by Michael Grounds
Willy Wagtails are Australians’ favourite bird. They’re small, bright, active and friendly, and they punch above their weight.
They earn their living by catching flies on the wing, perching on a fence or sheep and pouncing when they see an insect leave the ground. Sheep and other beasts are good because they stir insects out of the grass. If Willys are hungry they will follow a person round in grassland for the same reason.
When we came here we brought a black cat, who was very interested in the Willys in the back yard. We would see him stalking them, and they would see him stalking them, and they’d just move on a bit. We were always on the side of the birds, of course.
Eventually the cock bird decided to teach Frank a lesson. He saw the cat sitting on a post of our wooden fence, so he went and sat on the top rail just beyond Frank’s pounce. Frank crept along the rail quivering with hope, and just before he got into pouncing range, the Willy flew over his head and sat on the rail behind him. It took about five hopeful stalkings before the cat got the message. We cheered out loud.
There was another lesson to come. Frank got down and sat on the lawn pretending he hadn’t really being trying to catch a bird at all, the Willy flew round above him until he decided that perhaps he had. Once his attention was aroused, the bird flew down in a graceful arc which would take him directly over the cat. Now cats are clever at trajectories and timings. Frank leapt into the air and closed his nasty little sharp claws exactly where the bird was going to be; except that the bird had left the graceful arc just before it would have taken him into the cat’s claws. Frank fell back to earth birdless, and as soon as he’d regained his composure the bird did it again.
The lesson about leaping into the air only took three goes. Frank never troubled the birds again.
© Michael Grounds 2010
This entry was posted by mgrounds on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Feature Stories.
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That’s a lovely leaping tale, Michael. Reminds me of a time I stayed for a while with friends in Benalla. Their dog was a very lively, always active, kelpie. He exercised acrobatic and enormous vertical leaps when trying to catch… swallows swooping low enough to reach their nests inside a barn. I don’t know if he ever caught one, but he provided us with wonderful entertainment.
Meanwhile, a favourite performance on my back fence in the leafy suburbs was that of a willy wagtail diving to attack a pee-wee (mud lark) which was in turn attacking a magpie which had been sitting minding its own business. Acrobatics in black and white!
Brian