107 – Raptor Domain

Charlie, the brown falcon they brought out first wanted nothing to do with the show at all. He spotted another bird in the sky, got spooked and flew off, which put the whole show in a bit of an awkward place, but the handlers went on with the show while they tried to retrieve him.
Charlie flew around and stubbornly would not come back, even for his favorite toy, a long rubber snake on a fishing line they pulled across the yard. They are reptile hunters after all.
Charlie flew in a couple of times and was eventually returned to his home, but we got to see him sitting up in a tree in the ‘wild’ which was neat.

The next bird was the Australian Boobook owl, which is the smallest owl species in Australia, weighing in at 250g for the male and the female slightly larger.

Boo uses her eyes to lock on her prey, and then dives in. Most beings from giraffe to human have 7 vertebra in the neck. The owl has 14, which allows him to turn his head 270 degrees. So when she finds her prey, she can fly to it without losing sight of it.
Owls legs are very long and muscular, but are mostly hidden by their feathers so most people do not know that. In all raptors, the legs and feet are the strongest parts of the body because they use them to hunt. Raptor literally means ‘cease and carry off.’

This owl likes insects but can take down small birds if he is inspired.
She will live 15 years in the wild, or 20-25 with human care. The biggest threat to this owl is insecticides. Humans are killing off their main food source.

Charlie made a brief appearance, sending the next birds into a fright, but the Koala, known as ‘old boy’ watched the antics with bored amusement from his tree across the lawn.

Next up was a pair of Tawny Frogmouth. As I said, they came out all calm and aware, but quickly went into stealth mode when they noted the other birds around.
Charlie did not simply decide to go for a fly around the neighborhood, there were several other birds who were not members of this community flying around today, which had all the birds aware. Including these two.

They went from big and fluffy to tall and skinny the instant they sensed something out of the ordinary. Their go to defense against predators is to hide in plain sight, and if they are up in a tree, where they usually are, they suck in to as small as they can get, stop moving, and if something is coming closer they even close their eyes. Because if they do that, they appear to be a stick or branch in the tree. They even have adapted to have the coloring of the trees in the area they live. Northern have more grey on their body because the trees have a greyer bark, for example.
These two are Wally and his 6 year old daughter Muppet. I got to hold Muppet.

Ironically the biggest threat to these birds are cats. Over thousands of years, this species have perfected the art of camoflauge as a defense, but most that would attack them hunt by sight. Cats and fox hunt by smell.
The average domestic cat kills about 30 wild animals each year, which is not a huge number until you are told there are 30 million cats across Australia.
So, keep your cats inside to save the wildlife.

The next bird is the 3rd largest raptor in Australia, the Black Breasted Buzzard. Say that 3 times fast.

For being on the big end of things, this bird is not large. Especially when you consider the largest raptor, the wedge tailed eagle is 4 kg, this lady, Finn, is only 1 1/2 kg.
This species is notable because of their long black and orange feathers and her beautiful tail. In contrast to the wedge tailed eagle, which has a wedge shaped tail with a very defined point, Finn’s tail is a blunt square shape and partly gray in color. No part of a wedge tailed eagle is ever gray, or if it is, something is very wrong.
The most interesting fact about these birds is their favorite food of all time is emu eggs. The issue is, emu eggs are so large, the buzzard cannot pick them up with their talons and carry them off, so they must eat them where they find them. The other issue is the shell of the egg is so thick, the buzzard cannot break into it.
So, they figured out how to use tools. They find a rock, walk over to the egg, rear back their head and throw the rock at the egg. Eventually, that creates a small hole in the shell which allows the buzzard to get a talon or beak into the hole and open it the rest of the way.
Where the emu is during this what sounds like a lengthy process, I have no idea, but the buzzard gets a meal.
The only other bird who uses tools to open their food is the Egyptian Vulture, who does a very similar thing with Ostrich eggs.

Charlie came in for a visit. He did not stay long.

Next Muriel came out to see us. Muriel is a Pacific Baza, or often referred to as a crested hawk. Crested Hawk is very descriptive, but entirely wrong, because it does not differintiate them from other Crested Hawks, so Pacific Baza it is. The handler said Baza is apparently a Hindu name meaning gospel, but I have no idea if that is true or why this bird would be named such.

The first thing you note about this bird is their crazy yellow eyes. These eyes can see the most shades of yellow, green and brown of any bird in the world. Which is good for a bird who preys on preying mantis, green tree frogs etc.

They hunt by flying into the top of a try and hanging upside down while they flap their wings around. Crazy way to hunt, but by doing this odd thing, they are trying to shake the tree, make everything move and flush out their prey. Because they can see so many shades of green, brown and yellow, when something does move, they can pick it out quickly and have dinner.
This is the only raptor who has the puff crest on top of their head. It is similar to a cockatoo and is an emotion crest. You can tell how they are feeling by the way they display the feathers. No one is sure why they have the crest, but the theory is they use it to identify other birds of their species.

