“The bush around the house was dry, but today it was a tinderbox. There was a constant crackling as the eucalypts shed leaves and small branches in their response to the constant dry conditions. It was eerily like the sound of flames, and there was no humidity. The air was so dry it hurt my nose, and my eyes squinted and smarted as I looked through the haze of heat that shimmered from the earth. I can see right through the trees as there is no undergrowth this year: no hibbertias, no hops bush, even no St. John’s wort! I had the feeling that if I shuffled my feet or snapped my fingers, I could spark a fire.

The birds were still also - under bushes in the garden with their beaks open in a permanent gasp. Two crimson rosellas spent the day on the floor of the fernery in the one spot they could find moisture and coolness. They squatted, with their beaks open, ignoring the bowerbird that similarly sat just above them. There was no hissing from the bowerbird at any bird that joined them over the day… too hot for a pecking order! I stepped quietly past the fernery as I went to refill the birdbaths many, many times on this relentlessly hot day.”

We are all familiar with those very dry, hot days. Chris writes about birds with their beak open, a practice that helps them cool down. The moisture from their mouths evaporates, absorbing heat from the body, so that each time the bird breathes out some of this heat is carried outside, leaving the bird feeling cooler. Birds can also lift their feathers and hold their wings out so that air can reach their skin and carry away some of their body heat.

Birds can use specific cooling behaviours in order to prevent their body temperatures from rising to lethal levels, including wing venting, panting and gular fluttering. Birds wing-vent by dropping their wings away from their bodies, allowing convection to cool the torso and facilitate convective heat loss from the blood vessels located on the underside of the wing. Panting by breathing quickly moves air across the moist surfaces of its lungs, throat and mouth. Gular fluttering is similar to a dog panting. The bird opens its mouth and flutters it upper throat muscles to promote heat loss.

Smaller birds are in increased danger of heat stress as they have less water storage in the body for evaporative cooling. They also gain heat more rapidly when the ambient temperature is higher than their body temperature. It may therefore by important for smaller birds to conserve water by wing venting rather than panting.

“The bird I remember most is Oscar the magpie. My front yard was a fenced-in dry bit of lawn at a cottage attached to a large farm. One morning, after a big storm, a bedraggled magpie was shivering at our back door. He (or maybe she) stayed close by for the next week – and months – despite farm doges and cats around the cottage. I don’t remember why but I gave him the name of Oscar. I continued to feed him and after a few days all I had to do was call ‘Oscar’ and he’d swoop in. I was heavily pregnant at the time. In rare moments I’d take a rest on a banana lounge in the yard. Oscar would approach, hop up on my belly, and perch there until I got up. He used to cock his head and watch me – close up.

When the baby (my second) was born I’d wheel her in an old pram up the dirt road to the main farmhouse. Following the pram was my 18-month-old son, pet dog and cat and overhead, Oscar. My son came with me into the house, but the dog, cat and Oscar waited outside until I walked home again.”

Did Oscar adopt himself into this family? Did he see himself as a pet as he waited with the dog and cat? Birds that live with others need the ability to recognise individuals and to remember who is in a relationship with whom. They need the ability to apply this information, to recognise and respond appropriately to others’ emotional and mental states. Associating with known individuals should provide greater positive benefit than associating with unknown, random individuals. A bird’s behaviour is entirely down to its ability to learn how best to act at any given moment. Oscar’s next behaviour is very interesting as he appeared to call out for Jill in the presence of a snake. Did Oscar know the snake was a threat to an important group member?

“Oscar’s winning moment was when he saved my then-crawling baby from a snake. She’d crawled out the front door onto the front lawn. I heard Oscar’s ‘Kaw! Kaw! Kaw!’ as I’d never heard it before. I ran out to find my daughter metres from a big brown snake. I snatched her up – and made sure the front door was snibbed after that.

A few months later Oscar didn’t appear every day. I took a portrait of him one day the next day he flew off and didn’t return. I’d like to think he made his own family and was busy protecting them. The baby that Oscar potentially saved will be 40 this year.”

The ability to refer to external events was believed to be unique to humans, and therefore signals such as when danger is present, may be a precursor of human language. Signal perception happens when signals elicit an appropriate response from others in the group without the need for other cues, such as the sound or sight of a predator. Australian magpies perform a specific body signals in which the head and body are aligned and oriented towards perched predator birds in their territory.

“It must have been September when this senior lyrebird saw his reflection in the glass window of the back door of our home in the eastern end of the Strzelecki Ranges as he strode purposefully past the kitchen door. Even though it was the end of their breeding season, the urge to mate was ever-present and most powerful.

There is nothing odder than to see a senior lyrebird in full moult of his tail, as they have nothing but the vestige of tail remaining, a mere stub, with their rear end liking more like a plucked turkey ready for roasting.

Now this bewildered, ever-wishing-to-breed lyrebird could well see his frontal appearance reflected in the glass of the back door which, from his perspective, looked for all the world like a female in waiting as there was no male plumage array to be seen. With a closer look, one could see the stub of his tail slowly beginning to lift. This is the most natural happening for any male lyrebird. With this female waiting on his every movement and watching him intently from the window, it was utterly impossible for this entrapped male to know that he was trying to court himself. Hence his imaginary tail was performing as it should, despite it being at the very end of their breeding season.

With his stub not sticking up in the air, in his attempt to display his maleness over this willing female, he went into his ever-so-sort rapid tap tap tap, imitating the sound of a portable typewriter (which we had). At the same time he was doing his ever-so-soft rapid drumming from foot to foot which under normal circumstances would have swept the female off her feet by this ever-attentive, courting, bald, senior male lyrebird.

In time he simply gave up. Frustrated that his normally impressive breeding behaviour didn’t succeed, he sauntered off into the regenerating rainforest. His plumage would in time return enabling this grand bird of the eastern rainforests of Oz to meet another and hopefully willing participatory female.”

This lyrebird was not planning on meeting his reflection. You might think the lyrebird was stupid not to recognised his own reflection, but think of it from the bird’s point of view: in the lyrebird’s natural habitat it would only see its reflection while drinking or bathing.

Is it therefore any surprise that the lyrebird thought he was confronting another bird? This behaviour may have been a spontaneous response to seeing a potential mate. The reaction to seeing his reflection was to interpret it as female due to his missing tail. The reflected bird would have copied his dance moves but not his vocal sounds.

“One morning while eating my breakfast I was startled by the sound of a crow. It was sitting on the back of an outdoor setting chair on our verandah about 2 metres from where I was sitting. I watched the crow for a minute. It was curiously looking down onto where our 14-year-old labrador Bella was sleeping. I might mention here that Bella was not only old but she was deaf and blind and spent most of her days sleeping.

The crow called a couple of times then I hear a second crow call back, it was perched on an arbour about 4 meters away. They seemed to be communicating. After a few back and forward calls, the crow on the back of the chair hopped down and stood at the edge of our dog’s bed about 30 centimetres from the dog.

I watched as the crow then hopped onto the dog’s bed and after another call from the other crow it grabbed a tuft of fur from the rear end of my dog! I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My dog sat up with such a start and the look on the dog’s face was much the same as when the vet takes her temperature: her eyes nearly popped out of her head. The crow then with its beak full of fur jumped back onto the back of the chair, it then after a short time did it again.

I believe the crows knew our dog was old and possibly deaf and it seemed like the crow on the arbour was egging on the crow on the chair, saying ‘Go on, I dare you.’”

The crows in Jeanette’s story showed different behaviours, one watching and encouraging while the other was carrying out the brave action. The birds could be using the fur to line a nest to keep chicks warm, so the dog’s hair could be an important resource. Was this the first time the crows tried this behaviour? Had the crows been watching Bella and assessing if she was a threat or not? The crow succeeded this time in its brave act of robbing fur from Bella’s behind,  but will it ever try this again? Would the crows try it with a younger or more energetic dog?

“The galahs, being prone to investigating their surroundings, soon began to arrive on the table ahead of the normal feeding time and engage in what seemed to be ‘play’.  I added a tennis ball to the mix one day, which was quickly adapted as a play item which over time became a favourite. I then added a tightrope to the table along with some other items that hung from it. The galahs quickly became quite adroit at quite distinct games with each of the items. I supplied more tennis balls, the preferred type of ball, which were often fought over, and were used to balance upon, roll over on, and the piéce de résistance, hold above their bodies whiles on their backs.

It appeared as though those less familiar would spend sometimes watching a bird run through its repertoire and then attempt to do the same. Similarly, playing on the tightrope, swinging upside down, chasing each other up, down and all around the table and its adornment became the norm with others.”

Individuals seem to fine-tune ongoing play sequences to maintain play sequences to maintain a play mood between the pair and to prevent play from escalating into fighting. In David’s story, could the galahs have used subtle and fleeting movements and even rapid exchanges of eye contact to exchange information from moment to moment to make sure all is right? There appear to be numerous mechanisms at work, including play invitation signals such as when a magpie rolls onto its back or its bouncy walk. These signals help to facilitate the initiations and maintenance of social play. In other words, signs between the playing birds constantly reassure each other that they are having fun, and let’s keep playing!

Play, fun and exploring your surroundings seem to provide birds with the opportunity to learn and practise ecologically relevant behaviour. Researchers have found that birds such as common ravens engage in three types of play: locomotor, object and social play.  Locomotor play includes all forms of flight-related play, such as aerial acrobatics, hanging and flying upside down.