As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Wednesday 13 December 2017

Mynas v miners: they might be swooping menaces but they're not all bad


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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