Noisy Miner Birds...

So now I've been here just over 2 years, I cannot believe it. Well I can and I can't. I've come to appreciate some things in nature here, the kookaburra is one of them. I love listening to their laughs, the magpie sings a pretty song but are vicious when they're nesting. The one bird I dislike with a passion is this Noisy Miner, they have tried attacking my cat through a window. They get together like a gang and take over and start cheaping loudly. I found this YouTube video showing the arrogance of these birds attacking the poor kookaburra. The Noisy Miner (also known as the Mickey Bird) is a grey bird with a black head, orange-yellow beak and feet, a distinctive yellow patch behind the eye and a white tip on the tail feathers. They are scary looking birds, I'd rather see a black crow than these vicious things. 

Noisy Miners are gregarious and territorial; they forage, bathe, roost, breed and defend territory communally, forming colonies that can contain several hundred birds. Each bird has an 'activity space' and birds with overlapping activity spaces form associations called 'coteries', the most stable units within the colony. The birds also form temporary flocks called 'coalitions' for specific activities such as mobbing a predator. Group cohesion is facilitated not only by vocalizations, but also through ritualised displays which have been categorised as flight displays, postural displays, and facial displays. The Noisy Miner is a notably aggressive bird, and chasing, pecking, fighting, scolding, and mobbing occur throughout the day, targeted at both intruders and colony members. I did see two of them on the grass a while ago going at it and I was thinking to myself, where's that black cat...hee hee. 

Foraging in the canopy of trees and on trunks and branches and on the ground, the Noisy Miner mainly eats nectar, fruit and insects. Most time is spent gleaning the foliage of eucalyptus, and it can meet most of its nutritional needs from manna and honeydew  gathered from the foliage.Noisy Miners have a range of strategies to increase their breeding success including multiple broods and group mobbing of predators. The Noisy Miner's population increase has been correlated with the reduction of avian diversity in human-affected landscapes. Its territoriality means that translocation is unlikely to be a solution to its overabundance, and culling has been proposed, although the Noisy Miner is currently a protected species across Australia. So this bird is basically a pest and yet it's protected, talk about stupidity. Imagine, they mob other birds, it's like Gangs of Australia instead of Gang of New York.