Wagga birds are on the ball

["Philip Veerman" <>]

Hi John,

 

Now that wins the prize as an exercise in lateral thinking! Actually a funny answer. It could be true. Is the quote "Perhaps it's an attempt to attempt to dissuade others from approaching too closely", a suggestion that some birds do this in an attempt to dissuade others from approaching too closely to their nest?  Or is the quote a suggestion as to why some birds attack something that looks reptilian as a behaviour to keep other birds away from the thing they are attacking? The latter is how I first understood your message but I can't see how that would work and it escapes me to be able to make any logical connection that is consistent with that idea. 

 

Beruldsen's book indicates that the Paradise Riflebird includes shed snakeskin in the outer walls of their nest, but that is an unusual behaviour and a long way from Wagga and Canberra. Snakes and big lizards (goannas) are predators of birds and their nests and I'd say the fear of things that look reptilian is as simple as that.

 

Philip