birding-aus

Alarm calls and our reaction to them

To:
Subject: Alarm calls and our reaction to them
From: Carl Clifford <>
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2013 11:44:58 +1100
Hi Janine,

Had a similar experience here at Gorokan, NSW Central Coast some years ago. I was sitting in the back yard, with only the usual chatter from the local birds, when there was a raptor alert from the Noisy Miners followed by several other species. at the peak of the ruckus, a Pomarine Jaeger sailed over low.

Small rodents are their main prey on their nesting grounds, so perhaps some occasionally get sick of fish and look for a rodent takeaway.

Carl Clifford


On 17/12/2013, at 11:25 AM, Janine Duffy wrote:

I think its amazing how well we humans come to understand the alarm calls of our local birds.

Recently I was out for a run in my local park in port Melbourne when I heard the 'Raptor above' alarm go up. Without thinking I looked up, searched the dark, stormy skies, only to see a fairly big Silver Gull.

The alarms intensified and reached proportions that I've rarely heard. Every small bird was involved. I was confused - this was not a reaction to a gull. So I kept looking in the sky thinking maybe something much bigger was up very high.

The gull kept circling over, and the alarms perfectly followed it. I got my small, fairly useless, running binoculars up. The 'gull' wasn't - it was darker, with longer wings, big heavy shoulders and a slightly wedge-shaped tail. It was a bit bigger than a Silver Gull.

Eventually it stopped circling around and disappeared. I think it was a Jaeger.

The wind that day was a howling Southerly, and I was only 500m from the beach, but even so I didn't know Jaegers hunted inland. This bird certainly was looking out for something and the small birds were highly aware of that.

I wished I'd seen more or had a camera!

Janine
JANINE DUFFY Director Marketing & Research
ECHIDNA WALKABOUT PO Box 370 Port Melbourne 3207 AUSTRALIA
Email:  Web: www.echidnawalkabout.com.au
Tel: +61 (0)3 9646 8249 Fax: +61 (0)3 9681 9177 ABN: 72 716 985 505
Sent via Blackberry

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU