#animals using tools

[naonicblog2]

Cows can use tools, scientists report — The Week

The discovery builds on Jane Goodall’s research from the 1960s

[choapino]

[animalfunfactoftheday]

In addition to the usual food, pelicans that live close to human habitats have started carrying useful tools in their large beak pouch, such as twigs, duct tape, and shivs.

[sarahmackattack]

Small octopus builds home out of flip-flop, metal spoon

An octopus off the coast of Indonesia was filmed making the best of sea pollution by building itself a house out of a flip-flop and a spoon.

What a cute little goober. Not sure how effective this house is but it sure is better than nothing!

[petercookedarwin]

Perhaps, just perhaps, one day I will be in the right place, at the right time and with the right lens on my camera. But until then I will have to rely on words and this painting on paper by Billy Yaluwangka to share the remarkable story of Buludjirrk, the Black Kite (Milvus migrans) — the hawk than hunts with fire. In North Australia if you find wildfire you’ll find Buludjirrk there— swooping into the smoke and ashes to pluck lizards and insects off the ground or take the insects in the air. Often there are dozens wheeling around a fire front, along with whistling kites and other avian carnivores. It’s decades now since I first heard Aboriginal people tell me how Buludjirrk doesn’t give up when a fire is stopped by a natural firebreak — a river or creek, or these days sometimes a road or track. I’m not sure how many firsthand accounts I’ve heard, but it’s a lot. I haven’t seen the act of fire starting by Buludjirrk but I come close to it. We had been fighting a fire west of a creek on the Arnhem Plateau and from a helicopter I saw the fire pull up on a wide creek. We went off to deal with another front and came back to find the fire across the creek — travelling into the wind, not a case of sparks blown across the creek. Of course, there were plenty of black kites on the scene hunting as usual. Billy Yaluwangka tells the story of Buludjirrk in his picture. The hawk grabs a stick which is alight at one end, flies across the firebreak and drops the stick into grass. If he’s lucky he’ll have a new happy hunting fireground. Veteran birder and blogger Bob Gosford also has been fascinated by the story of the firebird of the north. Here’s a link to his blog on that subject in Crikey. And just maybe, one day I’ll be there with a camera. Link: http://blogs.crikey.com.au/northern/2011/06/28/birds-of-the-week-firehawks-of-the-top-end/