We know our Noisy Miner Birds can be great security for us and they are good at chasing away other stray cats from entering our backyard. However, i've never seen or heard of them to do THIS befofre!
I looked out my bedroom window and saw this odd looking bird (It was only odd looking
because I didn't have my glasses on) walking up and down the fence on tip-toes really
strangely. I went quietly to get my glasses and I saw it was a big Noisy Miner Bird.
What he was doing was something i've never even known them to do, and it was doing some
sort of ballet dance across our fence over to next door. He was running up and down our
fence prancing very gracefully.
I then heard a cat's hiss, so I went over to see if it was Angel or Julie down there.
Julie was inside fully awake ready to go out and Angel was near the Cat Nip, not down
towards the other side of the house.
That made me get the conclusion that the Noisy Miner Birds were doing some 'threat ritual'
towards Tiger from next door, to scare him away to stop him from coming into our yard!
Then, the Noisy Miner Bird turned around to next door, and looked over the fence and
stretched his body like a snake with his beak and front facing downwards over the
fence!!!!
(in b4 'pics or it didn't happen', I didn't take any). Lol. and if you don't believe me that's your silly fault.
Also, Angel and Julie are the names of our two cats :)
You're probably right, cameron. That reads like threat behaviour to me, especially if there was a hiss from Tiger next door.
Hopefully, the noisy miner will always be alert when Tiger, Angel & Julie are nearby - unless, of course, you mean myna bird! Perhaps you could clarify this.
Tee hee....I know that Noisy Miner Birds and Mynas are the most commonly confused birds in Australia, so i'll give you a picture of the bird to showcase which one it was.
Noisy Miner Bird (Manorina melanocephala)
http://wingedhearts.org/files/images/n-miners-ssh_1844.jpg
I have actually studied these guys a lot during 2011 and 2012. I know a lot about them now and how possesive they can get with their territory.
It's funny because they don't "go after" our cats anymore since we cleaned up our garden. However any stray cat that comes in gets chased out by them.
Every single time my sister and her boyfriend would come home for a part in 2012, the Noisy's would always make a racket when their car pulled up on the driveway or in front of our house. They were going after their car and no one elses' so every time they'd do that I knew exactly who it was that just arrived home. They're quite good at doing that but they haven't done that in a while.
It's still the first time i've seen them 'dance', though, and the first time i've ever seen that recorded as behaviour in them.
Thanks for the clarification, cameron. Now can you clarify for me what you mean by "clean up our garden" & how you think that might relate to the noisy miners not attacking your cats any more?
Over time for some strange reason our giant Pepper Tree in our garden died in our garden. We have little soil because we live on Sandstone which is stupid and it's hard for us to plant many big trees on the garden.
Eventually when the tree died the Noisy Miner Birds showed up and started getting really aggressive and protective about our garden, front and backyard and started chasing off all of the other birds, they did drive us a bit nuts with all of their eeping (lol!) but eventually we got used to them around, however when they started to try and harass our cats then that's when we decided to take action and to stop the Noisy's from causing trouble.
We had a really dry 2012 in Australia, Sydney especially, and we hardly got any rain, not as much as this years', you should see it in our garden, everything's so overgrown! It looks lovely!
While our garden was suffering from the rain and our dead pepper tree died, more Noisy Miner Birds started to take over our neighborhood.
The habitat of the Noisy Miner is basically 'dry, open eucalypt forests without understory shrubs' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noisy_Miner
That was basically our neighborhood at the time.
After many months of witnessing mobbing caused by the Noisy mIner Birds ganging up on whatever other bird they could find to chase away from 'their' territory - I used to always have to run out every time I heard the Noisy's harass the cats. Our cats are lovely and they don't usually harm birds, actually. They usually just sleep all day outside. When they used to stand on the bricks for example, some Noisy Miner Birds would just literally walk right up to our cats and start constantly eeping in their faces. Our cats didn't do anything back to them. They just didn't care about them but they were getting too close. Sometimes, when my cats were out near our Dead Pepper Tree (that's cut down now) the Noisy's used to try and 'swoop' on them, but not really, it looked like they were trying to scare them but I didn't like that.
Action needed to be taken once again so I decided to get toys with Big Eyes out because I learnt that Noisy Miner Birds use their yellow 'eyebrows' as a scary face to try warn off other predators. This worked successfully but though it did this did not stop the Noisy Miner Birds from getting into our backyard.
In the end, we kept on watering our garden and with the less rain that we recieved in 2012 Everything was eventually starting to grow back.
We planted some more trees and flowers and our garden started to become more greener, and healthier, especially after our Dead Pepper Tree was cut down.
We have noticed a big difference since then.
And also though we still have the noisy miner birds around they don't 'go after' our cats at all anymore. Instead they only go after the strays and they themselves have calmed down. They are back to their normal routines and behaviours, not getting to close or obsessive but they still live around our neighbourhood, but they're not really that interested in our garden anymore, and though they pop in occasionally it's usually to get food or nesting material (they recycle our cat's excess fur that fell of them when I brush them - pretty weird, huh?) so I chuck the excess fur out for them or other birds who need it for nest building. it's usually gone within a few days.
We have also discovered since they have calmed down we have King Parrots in our neighborhood and must've had them for a while. They're flying around more recently that's why I have noticed them because the Noisy Miner Birds have calmed down.
I usually see about 6 King Parrots flying around together, and all of the other birds are starting to come back too.
During 2011 and the peak of 2012, when they (The Noisy's) were causing the most trouble I decided to go out and do some research on them, and eventually came back with loads of great findings, answers. and information.
I'm also happy that I found out ways to control this problem without causing any harm to any of the birds too. Everyone has been forgiven and we have all gone back to living peacfully with one another, even though our cats never did anything wrong in the first place :p
So cleaning up your garden was about cutting down the dead pepper tree?
Here is some of what Cameron said:
" however when they started to try and harass our cats then that's when we decided to take action and to stop the Noisy's from causing trouble."
I used to always have to run out every time I heard " the Noisy's harass the cats"
." Our cats are lovely and they don't usually harm birds, actually"
." They usually just sleep all day outside"
. When they used to stand on the bricks for example, some Noisy Miner Birds would just literally walk right up to our cats and start constantly eeping in their faces. Our cats didn't do anything back to them. They just didn't care about them but they were getting too close. Sometimes, when my cats were out near our Dead Pepper Tree (that's cut down now)"
"the Noisy's used to try and 'swoop' on them, but not really, it looked like they were trying to scare them"
"What he was doing was something i've never even known them to do, and it was doing some sort of ballet dance across our fence over to next door. He was running up and down our fence prancing very gracefully"
Here is what I say to this:
Have you actually read what you just said? To me, all the actions of the bird are done in “utter desperation”, being threatened by those absolutely gorgeous cats that wouldn’t harm a fly. The poor bird on the fence was performing the desperate ritual of distracting the cats from his/her nest and young. What a wonderful description of complete disregard for our native birds, in favour of the cats.
O, how I wish and dream of the day cat owners would understand the traumas birds have to live with.
Now, feel free to attack me. No cat should be allowed to be outside, even if you think they don’t harm birds , do you realise the absolute horror and stress the presence of a cat causes to birds? Especially during breeding time.? O yes, you might have solved your problem, but how about the bird’s problems?
M-L