Keep the birds for Mr.Hitchcock....

[bainsidhe]

People are always throwing food to the fulls at the local retails stores (Wal-Mart is the worst) and at the mall. Which would be less annoying except they always ALWAYS poop all over my poor car. Yuck.

[XCashier]

I recall someone on here got chased by a peacock? Who was that? I don't remember who.

It was Seraph. And we've never let her live it down.

[Jay 2K Winger]

"Mine?"

Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Miiine! Mine! Mine!

[Ceir]

And suddenly, Finding Nemo flashbacks, yes.

I've also run afowl of the psychotic geese, and one of my coworkers lived the urban legend story: cable guy pulls up to a mobile home; there's a bigarse dog, a scraggly cat, and a turkey outside...and you're afraid of which? The ^&@#%% turkey.

[Draper Mel]

You might want to put up a sign that says "Don't feed the birds" period. I learned from experience that if you go feeding those cute little sparrows, the gulls show up too.

[Zaiida]

They should have had 'don't feed the pelicans or else those evil fuckers will chase you like Jumanji' in a seaside place I used to live.

Running shrieking down the main street being chased by a GIANT red eyed, pissy, all beak no brains, snapping feathered fiend for my fish dinner is not something I'd like to encounter again thankyouverymuch. Stuff of nightmares.

At least the people watching found it funny. I didn't and I wanted that fish. Had to fling it as a bribe to escape. Thank god it was before everyone had a camera or it would have been on youtube.

[TopEndDave]

Case #1: Out in Victoria, we stopped near Warnambool for lunch. Bought about $5 of hot chips, sat down at a park and had lunch. BIG mistake.

Eventually it turned into birds basically storming the table and grabbing fries straight off the paper. We abandoned ship pretty quick

Sorry about training the Victoria Gulls. I am originally from Victoria and as a kid would throw chips to the Sea gulls. They never stormed use but this was over 30 years ago. I did have an Emu take my sandwich while having lunch at Healesville Sanctuary. It learned over my shoulder and took the sandwich right out of hand. The lunch tables were in the emu's enclosure. You don't argue with an emu.

[Kit-Ginevra]

I'm in the English Riviera but I lived in Cornwall and the St.Ives birdies are quite vicious ones...

[C. Cecil Ivanish]

Do not feed the gulls. They are not cute. They are evil little beasties.

Little? LITTLE?
Down here we have beasts the size of dobermans! [ok, overdoing it a little. But just a little]

[An Haddock]

And suddenly, Finding Nemo flashbacks, yes.

I've also run afowl of the psychotic geese, and one of my coworkers lived the urban legend story: cable guy pulls up to a mobile home; there's a bigarse dog, a scraggly cat, and a turkey outside...and you're afraid of which? The ^&@#%% turkey.

There's a video of an Indian woman from the next town over that found its way on Youtube... she's walking down the street in the suburbs and a turkey starts chasing her around. She's shrieking like it was bigfoot chasing her or something.

[KatherineB]

Nah, scariest bird in Australia is the ibis. Black head and feet, white body, and they will mob you for food in a way that makes seagulls look like they are queuing in the politest manner possible. I challenge you to have your lunch unmolested at Healesville Sanctuary!

[Seshat]

Case #2: This was planned, but we didn't expect this to be as bad!
Up in the hinterlands in Queensland, there was this nice place where you could buy birdseed to feed the parrots in the area. We bought a bag and followed the instructions.

Lamington national park?

Yeah, you have to keep the bag well hidden, or they'll try to take it straight from the bag, not politely from the hands.

I did have an Emu take my sandwich while having lunch at Healesville Sanctuary. It learned over my shoulder and took the sandwich right out of hand. The lunch tables were in the emu's enclosure. You don't argue with an emu.

I had an emu try to eat my park map. This was in one of the animal parks in the Glasshouse Mountains area in Queensland; a park that's now long gone.
(For non-Aussies: the Glasshouse Mountains area is Steve Irwin's stomping ground. Where his kids are growing up.)

Nah, scariest bird in Australia is the ibis. Black head and feet, white body, and they will mob you for food in a way that makes seagulls look like they are queuing in the politest manner possible.

My Nan used to feed the Ibis and Pelicans (and occasional gull) from her porch. Both the Pelicans and the Ibis were friendly to her. But then, the ones who came knew her. It has to make a difference.


My own story is kangaroos. Red kangaroos. Again, animal park in the Glasshouse Mountains area. Trying to eat lunch. Kangaroos and wallabies were allowed in the lunch area, nominally to people to pat.

I was standing on the top of the table, crying, holding my sandwich, with this massive-to-a-kidlet kangaroo standing on the ground, trying to take my sandwich. I remember he clawed my shoulder, and my father tried to defend me from the 'roo.

I don't remember much more detail. And I have no visible scars on my shoulder!

[LesserSouthernFroglet]

I've had an ibis take my lunch from my hand in the grounds of a major hospital. Those big ugly beggars are a pain...

I also remember years ago the radio station had a call-in for revenge stunts. The winner was a guy who had a fight with his neighbour. One day he noticed a gull on the neighbour's roof, so he threw a piece of bread over for it. The day after there were a couple of gulls, so he threw half a dozen pieces of bread over. The day after, the roof was covered in gulls.

[fireheart]

Lamington national park?

Yeah, you have to keep the bag well hidden, or they'll try to take it straight from the bag, not politely from the hands.

Yep, that'd be it. We still have a video somewhere of dad getting practically massacred by the parrots because he was the only one holding the bag.
My parents sampled the coffee there and loved it. We were also introduced to the beeper concept (where they give you a beeper thing and once it goes off, you can get your order, so you can walk around for a while)

[Seshat]

We lived in Queensland. Lamington (and the related reaches of forest) is my idea of forest. Also, of heaven.

The cool, slightly damp, air; with the smell of eucalypt, fern, and the rich, slightly rotten mulch smell of the leaves. The damp, soft leaves underfoot. The lianas you have to duck and dodge around. Picabeen and walking-cane palms as the mid-growth plants, sometimes as tall as - or taller than - a man.
The trees themselves, eucalypts and conifers and ironbark and stringybark.
Strangler figs - so many strangler figs, at all stages of their growth. Some simply fine spiderweb tendrils down their host tree, some with root fibres as thick as a finger. Some with roots fused together, and as thick as an arm, or a leg. Some which had killed the host tree too soon, and collapsed under their own weight. Others which were hollow webs around a partly rotted long-dead host, like a cage.
And the epiphytes. All kinds; staghorns and elkhorns, sometimes orchid-like things. And mosses and lichens and algaes.
The colours - greys and browns and grey-greens and blue-greens. Never anything vibrant, nothing at all like what you see in TV shows about England or Europe. But still, so many shades and types of colour.
And brush turkeys and bower birds and bellbirds and tiny wrens and so much life all around you. Quiet rustlies and movements in the leaf-litter forest floor telling of all the insects and arachnids and reptiles that will never let you see them. Koala claw marks on the eucalypt trunks. Flicker of a possum tail, or the distinctive leaping movement showing you've just missed seeing one of the 'roo family.



... Um. Did I get sidetracked? And .. does anyone mind?