Bird Hunters Part 2: the Pouncers

The big beak on a butcherbird ends with a wicked spike – which is useful for the act of butchering. Today’s bird hunters are those with small feet and big beaks: butcherbirds and currawongs. They are pouncing opportunists who will take anything – rodent, insect, bird, nestling – and they must be doing pretty well because they are common, increasing throughout the country.

It is completely horrible when these birds rob nests. On this site, there are many sad tales of nests full of hungry young nestlings that suddenly go missing, and sometimes the culprit is identified as a currawong or butcherbird (eg here). Especially vulnerable are Grey Fantails and Willie Wagtails.

Currawongs (Streptera) come in two varieties in our district – the Pied (S. graculina), common around towns and the Grey (S. versicolor), a bird of forests and hills. The Pieds used to come to town for the Winter and spend the summer in alpine areas, but since the 1980s, observers have noticed that they now are present all-year round (though numbers are a bit smaller in the warmer months). Some people think this is responsible for a decline in small songbirds in cities and towns, as they are so effective at finding nests and robbing them.

The Grey Butcherbird (Cracticus torquata) gets its name from the alleged habit of this family of birds of hanging larger prey on spikes or in forks of branches to eat at leisure. I have never witnessed this and it certainly seems to be more common in American species of Shrike (which are the same family). I asked around and one friend supplied the following photo of a butcherbird with a forlorn young Rufous Fantail strung up.

While butcherbirds and currawongs are the foremost predators of nests, there are plenty of others who will have a go – kookaburras, ravens, magpies and some raptors. A rare raptor, the Square-tailed kite (Lophoictinia isura), makes a living by soaring low over treetops and dropping suddenly on to prey, especially nestlings of bigger birds. I have only seen one once in the district.

Butcherbirds and currawongs will take small birds other than nestlings when they can. They sit and watch for a vulnerable moment, drop on the victim and grasp its neck with the powerful beak.

This post is more about the horrors of nature than its delights, though all, of course, a necessary part of the circle of life. The moral might be: beware of predators with big beaks and small feet, and there seem to be a few around the world at the moment.