope you like the story. Best wishes, Karen Thumm
And in a subsequent message, Alison Siliakus added the following
comments to the above story:
"We are quite happy for you to put our story into the birding-aus
list. I'll just amend a few bits. First of all, it was a very large
leech. Secondly the bird was a Pied Butcherbird. It was one our
neighbour fed and as she was ill it came around trying to cadge food
from us. Not only did it "tenderise" the leech through its beak a
number of times, it also bashed it many times against the bough. The
rest of Karen's story is absolutely accurate.
Cheers, Bill and Alison"
Cheers,
Carol
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