Yes and no Laurie.
While I take your general point, I don't think that hand feeding urban
maggies, peewees, crows, ibis, sparrows, miners, currawongs, turkeys,
kookaburras or any other species that are at home in the city
environment, is likely to threaten those species - though it may cause
flow on impacts on other species that these species prey on or compete
with.
Regards, Laurie.
On Sunday, December 18, 2005, at 09:20 PM, Laurie Living wrote:
Hi
It may be important to consider the danger we put Australian wild
birds in when we 'tame' them.
Having birds feed from our hands is usually not 'good' for the birds
in terms of self sufficiency and enables other less scrupulous people
[bird dealers and smugglers] to capture them and turn them into a
commodity.
Laurie
Dean Cutten wrote:
AusBirders,
The recent thread on the tameness of rails has prompted me to report a
general observation on some Australian birds around the area I live
in.
After having spent 14 years living in Alabama, USA returning in 2003
I have
noted
that many Australian birds are much quieter than those I observed in
AL. I
am mainly refering to those birds approached in a backyard
environment but
my observations are not confined to that area. It was rare to get
close to
birds that frequented our backyard in AL (Red-breasted Nuthatch was
sometimes an exemption to this) whereas here in my current location a
number
of species can be approached. The
ultimate here is that I have had 3 backyard species feed out of my
hand,
namely, Silvereye, White-browed Scrubwren and Superb F-W with the
Silvereye
commanding the most respect from the other 2 species. The Gray
Shrike-Thrush has taken food just inches from my hand. Several
Honeyeater
species and Striated Thornbill will allow you to approach them quite
closely
while they are feeding in the shrubs. I have had a Gray Fantail land
on my
leg while sitting in a chair.
In the field I have noticed that frequenting the same areas regularly
some
species don't fly off as quickly when walking up to them. One species
in
particularly that does this is the Purple Swamphen. The Australian
Magpie is
another species that quickly becomes less intimitated the more
frequently
you walk past them.
Dean Cutten
Victor Harbor, SA
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