Interesting Geoffrey. Some years ago I had a farm at Hoskinstown and my then wife used to breed and show Basenji dogs. On two separate occasions I saved a Basenji from an attack by a Wedge-tailed
Eagle. On each occasion the eagle was in a dive at the dog and only broke off the attack when I rushed it. Whether it would have picked up the dog remains an unanswered question. The basenji, for those unfamiliar, is about fox terrier size and red in colour
(easily mistaken for a fox?).
Regards
Lindsay
From: Geoffrey Dabb <>
Sent: Sunday, 24 February 2019 12:49 PM
To:
Subject: FW: [canberrabirds] A departure from pelicans & pigeons
Ah, the folklore of the chihuahua. Soon after I came to Canberra in 1980 there was an Ian Warden column about a Wedge-tailed Eagle taking one in the rural area to our east. It concluded with the
advice: “Canberrans should keep the chihuahua in the Saab when they go peach-buying at Araluen”, a story which in the present telling is clearly dated by the relative unfashionability of (a) Saabs and (b) chihuahuas. Myself, I remember when Afghan Hounds
were all the rage, and nobody had heard of Afghanistan. The dogs kept by the merchants of Rottweil and the court of Weimar are another matter again. Do we stray from the mandated subject of this chatline?
From: John Harris <>
Sent: Sunday, 24 February 2019 12:27 PM
To: Canberra birds <>
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] A departure from pelicans & pigeons
The pelican earing the chihuahua story has been around for a long time,. It wsa chasing seagulls before being swooped upon in the version I heard. Could be an urban myth but certainly not impossible. I know they very accurately scoop up
rats at north coastal tips.
From: Graeme Clifton <>
Date: Sunday, 24 February 2019 at 11:53 am
To: John Layton <>
Cc: chatline <>
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] A departure from pelicans & pigeons
I don’t know about the accuracy of the conclusions in the snake/wallaby story but what about the pelican eating a Chihuahua on the esplanade at The Entrance on the Central Coast of NSW. Surely an urban myth.
Graeme Clifton
On 24 Feb 2019, at 10:48 am, John Layton <> wrote:
Some 20 years ago I watched a news item about a huge python found dead beside a North Queensland road. The snake had a large bulge in its belly
which a post mortem revealed to be a small wallaby. Informed opinion speculated the wallaby was alive and kicking (emphasis on kicking) after being swallowed and all the internal turbulence brought about the python’s demise. Talk about a kick in the guts.
John Layton
Holt
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