Many years ago (late 80s) I watched a White Ibis at Long Pocket devour a
Cane Toad, and its behaviour sounds similar. The process took at least
20 minutes, during which time the Ibis repeatedly picked up the Toad and
dropped it on the ground, after picking it up and moving it around in
its bill a lot. This was also quite a large Toad, though probably not
"several times the volume of its head".
At the end of this peformance, the Ibis swallowed the Toad whole. It was
quite stunning to see this, as the Toad looked too large and I knew how
poisonous a Cane Toad can be. My assumption was that the Ibis, by
repeatedly messing with the Toad in this way had exhausted its toxin
supply and effectively washed the toxin away. Half an hour later, the
Ibis was still there and seemed unaffected by the experience.
Cheers, Chris.
On 2/10/2015 5:05 PM, Laurie Knight wrote:
I saw the weird spectacle yesterday in a Brisbane city park yesterday. A White Ibis was
walking around with a cane toad that was several times the volume of its head. The toad was
clearly too big to swallow and the ibis had no idea what to do with it. Not having the
requisite predatory bill to open it, the ibis was continually juggling the toad. I’m
not sure if it was trying to shake a leg off, but it wasn’t bashing the toad against
the ground as a Kookaburra would. I watched the spectacle for 5 minutes before I moved on,
leaving the ibis to its game.
Regards, Laurie
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Chris Corben.
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