Mike Tarburton has observed Torresian Crows taking eggs and young
from a wide range of birds from nests on his campus. At Ocean View
(near Mt Mee, SEQ), Torresian Crows have been observed picking off 14
Wood/Maned ducklings, in the near presence of the parents.
The TCrows also hang around and/or disappear silently into
the bushes with various species' nests in them. Nest failures on our
place may or may not be attributable to the TCs.
One difficulty I've noticed in seeing what the TCs are up to,
is that they are completely silent when feeding -- both up there on
the mountain, and down here in the large group around my office in
Clayfield-- Indeed, as I write this, a TC has landed silently on the
guttering, silently dipped a bit of tucker in the water there,
silently swallowed it, silently inspected the guttering with
head-feathers raised, then clucked once, and swooped off with a
powerful whirring of wings.
This large murder of crows is vociferous when not feeding.
But one could always tell when the neighbour's cat was being fed: A
beautiful quiet would descend on the neighbourhood, and looking out
the window you could see the poor old cat surrounded by black figures.
(Then the cat, one day, disappeared...!)
Cheers,
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Judith L-A
S-E Qld
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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