I think its amazing how well we humans come to understand the alarm calls of
our local birds.
Recently I was out for a run in my local park in port Melbourne when I heard
the 'Raptor above' alarm go up. Without thinking I looked up, searched the
dark, stormy skies, only to see a fairly big Silver Gull.
The alarms intensified and reached proportions that I've rarely heard. Every
small bird was involved. I was confused - this was not a reaction to a gull. So
I kept looking in the sky thinking maybe something much bigger was up very
high.
The gull kept circling over, and the alarms perfectly followed it. I got my
small, fairly useless, running binoculars up. The 'gull' wasn't - it was
darker, with longer wings, big heavy shoulders and a slightly wedge-shaped
tail. It was a bit bigger than a Silver Gull.
Eventually it stopped circling around and disappeared. I think it was a Jaeger.
The wind that day was a howling Southerly, and I was only 500m from the beach,
but even so I didn't know Jaegers hunted inland. This bird certainly was
looking out for something and the small birds were highly aware of that.
I wished I'd seen more or had a camera!
Janine
JANINE DUFFY Director Marketing & Research
ECHIDNA WALKABOUT PO Box 370 Port Melbourne 3207 AUSTRALIA
Email: Web: www.echidnawalkabout.com.au
Tel: +61 (0)3 9646 8249 Fax: +61 (0)3 9681 9177 ABN: 72 716 985 505
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