On Thursday 1 June 2006, in near-freezing weather, as I was walking
along a street in the town of Katoomba (NSW) , I observed the
following:
A Pied Currawong entered a shrub, and emerged shortly / as I
approached, carrying something striped and birdlike in its bill. It
flew across the (v.narrow) street, and landed on the bank there. It
began pecking at the object. Although this was occurring close to me,
I raised my binoculars to see what it was eating. At lowest
magnification, the food appeared to be a small Bronze-Cuckoo.
The Currawong flopped the dead bird this way and that as it
pecked and pulled at it. But the body kept falling away; then the
Currawong jumped up onto a low/fallen branch, and repeatedly snagged
the dead bird in a fork, but it would shortly fall again, as the
Currawong pulled at it.
Because of all this movement, the dead bird was difficult to
see clearly in more than repeated glimpses from different aspects.
However, one STRIKING feature was evident: the dead bird had red
eye-rings.
I looked for this over and over, as the Currawong flopped the
bird around, thinking perhaps this was blood from the eyes. The
Currawong, though, was showing no interest in the eyes, working
instead at the neck-breast-belly area of the body. And when at last I
tried to get closer, the Currawong flew, carrying the body, into a
tree-fern, which proved both safe from me and, apparently, a good
place to cradle the food while pecking at it.
During most of last week, the weather in Katoomba was very
cold, and at night was perhaps below zero. That day it had snowed
heavily in Blackheath, further up the line. As I didn't see what had
killed the bird, I thought it could have frozen to death overnight,
and been found in the shrub by the Currawong, just as I was coming
down the street...
Returning home here to SEQ, though, I find that the only
red-eye-ringed Bronze Cuckoo that ranges through NSW is the Little
Bronze-Cuckoo, and that my maps do not show this bird as far south as
Sydney. Also, what would such a creature be doing in early winter at
such an inhospitable altitude...? I am unfamiliar with Blue Mountains
birds' habits.
Cheers,
Judith
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