A feathered fork-feeder

[David Rees <>]

I know spots in the UK where folk have been doing the same with related and larger Red Kite to the point now where people have been injured and warning signs now warn.  They will come down and check you out to see if you have food.

The BBC have put this 360degree video up of one famous feeding location in mid Wales.  If you are unfamilar with 360 degree video you can move about within it when playing to get a different view point.  see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiSOVGZjous      The poor Buzzard in to film is outclassed!!

They are a very common sight in the Chiltern Hills and the Thames valley west of London following reintroduction in the early 1990's,  Red Kites rather than Gulls following the plough https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SltjFFmARY    also some in a carpark after food   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EER9Ch-7znQ  Some of my own footage from a nearby location  to the second Youtube film  https://vimeo.com/132275890  

David

On Sun, Aug 12, 2018 at 3:45 PM, Philip Veerman <> wrote:

Last week I had some bony remnants of a fish dinner (basically head and spine) that I intended to feed to Silver Gulls at Lake Tuggeranong, however finding none of them, I opted to feed a few ravens, which accepted bits, although not overly enthusiastically. Also a magpie came to share and during the process a butcherbird that had presumably been watching, although I had not noticed it until it quickly came down and grabbed a bit and flew off.

 

Black Kites if familiar with people, are also very adept at catching food thrown to them.

 

Philip

 

From: Geoffrey Dabb [
Sent: Sunday, 12 August, 2018 2:54 PM
To: m("canberrabirds.org.au","canberrabirds");" target="_blank">org.au
Subject: [canberrabirds] A feathered fork-feeder

 

A great little catcher, the butcherbird.  Some years ago at O’Reillys I remember the early morning bird-guide pelted a small piece of meat at a bbird which snapped it up effortlessly. ‘That’s a slips catcher for you’ said the guide, to the bafflement of the Americans in the party.   This morning the local bbird, a surprisingly brown chap for a bird near the end of his second year, had been particularly vocal, and showed himself prominently while the magpies were getting their bit of Costco premium lean mince.  I flung a morsel at him which he accepted effortlessly.  He swallowed that, but when given a second piece he flew to a nearby shrub and put it in a fork only about 1m from the ground.   It was still there an hour later but gone after 5 hours, whether taken by magpies or currawongs or butcherbirds I cannot say.