canberrabirds

Feeding Currawongs

To: "'Geoff Duggan'" <>, <>
Subject: Feeding Currawongs
From: "Philip Veerman" <>
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 22:55:56 +1000
Hi Geoff,
 
A good idea to try to dissuade that behaviour. The logical connection she made, is not logic to a currawong. This is not a new problem but I doubt it is as widespread as people all over Canberra are feeding Currawongs. ABC TV made a film some years ago in which Harry Recher highlighted this problem. It has been on TV at least 2 or 3 times. Even though he somewhat overstated the case. What it does is help keep currawong numbers high. It would not stop their predation. Someone within my GBS area feeds the magpies and so I have regularly had a population of up to 50 of them. I don't think she intends to include currawongs but they also do get fed.
 
A letterbox drop is expensive but a newspaper article is a good option.
 
Philip
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Geoff Duggan [
Sent: Friday, 14 September 2012 4:14 PM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] bks in hughes

I was not surprised to read that a BKS  was seen in Hughes but then moved on.  Hughes is becoming infested with Currawongs, getting rid of everything in site...last year they even chased a Koel away.  I recently saw a woman who lives near me actually feeding balls of mince meat to them. When I asked her about this she said lots of people she knows feed Currawongs because “then they won’t take baby birds from the nests”!!    I could not change her mind.  So...I was wondering if there are any official publications, leaflets etc advising against this bad habit.   Perhaps COG could arrange with Government for a letterbox drop to advise against it, or even a newspaper article.  If people all over Canberra are feeding Currawongs then no wonder they re reaching plague proportions
 
Geoff Duggan
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