It is my observations of the
ramblings of our late (and often lamented) black and white border collie
“Flossy” that she was regularly swooped by similarly coloured birds, mainly
Australian Magpies. There was often great amusement as one or two maggies
made do or die dive bomb attacks on her, and she would reciprocate vigorously,
madly barking in hot pursuit. Any suspicions that I ever encouraged such
activity, with either the magpies or the dog, is simply
uncharitable.
The only other birds who swooped
her were two nesting Willie Wagtails when she approached too closely to their
nesting tree.
They hovered over the white spot
on her neck, trying to peck her. They were very brave, but Flossy did not
seem to notice them, and just kept on sniffing around the base of their
tree.
Cheers
Paul
Paul
Fennell
Editor Annual Bird
Report
COG Databases
Manager
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0407105460
From: Geoffrey
Dabb [
Sent: Friday, 20 July 2012 4:29
PM
To:
Subject: RE:
[canberrabirds] bedlam (briefly) at Hawker
ovals
I recall suggestions that
magpies are more aggressive to dogs of a particular colour. Now if we all
pooled information about our experiences along those lines, we might even have
something publishable in an appropriate place.
My white dog has been swooped
more than my black dog, but as I remember the totality of swoops was 3, and the
white dog is the larger, possibly swaggers more (or used to in its swaggering
days), and I think the same magpie was involved on each occasion, so it could
have been a matter of personal bias.
From: Philip
Veerman
Sent: Friday, 20 July 2012 4:10 PM
To: 'Barbara Allan';
Subject:
RE: [canberrabirds] bedlam (briefly) at Hawker
ovals
Good
question. Could it be relevant that the dogs were (I am guessing) close to
people and the fox was not? Just an idea.........
-----Original Message-----
From: Barbara Allan [
Sent: Friday, 20 July 2012 11:15 AM
To:
Subject:
[canberrabirds] bedlam (briefly) at Hawker ovals
After the worst of the frost the corgi and I headed out on
one of our regular beats around Hawker ovals. We enjoyed a few somewhat unusual
sightings for the area, namely a pair of Scarlet Robins and a male Golden
Whistler, saw a magpie putting the finishing touches to its nest, enjoyed
watching the “regulars” and socialising with other dogs and dog-walkers. Then
all hell broke loose. A fox swaggered its way up the path and was set upon by a
posse of magpies, currawongs and miners. Encouraged by the bedlam, one of the
dogs gave chase. The fox was last seen beating a decidedly rapid retreat up
Delamere St. The thing that particularly interested me in this episode was the
birds’ ability to differentiate between a fox and the domestic dogs, who were
quite ignored by the angry mob. b
