Over some years I have had a programme "Bird Talk Back" on ABC Far
North in Cairns. Yesterday (31/01/2012) I fielded ten calls in thirty
minutes.
Early in the programme a caller from Walkamin (between Mareeba and
Atherton) had found four dead cane toads with an small incision in their
throat by her small backyard pond.
I told her plainly that it was a good mystery thinking that it
would be animal attack rather than bird predation. About three calls
later a gent from Gordonvale south of Cairns assured us that he had
watched White-tailed Rats and (surprise, surprise!) Northern Brown
Bandicoots kill and eat the non-toxic underside parts of cane toads.
Minutes later the mystery was solved when George who owned a
piggery at Walkamin called in to tell us about Roufous Night Herons. He
related that after an early evening storm one time he checked the
piggery and that a night heron was moving through the pig pens and
systematically flipping cane toads on their back and taking out their
innards.
Given the shape and dexterity of their pointed bill the night heron
would be well able to extract the gut through a small incision. On my
next programme I will endeavour to follow the thread on birds and cane
toads in an effort to derive some more latent information that is held
out there by everyday non-scientific observers.
Del. Richards, Fine Feather Tours, Mossman, NQ.
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