Hi Jill
Quite often you find very sick ducks on STW ponds and I as told it is a
buildup of a sort of ptomaine poison.
Whistling Kites are scavengers and could possibly be affected by the
poison in the duck.
Cheers Chris
Jill Molan wrote:
Dear Birding-aussers
On Wed 23rd April, I was with the Illawarra Bird Observers Club at Gum
Swamp, Forbes. It was a sunny mild day, early afternoon.
Initially we saw one Whistling Kite flying low near the road in. As we
walked around the swamp we came across three dead Whistling kites. Local
birdo Neville Schrader tells me there are usually four Whistling kites at
Gum Swamp, so this seems to have just left one bird alive, at least on that
day.
There was no sign of gunshot or any other kinds of wounds. One kite seemed
to me to be so recently dead that it's eyes were still quite clear, and
although the sun was on it, it's body felt warmer than would be explained by
that, particularly when the bird was lying face down with it's abdomen in
touch with the ground, so I felt it was not long dead. It had the peculiar
posture of having both wings spread out fully on either side of the body. We
thought initially someone had spread them out eg to photograph, however
given the apparent recency of the death and the absence of any other people
there at that time, I can't easily explain it.
Around its beak were some small patches of greenish yellow liquid that were
not quite dry. Perhaps this suggests poison? And perhaps the wing position
resulted from some kind of convulsion as a result of a poison? Others on
this list might have some ideas on that.
Neville has contacted National Parks and he says NP have taken the carcasses
for analysis. Apparently they also found some dead Pink eared ducks with no
obvious cause of death.
Neville and I agreed to post this information to the list
1. so that people are aware that something has been happening in that area
2. so that people who go to Gum Swamp could hopefully count the Whisting
Kites / other raptors present and post the information to this list
ongoingly. In that way we might all be able to track the repopulation of the
area with Whistling kites or other raptors (and hopefully not the loss of
any more raptors or other birds).
regards
Jill
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