Noisy Friarbird incident

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: birding-aus-bounces@lists.vicnet.net.au [mailto:birding-aus-bounces@lists.vicnet.net.au] On Behalf Of Andrew Thelander Sent: Sunday, 17 November 2013 6:40 PM To: birding-aus Aus Subject: [Birding-Aus] 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 =============================== To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) to: birding-aus-request@vicnet.net.au http://birding-aus.org ===============================