Very good :)

Having said that... *DON'T FEED NATIVE ANIMALS*

Up here in Echuca we have a kooka that calls in at 5 ish in the arvo.If wifey doesn,t come out in the time frame that suits the kooka he/she lands on the window sill and belts the window with his beak !!

"Just a few little breadcrumbs won't hurt them ... or will it?"
https://www.ehp.qld.gov.au/wildlife/livingwith/feeding_native_animals.html

"Let nature feed itself"
https://www.wires.org.au/wildlife-info/wildlife-factsheets/let-nature-feed-itself

And a delightful short film which shows what a delicate balance the natural world is:
"How Wolves Change Rivers"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q

Don't feed the birds and animals - they don't need you to, you're doing it for your benefit, not theirs.

Blues Man wrote:

---

After viewing that vid Mike , just reinforces my thoughts on how beautiful nature is and works.

---

Agreed. Isn't it just amazing how all the connections occur and they keep the "system" in balance.

It seems whenever we humans step in all we do is stuff it up.

"How Wolves Change Rivers"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q

rockylizard wrote:

---

Gday...

I find that maggies are a very friendly lot ...

Sorry to have caused angst and hand-wringing.

Best to remove the offensive subjects and remove myself to the naughty room.

cheers - John

-- Edited by rockylizard on Friday 8th of June 2018 04:42:32 PM

---

 

Maybe I should join you Rocky, as I put the original post up anyway, in fun. I got a smile out of it and thought someone else might too. Instead it seems to have strirred the pot a little. I better get the satnav out to find my way to the naughty room as I have not been sent there for a while. 

 

 

Last sentence is "spot on..." 

Just a few extracts from an interesting paper about feeding wild
birds - however I suspect I'm banging my head against a brick wall
with some people.

Incidentally; you do all follow the good professor's *Golden Rules*
for bird feeding don't you...?

---

Darryl's golden rules for bird feeding:
Cleanliness. Sweep up any left overs and spray with a mix of water
and vinegar. Dry and then place new feed. Do this daily.

Provide a Snack. Not a meal. Just a little bit of food goes a long,
long, way.

Never feed birds away from your home. Professor Jones' enthusiasm for
bird feeding stops at the front gate. Feeding bread to the ducks and
swans at the park is a definite no-no.

---

http://www.publish.csiro.au/mu/pdf/MUv111n2_ED

The best known of these was the conjunctivitis epidemic among
American House Finches (Carpodacus  mexicanus ) in the eastern USA, a
phenomenon initially reported among birds visiting feeders (Dhondt et 
al . 2001 ). The subsequent monitoring of the spread of the disease
was achieved by recruiting large numbers of feeder operators in one
of the most effective examples of large-scale citizen science
(Hochachka and Dhondt 2000 ). This army of motivated participants
enabled researchers to follow the outbreak through its peak c . 2004
(when ~15% of the eastern population of House Finches were infected)
and the later plateau phase (Cornell La

---

Remarkably similar characteristics surround the discovery and
monitoring of the protozoan disease Trichomoniasis gallinae in the
UK, which was declared an epidemic in 2005 (Robinson et al . 2010 ).
Unlike the conjunctivitis, Trichomoniasis is fatal for most infected
Common Green finch ( Chloris  chloris ) and Common Chaffinch (
Fringilla coelebs ), and has resulted in declines of affected
populations of 35 and 21% respectively, between 2007 and 2009 in the
UK (Robinson et al . 2010 ). Again, the role of feeders appeared to
be somewhat equivocal. Although there is no doubt that infections are
more likely owing to the cramming of birds at feeding stations, the
highly gregarious social behaviour of the two main species suggested
that any infection was likely to spread quickly. Less-social British
finches, though also susceptible, have been far less affected
(Robinson et al . 2010 ). Tricho- moniasis has often been detected in
wild populations of many species, but outbreaks appear to have short
durations (Real et al . 2000 ).

---

A significant feature of bird feeding as practiced in Australia is
the heavy provision of meat as the main food (Rollinson et al . 2003
). With larger, predatory birds, such as Australian Magpies (
Cracticus tibicen ), butcherbirds ( Cracticus spp.) and Pied Cur-
rawongs ( Strepera graculina ) being among the most frequent and
favoured visitors to feeding stations (Rollinson et al . 2003 ;
Ishigame and Baxter 2007 ), a wide variety of meats, such as mince,
sausage and organs, are used to attract these species. This raises
several issues: risk of disease associated with communal feeding, the
potential for bacterial spread owing to feeding on raw meats, as well
as the potential nutritional effect of heavy use of fatty processed
foods. Unfortunately, we know very little about any of these issues,
although one experimental study of captive Magpies found consistently
raised cholesterol levels in birds eating a diet of processed sausage
meat (Ishigame et al . 2006 )

---

Although little is known about the negative effects of feeding birds
on their ecosystems, the fundamental influence of food supply on the
lives of animals has long been appreciated, largely through many
carefully conducted supplementary feeding experiments (see Martin
1987 ; Robb et al . 2008 ). These studies have explored, for example,
the influence of the timing, quantity and quality of food
provisioning on hatching and laying dates, clutch- size, and survival
of chicks and fledglings (Boutin 1990 ; Newton 1998 ). This work on a
huge variety of species means that we can now be reasonably certain
about some important likely outcomes of feeding. First, wintering
birds supplied with additional foods have greatly enhanced survival,
and second, food supplementation almost always advances the key
reproduction dates: laying, hatching, fledging and, often, re-nesting
(Chamberlain et  al . 2005 ; Fuller et al . 2008 ). Thus,
supplemented birds typically breed earlier and more often. However,
evidence for direct benefits to fitness, such as producing larger
clutches and enhancing hatching survival is far less obvious (Robb
et al . 2008 ). In an important recent experiment conducted in the
UK, Great Tits ( Parus major ) and Blue Tits ( Cyanistes caeruleus )
were provided with supplementary foods over three consecutive
breeding seasons (Harrison et al . 2010 ). This unusually long
duration for the experiment found that whereas laying date was
earlier and incubation duration reduced as expected, clutch sizes and
hatching success were actually lower than unfed populations. The
importance of these findings, acknowledged directly by the
researchers (Harrison et al . 2010 ), was that these breeding
parameters closely resembled what had been noted among urban
populations of several species of British birds, many of which
habitually use feeders (Chamberlain et  al . 2009 ). Given the
assumption that feeders enhance urban bird populations, these are
sobering discoveries, although the mechanisms are far from being
understood.

---

blaze wrote:

---

 and that's the very reason they should stop baiting dingos

---

Yes, like to see more action against wild dogs, feral cats, and brumbies. 

Iza

Cannot but agree with Mike and Iza about the feral cats!
We regularly get cats dumped at our place (just half hour out of town) and they do untold damage to the local wren/pidgeon/wagtail population.
We set a trap for them, take the catch to the local pound where they are scanned for a chip (and if chipped, the owners are charged a fee for return) and euthanised if not chipped.

Not having a firearms licence, I'll not try shooting them.

ALL cat and dog owners should be required to have them chipped, and to have them neutered (unless a registered breeder) and pay huge fees to retrieve any that are found outside of their enclosures!
[/rant]