TWO UNUSUAL BIRD TALES.

[Dr Richard Nowotny <>]

The following personal bird tales are recounted for readers' interest (I
found them both unusual and interesting).

1.

      

On Sunday 26 October
(the weekend of the Twitchathon) Diana and I were showing a visiting
American birding couple (Jim Flynn and Marissa Benavente from Seattle)
around (You Yangs, Werribee, etc).  On the way home we decided to
try for the Williamstown Powerful Owl, which had been happily (and very
visibly) in situ in its tree on the corner outside the Tenix
building in Nelson Place the preceding Sunday.  We parked, peered
up, and there it was - just as expected.  But wait a minute -
something was not quite right.  This was an owl alright, but NOT a
(very large) Powerful Owl.  In its place was a (very much smaller)
Boobook Owl!  (Still a life-bird for our visitors, but perhaps not
quite the rather dramatic sight they had been led to expect.)
Extreme coincidence??  Or some other more plausible explanation for
two totally different owls sitting on more or less the same branch in the
same tree in inner metropolitan Melbourne (albeit a week apart)? And why
was a Boobook sitting out in the open during the day anyway - rather than
in a dark hollow somewhere?  Does anyone have any thoughts or
comments?

2.

      

Today (5 Nov) I was
showing another visitor (Lois Bingley, a native Canadian, now from
upstate New York) her first Australian birds (Westgate Park, Point Cook,
etc) when our attention was drawn to a smallish eucalypt at Spectacle
Lake (near Point Cook Coastal Park) by frantic activity and alarm calls
from a Willy Wagtail pair and several White-plumed Honeyeaters. 
When we raised our binoculars to look for the possible raptor (or owl) we
were just in time to see a 1.5 metre Tiger Snake (Notechis
scutatus) engulf the first of two large, feathered Wagtail chicks
which occupied the nest over which the snake hovered (taking the chick
head first, feet last - quite a sight), soon to be followed by the
second.  This was dramatic enough, but the even more remarkable
thing was that the now bulging (X2) snake then proceeded to grasp the
edge of the nest firmly in its jaws and exerting considerable force
pulled the nest apart (all the while being very actively harrassed by the
highly agitated parent birds).  Having demolished the nest the snake
then left the scene (of the crime?) - presumably to digest its 
meal.
Questions:

      

1. Do Tiger
Snakes normally eat birds?  Answer:  YES (see excerpt
below*).

        

        

2.
What was the snake doing when it destroyed the nest??  Why?? 
Is this usual??

*

       

"Tiger
snakes feed mainly on mammals and birds under 300 g in weight. Tiger
snakes habitually raid birds nests and have been found climbing trees to
a height of 8 m. A good indicator of the presence of a Tiger snake is the
alarm calls of small birds such as honeyeaters and thornbills. They also
eat other vertebrates including lizards, smaller snakes, frogs and
occasionally fish."

               
RICHARD NOWOTNY
8 Pier St   Port Melbourne
VIC  AUSTRALIA  3207
(H)  61-3-9645.6870
(M)  0438 224456