Hi all,
A little out of left field this one. I just had a lovely wildlife experience right over my home just moments ago and I thought I'd share my thrill.
I live across the road from a large park here in Sydney's east, and in close proximity to the rugged coastline. Birdlife is bountiful, and I readily hear all manner of calls, including when some heavy stuff is going down with the birdlife.
So far I've seen a family of kestrels regularly hunt in the park. Local birds pay no attention to them.
I have also seen a peregrine falcon at work. When this speedster is out, every bird disappears and you won't hear a chirp until the falcon had either moved on or until you hear its shrill when its smashed a poor bird on the wing, firmly trapped in the falcon's talons.
Boobok owls I occasionally hear in the dead of night.
Just know I heard an almighty cafaful right overhead. Noisey minas, crows, pied shriekers, magpies, flaming everything, all at the same time! What the heck was going on!? I half expected to see some kookaburra being bullied as I've often seen, but when I looked up, the avian crap-fight was happening on the wing, and every flaming bird in the neighborhood was tormenting a Brown Falcon, a raptor I had never seen here before!
So, now I've seen a bit of a raptor hierarchy. Kestrels are no threat. Peregrine falcons rule the sky and everything on the wing is scared pooless. But with the brown falcon, all the locals get cocky and mob violence is the norm as they reckon they are safe in numbers to harass it to move on
I'm sure none of them would be so cocky if they were one-on-one with the brown!
What raptors frequent where you live?
Alex.