Know your miner from your myna. Both are aggressive in
different ways – discover why we’re killing one but never the other
Wednesday 29 November 2017 21.01 GMTLast modified on
Wednesday 29 November 2017 22.55 GMT
A kookaburra nestles on my balcony and belts its deliciously
rambunctious laugh, like an ape in a zoo. But, mid-cackle, it is interrupted by
a series of urgent, high-pitched screams like sirens.
Three miner birds flutter in its face, screaming hysterically
at it. At first, the kookaburra just gives the unrelenting interlopers an
unblinking, nonchalant death stare before eventually giving in and moving on.
The miners follow it and chase it out of the neighbourhood.
It is behaviour from the aggressive miner bird that I’ve
noticed at disturbing levels – not just from my balcony but on streets and in
parks. I’d heard that the miner bird was an introduced species and, given its
aggression, felt this bird to be least worthy of my vote in the Guardian’s Bird
of the Year poll. It is, however, a common misconception.
An ecologist, Stefan Hattingh, told me: “The miner bird is
native to Australia. They’ll chase anything where they’ve got a nesting site
nearby. They operate in a matriarchal system – the male is the lowest in the
pecking order – and they breed in groups, which is why you saw three scream at
the kookaburra. They know it’s carnivorous and will eat their young.”
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