And they want to identify those like them because this is the only raptor who roost in flocks in the evening. It is believed they seek out the similar silhouette, and if they are all together in the same tree or area, they have strength in numbers and are protected from predators.
Which brings up another oddity in that other raptors can and will hunt this bird, so if they are in a large group, they are more protected.
And the last weird thing is they are omnivores. These are the only raptors known to eat fruits and berries if they cannot find something on their regular diet.

Meet Bessie, An Australian Barking Owl, which, as the name implies, makes a woofing sound when excited.
Bessie is very excitable, enthusiastic and stupidly fast. She loves strangers and loves to show off her acrobatic flying skills. Luckily she is motivated by food, so comes flying back for snacks. She is also vocal with her grumbling and growling when she does not get enough snacks, and overall just likes to talk a lot.
Bessie, as with all the barking owls likes to catch her food right out of the air, and have been known to eat animals as large as cockatoos and possums.
If it is too big to eat off the wing, like a possum, they grab hold of it, carry it to a perch then sever the spinal cord with their beak before eating.
Their favorite part of a possum is the eyes and brain, but that is a lot of food for them to eat at once. So they have been known to use the eye socket as a lunch box of sorts to carry the left overs of their catch in until they are hungry again.

So, that is both creative and gross. I would also suggest they are using a tool like the egg smashing buzzard, except it is a take away container instead of a hammer.

This bird is the most successful raptor based on the number of them in the wild. It goes by many names like ‘fork tailed kite;’ Black kite and even fire kite. The ‘official’ name in Australia is the fork-tailed kite, because of the easily identifiable fork tail.
These birds are excellent at putting foot to mouth and eating on the wing instead of needing to perch to eat their food. They use less energy eating that way, and since there are so many of them in the wild, they do not have others fighting for their catch if they do land and eat.
They are numerous in the North part of the continent around Darwin and Alice Springs especially, and like to hang out around farm fields where rodents can be abundant and easy prey.

Also known as a ‘fire kite’ not because of their reddish color, but because they are often attracted to smoke, because smoke draws insects and rodents out into the open, creating a buffet for these raptors.
The Aboriginals used to start a fire to draw these birds in, and then trap them for dinner. But the birds learned from the fires and now some people blame them for arson.
When drawn to a fire, the birds learned to pick up one of the burning sticks and move it to a different location in order to start another fire and flush out more prey. Or that is what the birds might tell you. Some believe they pick up a hot stick by accident because they are stupid or something, and then they realize it is hot and drop it. So, it is not intentional arson if your hut burns down.
However, this bird hunts and eats cane frogs. Cane frogs are poisonous, so to eat them, the birds were smart enough to figure out if they flipped the frogs on their back and gutted them from that side, the poison is avoided.
Cane toads were only introduced to Australia about 100 years ago, so this bird figured that out and adapted to eating them in that time frame.
Fire has been a vital part of land management for ever. We know birds can use tools, we know they are drawn to smoke, so we think they do intentionally pick up the burning sticks. Plus, again, the numbers do not lie. In some areas, there are so many of these fork-tailed kites, they outnumber the flies.

The last bird for the day was Jetta, the biggest raptor in Australia, a Wedge tailed eagle. Jetta is from the northern territory so around 4kg. The Taz, or southern version is around 5.5kg average.
Jetta has a wingspan 2.2 m, which is slightly below the average of 2.4 m
The Wedge tailed eagle is the top of the food chain. The apex predator in Australia, they can take down prey as large as 100kg, which includes most of the animals on the continent including kangaroo.
They have massive talons with enormous strength. The middle toes are the longest and strongest, with 700 pounds per square inch of crushing pressure. That is equivalent to the bite force of a German Shepard. In 2 toes.
With the other talons, they can pierce the vital organs of every single Australian land animal. They can see a rabbit on the ground from over 3km away, which would be the equivalent of a human reading a headline of a newspaper from that distance.

If you are old enough to know what a newspaper is, please explain it in words the youngers can understand. I cannot read a newspaper headline 2 feet from my face with my reading glasses on anymore.

The biggest threat for these birds is cars. They might be apex predators, but they are, focused, stubborn and lazy.
They often fly into the road to eat the road kill because carrion is their favorite. Because it takes no effort to obtain.
Cars thinking a big bird is going to move so they don’t slow down, but the bigger the bird is, the longer it takes for them to get off the ground. Just like a fighter jet takes less time and less runway than a cargo plane. It is called physics.
It does not help that the bird is often so focused on their food or so stubborn, they don’t move, surprising the driver and the bird equally. Again, physics with a side of stupid. Moral of the story, slow down and give these guys a chance.

That was the end of the presentation, and obviously I learned a lot. Before we left we wandered over to visit “Old Boy” the koala, and then I found some other birds outside… so I took pictures because I could.