Photographically, location and light were less than ideal, but these images – taken within a few seconds of each other – do document just how fearless and feisty is one small Australian bird.
Last Sunday, just before sunset, a “crow” – in fact, an Australian raven, which is what most Australians have in mind when they say “crow” – was peacefully toying with something white and fluffy.
The object of his or her attention had probably escaped a pillow or cushion.
Australian ravens are aggressive, but so are most Australian birds; collectively, ours are the world’s loudest and the most aggressive birds.
Many Australian humans dislike crows/ravens; even folks who are unfamiliar with the relevant collective noun tend to regard corvids (i.e. ravens and crows) as “murderous bastards”.
Many Australians like to barrack for “the little guy/bloke”, the underdog.
Most Australians love willie wagtails.
Wagtails are “cute”.
All wagtails, it seems, hate corvids.
I have countless times witnessed the behaviour that this post illustrates; “perfectly innocent” intent on a corvid’s part is “no defence” – wagtails simply do not tolerate corvids’ presence.
You will almost certainly be surprised by at least something in the text that follows these images – and even more so if you click the relevant hyperlinks.
You just may be about to ditch some prenconceptions/prejudices!
In this instance, the raven did not move and did not appear to be much-bothered.
Willie wagtails, however, often do drive away ravens, and raptors…even Australia’s largest raptor.
If two or more wagtails harry a wedge-tailed eagle, their persistence is such that the “underdogs” invariably win…the eagle moves on.
In the tens of thousands of years before Europeans arrived, southwest Australia’s original humans coined wonderful, onomatopoeic names.
To the Noongar people, the willie wagtail was Chitty Chitty.
The raven was Wardang.
Noongar mythology/traditional stories explained Chitty Chitty’s hostility to Wardang, and also how the formerly snow-white raven became black…as detailed here.
Fact: Rhipidura leucophrys – the willie wagtail – is not a “true” wagtail.
The Rhipidura genus – Australasia’s fantails – are very far removed from Motacillidae – the family of Eurasian wagtails.
Rhipidura are, in fact, members of the parvorder Corvida.
Chitty Chitty and Wardang are in that parvorder’s “inner circle”; both belong to the “core corvine” group.
They are family!
Pay close attention to their actual behaviour and there is no reason to rate the raven as the more aggressive, or more “murderous”, or the enmity as “evil” versus “cute”.
And – if you insist on being anthropomorphic – you will see that ravens are the more “civilised”, in antropomorphic terms.
Which bird is more “family-oriented”, more “community-minded”?
To my knowledge, no wagtails or fantails conduct “funerals”.
Some corvids do!
I urge you to read James Ross Gardner’s article, The Secret Life of Urban Crows.
After you have read it, see this: