sexing magpies

[keldaw]

yes Robbie , they are miners , grey and yellow one,s not the black one,s , we live beside the park so we also get a lot of ibis here picking on the smaller birds , so I try and keep them away ,
        ( I just wish I had an air rifle )     ,, kel ,,

[JeffH]

We have lots of miners around here -several coal mines in the area.
Used to have lots of mynahs [and koels] too but haven't seen many lately (good).

Jeff

[keldaw]

jeff , sorry about the spelling  , I just followed robbiegal ,, she,s to

   blame , even my wife said , mynor , not even close to it ..

                                                           ,, kel ,,

[Australian coin]

we got heaps of birds around in the bush, but we only feed the butcher birds, but in the end they became demanding, and we had to teach them that food is a treat and not an everyday thing where they can sit at the back door and make noise and expect to be feed every 5 minutes. they are really smart birds and you can hold a tiny piece of bread in your fingertips and hold it out next to you and they do a flyby - snap, and its gone they have fantastic aim, I have never been hooked by one. sometimes we say don't snatch and they land next to you and squiz closer and closer and gently take it from your hand. depends on what you got to feed them. they are super smart and when you take the kitchen scraps to the chooks in the morning sometimes they follow you down and wait and the chook pen door, before putting it in the chook pen, I offer the bird a squiz to see what I got, they sit on the tea tree branch and I shove the plate in its face and it looks around and turns food over to look for anything interesting, sometime there might be a bit of meat in there or for some reason it likes pasta spirals too, takes what it wants then buggers off.

[robbiegal]

jeff , sorry about the spelling  , I just followed robbiegal ,, she,s to

   blame , even my wife said , mynor , not even close to it ..

                                                           ,, kel ,,

i never knew it was miner with a 'y' - ha ha
they are pesky little guys and a real threat to our native birds

we got heaps of birds around in the bush, but we only feed the butcher birds, but in the end they became demanding, and we had to teach them that food is a treat and not an everyday thing where they can sit at the back door and make noise and expect to be feed every 5 minutes. they are really smart birds and you can hold a tiny piece of bread in your fingertips and hold it out next to you and they do a flyby - snap, and its gone they have fantastic aim, I have never been hooked by one. sometimes we say don't snatch and they land next to you and squiz closer and closer and gently take it from your hand. depends on what you got to feed them. they are super smart and when you take the kitchen scraps to the chooks in the morning sometimes they follow you down and wait and the chook pen door, before putting it in the chook pen, I offer the bird a squiz to see what I got, they sit on the tea tree branch and I shove the plate in its face and it looks around and turns food over to look for anything interesting, sometime there might be a bit of meat in there or for some reason it likes pasta spirals too, takes what it wants then buggers off.

sound like fun company AC
the maggies follow me when i'm in the garden
they keep an even 2-3 paces from me and just hang around for the pickings!
yes, i have had to insist that they be gentle with the feeding or they don't get it - they figure out the rules very quickly

[keldaw]

feeding the magpie,s is easy , they just take the meat from my hand

and the kookaburra,s are the same , very gentle , but sometimes they miss and get the meat and my finger too , but don't worry it don't hurt at all .   ,, kel ,,

[robbiegal]

I used to feed a kookaburra when we lived in greenslopes on the brizzy river
it was a really gentle bird with us (not the local riff raff - like snakes etc)

[Goldseeker]

And I thought that this was a coin forum!

[Fordprefect]

These chaps would take your fingers off.
Black and Yellow cockatoo.

[robbiegal]

beautiful

I got the hubby to rescue an injured cockatoo in our back yard
I was the supervisor
handed the hubby his leather garden gloves
the bird  bit through the leather gloves and near bit his finger off!!

bird got rescued

but never again have we tried to handle a distraught wild bird

a big cardboard box has been the rescue container from then on!

[Goldseeker]

I have found if one approaches the bird with an offering of food BEFORE trying to handle the injured bird, then things go quite well.

[robbiegal]

i'll try that next time - ta

fingers are apparently quite tasty to a distressed bird!

[JeffH]

How about sexing kangaroos?
Have a look at the reverse of a Northern Territory 2001 50¢. Looks to be reasonably, anatomically correct for a happy couple.
Not so sure about Western Australia though!

Jeff