The Noisy Miner is Noisy
I like birds, well most birds. I have been feuding with the Noisy Miner. The relationship I have to the Indian Myna ( not a native bird) is even worse. Indian Mynas are known for terrorising smaller birds and removing eggs from other native birds’ nests, if I see one I chuck anything available (except my camera) at it, sometimes I even hit them. The Noisy Miner is native but the ones around our house will chase/attack any other birds. Hence we have no small birds here, on occasion we do see one flying for its life with a miner after it or really high up in big flocks. The Noisy Miner is also extremely noisy. If I walk near a tree with one it the racket begins until all the miners nearby are squawking. It is not a nice noise. If they happen to have a nest somewhere they dive bomb anyone who comes near as well as making an even louder noise than normal. Like some magpies do. On the subject of magpies we actually have really nice ones that never swoop at us. This is possibly because we feed them.
Back to the miners. We have been enemies ever since I can remember. When my sisters and I were little we would sit for ages holding a rope. The rope lead to a stick that held up a basket and under it we put some birdseed. It worked. We caught quite a few that way..... and some other ways too. The Baby birds are quite fun. They are easy to catch for about a week after they leave the nest. The older ones also occasionally get stuck in the vegy garden, we have possibly frightened some of those to death.
Now the part of the post I was trying to get to. On the west side of the house we have a line of ornamental plums and the miners like to sleep in them and as we found this morning, build nests in them. Now the story I wanted to tell, it took place last night.
Darkness surrounded the sleeping bird. A flash like lightning shone around, but the bird did not wake. Something scraped around under him, but he slept on. Tentatively a hand reached out and stroked the bird’s tail. Fingers pressed together and pulled down. They pulled again and released. The birds head snapped up, it wondered what had disturbed it. Then the branch it sat upon started to swing from side to side. Something also pulled at his tail, in fact that was what made the branch swing so violently. Then the pulling and swinging stoped. The bird looked around, some unusual shape stood out against the light from the window of the house. The dark shape moved closer and “BOO”. If birds eyes could pop out his would have and if that bird ever had eyebrows they fell off then, just like he did. He fell from the branch, flapping wildly and made a zigzag path into the darkness narrowly missing the shed roof.
Then as he dropped out of the sky, a fox came along and ate him all up.
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| Doesn't that tail just say pull me? |
Well I added the last line on but the rest all happened, and I came back inside laughing. I seriously think that bird looked so surprised. I found it very amusing. No I did not feel sorry for the bird one bit. The miners also chase every other bird around here, even the wedge tailed eagles and my chooks! On the subject of wedgtails and miners:
An eagle soared through the sky followed by about five birds that looked tiny in comparison to his majestic frame. A flock of galahs flew over too. The eagle dived down a bit the little birds continued to pester him and some magpies joined them. Eyes narrowed he twisted back in the air and snatched at one of the little grey birds. His talons closed around flesh and feathers came spinning down from the blue sky. The eagle had the miner bird firmly in his grip.
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| Probably shouldn't put 'cute' photos here if I want you not to like them.... |
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