The lucky attendees at our public meeting on June 15 were thoroughly entertained by Martin Fingland’s talk on Tracks and Traces of Wildlife.
Martin showed us plenty of the tell-tale traces of wildlife visitors that we can look out for.
Two of Martin’s live exhibits did somewhat steal the show.
One was the cranky Channel-billed Cuckoo who was the living owner of one of the feather traces! The bird noisily attacked his arch-enemy Martin, who for 10 years has fed and cared for it since it was a chick. It explains the success of a cuckoo! It never imprints on the host parent regardless of who or what it is.
More quietly appealing were the tiny dunnarts which are quite fierce predators in their own right, together a giant monitor lizard, all shown in the photos below.
And full credit must go to the birders in the audience, who were just great at identifying species from single feathers!
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Our sincere thanks to Martin for once again sharing his knowledge and providing such an entertaining presentation!
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