Robyn Williams: After
that story from Paul Johnson you may remember, he came from The Entrance NSW,
about a magpie bringing its mate to their shed to get its leg fixed, here's
another birdy tale from the west.
Kevin Thiele: I am
Kevin Thiele, the curator of the Western Australian Herbarium, part of the
Department of Parks and Wildlife in Perth. One morning in spring 2006 I dropped
my kids off at their country school in eastern Victoria. On the school oval
adjacent to the drop-off point, a pair of masked lapwings (we used to call them
spur winged plovers) had a nest. It's quite common for lapwings to put their
nests, a scrape in the ground with beautifully camouflaged eggs, in open areas
such as ovals and playing fields.
Some of the
schoolkids told me excitedly that morning that the chicks had just hatched.
Lapwing chicks hatch in a pretty advanced state and are able to leave the nest
almost immediately, relying on their mottled camouflage pattern to avoid
detection by predators. At the first sign of danger or alarm from their parents,
the chicks will crouch and remain absolutely motionless until the danger passes
or the parents manage to drive away the predator by aggressively dive-bombing it
or distract and divert the predator using a broken wing act.
After the kids all
went in to school, I noticed that the plovers were in flight, alarm calling and
circling the oval. The reasons was that a pair of Australian hobbies, small
birds of prey, were also circling, apparently aware of and searching for the
crouching chicks. The adult lapwings started dive-bombing the hobbies, a
marvellous sight. But soon the first of two unusual things happened. One of the
hobbies turned on one of the dive-bombing plovers and grappled it in the air.
Locked together, the two birds plummeted heavily to the
ground.
Now, a lapwing is
larger than a hobby and would be hard for a hobby to kill. The lapwing broke
away almost immediately and flew off in a direct line downhill, away from me,
the hobby and the oval. It was trailing a leg, clearly damaged by the hobby
attack. After a few seconds the hobby also took off and pursued the fleeing
lapwing. It caught up about 500 metres from my position, locked with it again,
and the two birds plummeted to the ground a second time.
A few seconds later
once again, the lapwing broke from the hobby and took flight, this time back
towards the oval where its mate was still circling and alarm calling. The hobby
likewise took off again in pursuit. That's when the second and to me truly
astonishing thing happened. The lapwing was flying in a straight line towards
the oval, the hobby about 100 metres behind and gaining fast. I was standing
around 30 metres off the lapwing's direct line flight path. When the lapwing had
drawn almost level with my position it suddenly changed course, flew directly
towards me and landed virtually at my feet, about a metre away, clearly injured
and breathing heavily.
The hobby broke
pursuit and rejoined its mate. After a few more minutes of circling, the two
moved off and the situation calmed down. The lapwing, clearly aware of my
proximity, remained at my feet for a few minutes more until the hobbies were
well away, then it took off and rejoined its mate on the oval, damaged and still
trailing a leg but alive and able to fly.
Now, under normal
circumstances a lapwing would never approach to within a few metres of a person.
These were wild birds that, despite being relatively habituated to people (they
were after all nesting on a school oval), always remained vigilant and wary,
more likely to dive-bomb than to allow a close approach.
I find this event
interesting and challenging, and in many decades of birdwatching I've had no
similar experiences. I'm convinced that the lapwing was aware of me at the time
it's changed course suddenly and landed close by, with the result that it evaded
the hobby. The challenging thing is that this couldn't possibly have been
learned behaviour, as the magpie story, heard on The
Science Show a few weeks ago,
could have been. Nor could it have been instinctive behaviour. This would have
been an unprecedented and unique situation for the lapwing. You can't learn
unique, nor have an instinct to cover every eventuality.
I can only interpret
it as a purposeful, conscious, goal-seeking and predictive act on the part of
the lapwing, a bird equivalent of the logical chain: 'If I keep my current
course the hobby will catch me, if I divert and land at the feet of that human,
the hobby probably won't follow. Dangerous as it is to go so close to a human,
it's my only choice.' I can find no other suitable
explanation.
Lapwings are not
usually thought of as particularly bright birds. After all, they are related to
seagulls rather than to known smart birds like corvids or parrots. Can a bird
brain manage the logic necessary for this to be correctly interpreted as
purposeful? That's for others to say. But for me, I'm looking at lapwings with
new-found interest and respect.
Robyn Williams: Kevin
Thiele, who is curator of the Western Australian Herbarium. Intriguing story.
Thanks Kevin.
