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g'day all,
This morning I was honoured to be asked to
answer questions from a class on the local School of the
Air.
The students were spread from Brunette Downs in the
Territory to 400km south of Mount Isa and up to the Gulf of
Carpentaria
A variety of good questions were asked which kept
me on my toes.
After the session I received a phone call from one
father who told me he was seeing Black Swans on his property ( which is
near the Gregory River area) for the first time in the 40 years he has been
there.
They were at what we call a "Turkey's Nest"
i.e. an above ground earth water storage.
His question was "What do they eat ?"
Rather than guess I said I will mail
him.
I will be mailing him stuff from Hanzab
and The Food of Australian Birds
(Barker/Vestjens)
(I now know ...entirely herbivorous, usually taking
leaves and shoots of aquatic plants, in some places subsisting on
pasture)
But .. afterwoods I wondered "How the
Swans took off again ?"
I have only seen them taking off from
water. And it has always appeared hard going for them and taken plus
100m
When I rang him by phone this afternoon
he told me that there were 24 birds,
1 died landing on the roof (8.30am)
2 died of malnutrition (Duck food had no appeal for
them)
2 died taking off and getting caught in
a fence.
Apparently the drought is causing birds to move far
afield
I would be pleased to receive observations of
--
-- how often they are seen taking off from land
?
-- or feeding on pasture ?
Regards,
Bob Forsyth, Mount Isa, NW
Queensland.
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