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On Monday this week, a strangely behaving Pied
Currawong caught my eye outside my Barton office. It was hopping and
skipping and flying in little bursts along the gutter. I had no binos but
could just make out a rat running along in front of the bird. After some
amusing activity, the PC caught the rat and tossed it onto the grass verge and
pecked it fatally. It stood off about a metre waiting for the rat
to expire. When there was little activity, it started to peck at and
to tear the carcass apart.
Before it got anything much to eat, it retreated
smartly to a nearby tree because three magpies flew in to take over the kill -
an adult male, an adult female and an immature. They quickly established a
pecking order: Dad had unmolested eating rights; Mum didn't bother
contesting this reality in her life and wandered around foraging on the grass;
and junior stood about two metres away waiting for Dad's appetite to be
sated. This happened after about 20 minutes and junior took over with
alacrity. It was so intent, that when a passing Homo sapiens came close to
observe, junior just picked up the corpus dilecti in its bill and moved away a
little.
Meanwhile, the PC was just watching the marauders
devour its kill. But with junior operating solo, the PC got brave and came
down, standing some distance off and showing no aggressive intent. But
junior didn't like an audience and attacked PC, actually coming into physical
contact. PC retreated without a fight. After about another 30
minutes or so, junior lost interest leaving bits of the corpse
behind.
Then another PC came close and alighted on a sign a
few metres away. It flattened its body, stretched its wings and fluttered
them. It repeated this action and then kept a beady eye around looking all
the world like a sentry. This was the signal for the first PC (the
rightful owner of the rat's corpse) to come down and to feed. Junior had
one passing attack at the PC but went on its way. When one of the adult
magpies came in, the PC took off with the corpse in its claw and flew to a
spot over the road, followed after a short while by the second PC which, on
alighting on a tree near PC1, fluttered its feathers again.
All rather amusing and strange. If the
fluttering action was meant as a begging action to be fed some of the rat, or as
a threatening action to keep the magpies away, it failed on both grounds.
HANZAB describes similar behaviour as "food begging display by female when male
is in view" (vol 7, p544).
As to the catching and killing of a rat (I
believe Rattus rattus from the colouration above and below I was able to see
from a distance), HANZAB records as a rare activity and in fact, in a table of
food items found in specimens around Canberra, records no cases of rats in
Autumn or Winter and a small number of cases in Spring and Summer (vol 7,
p541).
So an unusual event.
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