Birds are brutal...

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Flying Omelette

Birds are brutal...

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Posts: 20777

(07/24/08 1:22 PM)

But you had to have the BIIIIIG salad!

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When I was getting in my car this morning to go to work, I noticed a sparrow underneath a tree beating the crap out of a cicada. The cicada is a large insect and was about as big as the sparrow's head. The sparrow would beat it several times with its beak, and sometimes even flip it into the air. The cicada would land and twitch wildly (the sparrow must have injured it badly enough that it can't just run or fly away, but not so bad that it couldn't move at all). I watched for a couple of minutes, and I wasn't even sure by the time I left if the sparrow really wanted to eat it, or was just playing with it.

It reminded me a lot of those scenes in Jurassic Park were the T-Rex would eat something and shake its head back and forth. That's basically what the sparrow was doing with that bug.

Think of what you're saying,
You can get it wrong
And still you think that it's all right.
Think of what I'm saying,
We can work it out
And get it straight or say good night.

There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God, I know I'm one

Stepchan

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Posts: 80

(07/24/08 2:53 PM)

Ouch, that's a new side of birds I've never heard of.

Cats I already knew would play with and kill their prey even if they weren't hungry.

I'm Catsuri, meow!

CRAWLand1000

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Posts: 3590

(07/24/08 3:08 PM)

The Fuzzy Physicist
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I don't know if that's brutal to be mean to your food. I guess it just goes to show that humans aren't alone in thinking themselves superior to other species, or the animals we eat. For another thing, if the insect was as big as the bird's head, it might have taken the bird some effort to kill it.

I did see a nature documentary once on wild dogs (in Africa, I think) and it said that the dogs would break the necks of its prey to kill them before eating them. But their original habitat was experiencing a drought or something, so they had to go elsewhere, and they didn't know how to kill the prey there. They might have ended up needing to eat the prey alive.

So, I guess that's one example of animals trying (though in that particular instance, failing) to be kind to their food.

Last Edited By: Crawl and 1OOO 07/24/08 4:34 PM. Edited 1 times.

Flying Omelette

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Posts: 20777

(07/24/08 5:45 PM)

But you had to have the BIIIIIG salad!

The size of the insect may have been why the bird was having trouble killing it. But it almost looked like it was getting enjoyment out of what it was doing. It seemed like if it had just continued to give it a steady beak pounding, she could've killed it, but she'd peck it a few times, hop back and watch it twitch, and then she'd peck it a few more times and fling it into the air.

Think of what you're saying,
You can get it wrong
And still you think that it's all right.
Think of what I'm saying,
We can work it out
And get it straight or say good night.

There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God, I know I'm one

Crawl and 1OOO

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Posts: 15476

(07/24/08 11:42 PM)

Administrator

Once FO and I were watching animals in one of those observation rooms the parks around here have. A guy, who I guess was employed by the park (he acted like it, anyway), was there recording the animals that showed up that day. He was very talkative.

We saw a red squirrel.

He said, "Those are nasty. NASTY."

We said, "But they're cute."

"But they're nasty. NASTY animals."

A whole bunch of cedar wax wings showed up. I heard FO mention those before, and the name stuck with me because it sounded like Cedar Point, but I never saw one close up. They had bright orange on the tips of their wings (hence the name) and a black "mask" around their eyes.

FO said, "Look at those cedar wax wings! They're bathing in the pond! There's seven there! I've never seen so many at once!"

He said, "Yeah, I see. They're nasty. NASTY."

They were just splashing in the pond and he called them nasty!

He called just about every single species we saw there that day nasty. It makes me wonder what his standards for judging animals as nasty are.

Just about every time we watch the animals, there's a pair that randomly fight and chase each other. I guess that supports the thesis that all those animals are nasty, but on the other hand, I don't notice any pattern of species being consistently argumentative, and 80, 90% of the animals in the area get along fine. There will be squirrels and gold finches and wood chucks and doves and cardinals all in one place, sometimes different species just feet from each other, and they all just eat and mind their own business.

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Birds are brutal...

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