Tales of bird aggression by Yi Yang (7th July 2009):
1. Around the vicinity of my house there are two common kingfishers, the Collared (Todiramphus chloris) and the White-breasted (Amaurornis phoenicurus ). The Collareds (there are two) are highly territorial, and although they hang around for the first half of the year while the White-breasted takes the other half, there just happened to be an instance when a Collared Kingfisher charged the White-breasted Kingfisher several times for about a couple of minutes before the White-breasted Kingfisher bid a hasty retreat.
2. Everyone knows that the House Crow (Corvus splendens) is an aggressive avian predator. However, there are two others: Tanimbar Corella (Cacatua goffini) and Black-naped Oriole (Oriolus chinensis). The two species have been known to chase the crows from time to time, never really hurting them.
Talking about hurting, crows have done things like that. When I was younger, my parents flew kites around the fields at Marina South. The kite was designed to resemble an eagle, and when it went in the air the crows tried to mob it.
Now on other species: At the Singapore Botanical Gardens I saw a bunch of treeducks who were all staring at one direction, looking at something. They were continuously looking and whistling and wouldn’t take any bread that passerby threw at them. That something that they were staring at was a Little Heron (Butorides striatus), who by all means was minding its own business. The six or seven ducks continuously called until the heron finally flew to another perch nearby. The ducks directed their look to this new perch and continued calling.
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