I passed a Harley today ....

Nat67 said:

Brilliant ! I was riveted til the end .

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Ishrub said:

Sounds like you need a feathered bird in your life too!

We have a dozen or more wild individuals of a few of those species outside my lounge room window everyday plus a lot more different species of parrots, Yellow Crested Cockatoos, pink and gray Galahs, Eastern and Crimson Rosellas, King Parrots, and Correlas (rarely). Got to agree they are cool and do look you in eye from a few feet away with a gleam of intelligence and self awareness to be expected of individuals that can easily live 30+ years in the wild.

The local magpies (different to US and UK species) are particularly smart and can remember you in the wild for years between visits - I still get Magpies I have previously fed in winter but not visited for years come up and land on my walking stick if I go for a walk in their territory.

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Nat67 said:

I have raised a couple of birds from fledgling , namely a carrion crow and a magpie . Both were rooted out by my dog . The crow altho released when adult would return to my window and tap on the glass and then walk in bold as brass and ask for food . Sometimes whilst in the garden , he would return after days of absence and land on my shoulder or sit on my arm . I called him Joe !
The magpie lived up to his name and altho a bit more aloof would make a bee line for anything shiny , he was comical . Eventually both failed to return , I'm guessing their tameness was their downfall , probably succumbing to a farmers shotgun ?
What we do have in abundance is starlings .
They roost in the winter months in small patches of cover on the moor . People come from miles to watch the mermerations Just before sundown , often consisting of many thousands of birds . Truly a sight to behold !

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Ishrub said:

I'm envious now, i love crows, must be the contrarian in me! I fed a pair in breeding season for a couple of years, they would follow me around for a few km through walking trails and happily take meat scraps left for them but never came within a 100 metres of me!

In Central Australia there is a different species of crow/raven that are the most acrobatic flyers you will ever see, congregating in flocks of dozens of batchelor males and somersaulting and loop the loops like crazy as they tumble and spin 100's of feet through the air and thermals.

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Nat67 said:

Yes dear Joe was a character for sure . He changed my whole ethos . Before him , living in rural Devon crows , magpie and all corvids are a pest to be shot on sight and in my younger days I did . After him , my thinking was very different . The thought of both of them being shot hurt me and I have never pointed a gun barrel at them since ! In fact , nowadays I have lost the appeal of shooting any animal . Even the occasional deer makes me feel guilty for days and I used to hunt foxes when their fur fetched money but never again . My respect for all wildlife has grown with my own maturity I guess ? But my distaste for killing for sport came mainly after the foot and mouth epidemic in 2001 .
Local deer stalkers and marksmen were hired by the government to , in an organised fashion wipe out just about every sheep , cow and cloven hooved animal in the south west of England particulary . We were paid handsomely to annihilate farms complete stock with high powered rifles in the fields they stood . Then diggers would load the corpses into pits on site and they were burned . It went on for weeks with the smoke hanging low . It was apocalyptic !

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EasTexRIII said:

Wow brother, that sucks!
I'm no tree hugger, I love to eat tasty dead animals and will shoot them or yank them up out of the water to be able to eat them but I would NEVER, EVER kill anything if I wasn't going to use his meat from tha circle of life. But using their meat, or using the fur or anything you can harvest to further sustain another life is the only proper way to show due respect to him after taking his life
Still it's almost too hard to take their life even when knowing it will go to proper cause
I'm glad those birds came along for you

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