Yesterday was another stunning Winter's day in SEQ - I decided to do a
spot of atlassing along the border fence running over Mt Gipps towards
Black Snake Ridge. I ticked off 42 species, including a buff banded
rail poking about the roadside in front of my parked car [well away from
any creek line].
As I traversed a rainforest section heading down to the "birdcage" [old
shelter hut] I came across a bush "crime" scene. Some sort of bandicoot
[I think the body was about 30cm long, 10 cm tail, 3 main toes - inner
toe had a double nail] had been knocked off by a predator.
Now, the interesting thing was that at around 11am, a drop of blood on a
nearby leaf had not congealed, the "victim's" head had been ripped off
and left nearby, but only the upper chest cavity had been eaten. The
rest of the body had been left.
Given the circumstances, it would appear that the bandicoot had been
caught after dawn [obviously the chap was late heading home from the
pub], which would tend to rule out an owl or marsupial predator. I
don't know that cats are in the rainforest section of Mt Gipps, but I
would think a cat would eat the whole catch.
So, I think the main suspect is a raptor - possibly a goshawk? Any
ideas??
Regards, Laurie.
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.shc.melb.catholic.edu.au/home/birding/index.html
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message
"unsubscribe birding-aus" (no quotes, no Subject line)
to
|
