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Huntsman wins battle with gecko

restorer-john

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Geckos are tough little bastards, but he lost this battle. Heard a commotion on the back deck (the cat was involved too). Those planks are 4 inches wide.

IMG_1120.PNG


Reminds me of the Alien facehugger. Let him enjoy his snack for an hour or so, before picking him up (being careful not to detach him from his meal) and putting him gently back in the bush.
 

DonH56

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I'd like it, but I hate spiders, and my boy had a Gecko that recently passed away (not due to a spider bite as far as we know!)
 

Doodski

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Waiting for @restorer-john to post a follow up picture of a magpie swooping in for a double meal
I was waiting for a pizza delivery as I sat at the front window watching for the delivery. I watched a magpie swoop down and jump on a small bird. It had the bird in it's talons and it pecked it till it was dead and then it pecked it till it opened the ribcage and it ate what appeared to be a dark thing like the liver... and then it flew off and left the body laying there. This occurred over maybe 90 seconds tops... I never look at a magpie without remembering that. My buddy calls them the gangsters of the birds here.
 

AudioJester

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I was waiting for a pizza delivery as I sat at the front window watching for the delivery. I watched a magpie swoop down and jump on a small bird. It had the bird in it's talons and it pecked it till it was dead and then it pecked it till it opened the ribcage and it ate what appeared to be a dark thing like the liver... and then it flew off and left the body laying there. This occurred over maybe 90 seconds tops... I never look at a magpie without remembering that. My buddy calls them the gangsters of the birds here.
Nasty! Was the little bird a Myna - those things are assholes anyway!
Magpies wont mess with cockatoos. When I first came to Aus as a kid, some school mates managed to convince me a mohawk was the only way to keep the magpies away.....
 

antcollinet

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See - this is why I like living in the UK so much. It never gets so hot you can't go out. It never gets so cold you can't go out.

And we don't have fuckers like that. It's not even their size I object to. It's their speed.

image.jpg
 
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restorer-john

restorer-john

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... and smart;

It's not that they are smart- more that they were imprinted as chicks. I always feel sorry for the birds that imitate car alarms. It happens a lot with small swallows that were born in underground carparks. Our local supermarket has a single level underground carpark and there's heaps of mud swallows' nests- so many they put up mesh to stop them nesting- to no avail. Much of the first sounds they regularly heard were those wretched car alarms going off incessantly.

That poor magpie was likely a hatchling in his nest near a car that constantly false alarmed.

I often wonder if they 'teach' their offspring the car-alarm call or whether it will die out (like those stupid alarms are). Another example of humans f#$king with nature.
 
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JSmith

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It's not that they are smart
I don't like car alarms either... but they are quite smart for birds;


The Australian magpie is one of the cleverest birds on earth. It has a beautiful song of extraordinary complexity. It can recognize and remember up to 30 different human faces.


JSmith
 
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restorer-john

restorer-john

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but they are quite smart for birds;

Yes. Our maggies know us, show us their offspring and generally wake me up in the morning at 5am if I have left the cover over the dog food...

I give them each two dog kibbles and they won't bother me until the next morning.
 

DWPress

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Now he's dropped on to the floor
Heading for the bedroom door
Maybe he's as scared as me
Where's he gone now, I can't see

Happy little Boris....
 

syn08

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One reason I hate travelling to Aussie. Last time I found one of these 8 legs cuties in a Canberra hotel room bath tub. Set aside snakes, bugs, etc… the type and quantity of such dangerous/scary/ugly op amps is unbelievable. Kangaroos are mean. God forbid encountering an angry cassowary or Tasmanian devil, they are always hungry and can eat everything, including bones and hair.
 

Doodski

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Yes. Our maggies know us, show us their offspring and generally wake me up in the morning at 5am if I have left the cover over the dog food...

I give them each two dog kibbles and they won't bother me until the next morning.
I was baking huge rectangular soda biscuits on large baking sheets and then breaking them up and feeding them to the crows. I have a whistle that sounds very unique and I trained them to come to the whistle and wait for me to feed them. At one time we estimated that I had ~300 crows on the power lines in a city of about 1 million all hanging about and wanting to be fed. One crow was the spokesperson....lol. A very intelligent crow that came out of the group and made friends with me by imitating my whistle. A friend has a farm outside the city and he feeds the crows and magpies because they put the run on coyotes and if the crows and magpies are hanging about and a coyote comes along the magpies and crows harass the coyote till it leaves the area. They are very dominant that way.
 

DMill

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I really don’t want to hear about living near Buffalo Ny sucks when I see this. Christ that spider is not right.
 
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restorer-john

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the type and quantity of such dangerous/scary/ugly op amps is unbelievable.

Yeah, those bloody op amps are everywhere.

I got bit by a 40 year old uA-741 the other day and a whole army of Malaysian TL-081s were all over a mango on my bench.

8 point bite mark:
IMG_1124 (Medium).jpg



The culprit:
IMG_1125 (Medium).jpg



These op amps can be tricky to keep off your fruit:
IMG_1122 (Medium).jpg


The back one shows battle scars from a fight with a NE-5532.
IMG_1123 (Medium).jpg
 
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AdamG

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Yeah, those bloody op amps are everywhere.

I got bit by a uA741 the other day and a whole army of Malaysian TL-081s were all over a mango on my bench.
Throw him on the Barbi Mate! :D
 
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