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!
Our sincere thanks to Martin for once again sharing his knowledge and providing such an entertaining presentation!
