All fine and a nice story. It is certainly known that various birds may
stand guard or whatever over a dead partner. Hard to know but some things do
look like that animals do have feelings and are capable of grieving. However
I would caution against reading too much into that the other friarbirds
remaining noisy and recklessly close to the action that was unfolding. It
was probably a good bit of habitat for them and they behave that way anyway.
Some birds may have been alarmed by near car misses on themselves. They are
after all true to their name or should I say would probably be noisy and
active anyway.
Philip
-----Original Message-----
From:
On Behalf Of Andrew
Thelander
Sent: Sunday, 17 November 2013 6:40 PM
To: birding-aus Aus
Subject: Noisy Friarbird incident
Hello all
Some friends of mine, Phil and Rosie Bender, had a sad experience with a
Noisy FB that was killed on the road in SE Qld and another Noisy FB was
trying to rouse it. They wrote:
Travelling home from Caloundra we came across, at Little Mountain, on the
road but just off the wheel line, a Noisy Friarbird standing vigil over it's
freshly killed by a car but still warm mate/fellow species member. We pulled
over and got out to remove the dead bird from the road in an effort to
prevent the grieving bird from suffering the same fate to the sound of
Friarbird calls resonating throughout the immediate vicinity. In order to
remove the dead bird we had to wait for several other vehicles to pass, some
without any awareness of what was going on or recklessly close to the
action that was unfolding. The thoughtless haste of the modern world at it's
zenith. The body was placed off the walking track and we walked away, with
Friar birds still calling and us believing that animals do have feelings and
are capable of grieving, just read Lumholtz's account of shooting Paradise
Parrots.
It's great that there are people like Phil and Rosie out there who will stop
and try to keep birds and animals safe rather than just drive on. I have
witnessed similar sad scenes with parrots but not honeyeaters before. I
wonder if the birds were paired?
Regards
Andrew
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