John,
I have witnessed this many times in the wheat growing areas of South
Australia. As the wheat trucks are transporting the grain to the silos
there is always some spillage on the roadsides. This provides abundant food
for the galahs - with very little effort on their part. The inevitable
happens - often with the next truck to come along. Any dead birds are left
lying on the roadside - accompanied by the "grieving" mate - who also often
gets "skittled" (run over, killed) as well. The death rate of galahs in
summer on our country roads is quite high. (I seem to remember reading
years ago about some studies done on the topic about all road kills - not
just parrots - can anyone refresh my memory??)
Just as an aside - parrots probably should not be said to be "grieving" for
the dead mate. The pair bonding is so strong that they just hang around the
dead one, until they too are another road statistic.
Trevor Hampel
Murray Bridge
----------
> The story of the Ring-necked Parrakeets is an example of strong
pair-bonding
> amongst parrots.
>
> I witnessed a another example of this a couple of years ago beside the
> highway south of Canberra on the way to Cooma. I saw a couple of Crimson
> Rosellas fly low across the road and one be hit by a car. The dead bird
was
> hurled to the side of the road. I was following the car that had hit the
> bird and when I saw the incident I pulled over. The unharmed bird had
flown
> to some trees about 50m away and sat there calling to the other bird.
After
> a minute or so it flew back, landed by the corpse and started nudging it,
as
> if trying to make to make it get up and fly on.
>
> It was too sad to stay, so I can't say how long the live bird stayed with
> its dead mate.
>
|
