WA Day 2019: Taking a break in Busselton
For WA Day 2019 I am still down at Bussleton. My niece, sister, and I were sitting out in the shaded sun on the north side of our unit. I was sipping on a very nice instant coffee. Then we had this butcherbird come and land on the little garden right next to us.
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Now, I would suspect that there are not too many Perth city folk that have seen an actual butcherbird (which may, or may, be supposed to be written as two words: viz, butcher bird). For those not attuned to decoding between magpies, mudlarks, and butcherbirds it can be a little confusing. A butcherbird is somewhat the same size as a mudlark, but perhaps a little shorter and a little pudgier.
Unlike mudlarks and magpies—which will eat things other than meat if they need too—butcherbirds are pretty much pure carnivores. No veg or cereal for them.
Where I hail from, up on the edge of the wheat growing belt inland from Geraldton, we often saw butcherbirds having a meal tearing apart a small field mouse or a wee lizard in the fork of a tree. But I have rarely spotted a butcherbird in suburbia. Even when I was living in bushy and bird friendly Kalamunda.