HOW DANGEROUS ARE BUTCHER BIRDS?
Butcher birds are vicious predators that tear apart smaller birds, insects, mammals, and reptiles by impaling them on thorns or sharp sticks.
Their custom of hanging captured prey on a hook or in a tree fork, resembling a larder and used to hold the victim while it is being eaten or store multiple victims, gives them their name.
As highly aggressive predators, butcher birds will sit in the open and pounce on smaller animals.
The birds sing similarly to magpies despite being smaller in size.
They stretch from northern Western Australia to mid-eastern Queensland and southern Australia, including Tasmania.
Source: Birds in Backyards
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Although the butcher bird appears small and innocuous, to its victims it is a winged nightmare.
This seemingly harmless bird is actually a vicious killer that, as its name implies, impales small birds, mammals, reptiles, and insects while pulling them apart on jagged branches, thorns, and barbed wire.
At Guildford, a butcher bird surveys its territory from a dead branch. Credit: Allen Newton.
The Noongar call this stylish little bird, a small relative of the magpie, “waddo-wadong.” Its call is similar to the magpie’s chortle, but it sounds faster.
It is moderately common in metropolitan areas, especially in Perth’s leafier suburbs like Floreat, Nedlands, and Kelmscott. It is found throughout Australia, with the exception of the wettest and driest regions. It prefers scrub, thickets, and woodlands.
The call of the butcher birds resembles that of magpies but at a faster pace. Credit: Allen Newton.
From a branch or fence wire, it frequently surveys the ground before darting to attack its prey.
In the Perth region, it builds a tiny, bowl-shaped nest in a tree fork made of twigs and roots that is bordered with dry grass between mid-August and early November.
Three to four pale brown eggs with reddish brown speckles are laid there.
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Instead of using their heavy jaws and teeth, birds have switched to using light beaks, which are actually elongated, stiffened lips.
Birds are forced to gulp their food because their beaks prevent them from chewing, usually without distinguishing between the edible and non-edible portions.
For instance, predatory birds do not de-skin and de-bone their prey before consumption.
Rather, the stomach separates the meat from the bones and fur, compressing the waste into a compact pellet of fur, bones, and exoskeletons of insects that the bird can regurgitate.
These pellets, which are beneath any tree that prey-seeking birds frequent, provide important information about the diet of the birds. ,.
FAQ
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