Red-and-Black; for the bird who really wants to be noticed!

This three-part series, on birds which flaunt red, started here with the focus on feathers, and continued here with a bit of a look at other red body parts. As promised, after a brief hiatus I'm completing the series by looking at birds which highlight their redness - already pretty striking - by contrasting it with black. We should of course never presume that animals such as birds which do see colour, unlike most mammals, see the same palette as we do. In fact we know that they don't. We (and birds) see colour with the cone cells in the retina - that's very simplistic, but it'll do for now. However where we have three colour pigments in the cone cells, birds have four and in some cases five - and moreover they are all different from ours! Obviously we can't know just what a bird sees when it looks at the same subject as us, but it can't be the same. However we must assume that the black and red combination (like black and white, and black and yellow, both popular combinations in nature as well) is striking for them too, given how prevalent it is.

Crimson-breasted Shrike (or Gonolek, or Boubou) Laniarius atrococcineus, Witsand NR,
northern South Africa. A truly stunning bird indeed, seen behind the park visitor centre
as we were about to leave and I blame it for the fact that I left my field guide on the roof
of the car, an oversight that I didn't recognise until it was far too late to remedy it!
It's the national bird of Namibia (though I've also read that it's been demoted because
its appointment was on the basis of the association with the flag colours of Germany,
the former colonial ruler, but I'm finding conflicting information).

I'm not sure if this combination of colours is used because it really is even more striking than red alone would be, or if it's because such profligacy - expending the energy to extract enough carotenoids from its food to dye all its feathers, and storing them in the liver it until the next moult when they're needed again - would put too much strain on the bird. Melanins on the other hand, which produce black, can be manufactured by the bird relatively cheaply and easily.

I've noticed in selecting the photos that in each case the black comes from feathers, while the red can be on various body parts, as illustrated in the previous posts. I'm not sure if this is significant. There are photos in the previous posts that I could have also used in this one - I haven't duplicated, so if you'd like to see more that's another reason to go back to the first two in the series.     

 

Most of the rest of the post will be a sort of photo essay, just admiring some lovely and sometimes dramatic birds. I'll start with those which juxtapose red feathers (as opposed to other body parts) with their black ones, which are the majority of those featured, and set the scene with some Australian examples.Unsurprisingly many of the examples feature male birds only - in fact of the eight Australian species which follow only the females of the pitta, and to some extent the black-cockatoo, exhibit the red and black pattern.

Male Mistletoebird Dicaeum hirundinaceum, Bundjalung NP, north coast NSW.
The black contrasts with the red breast from both below and above.

Rainbow Pitta Pitta iris, Darwin. It seems a somewhat unlikely place for a colour
combination which is surely intended to be seen, but I've read that when displaying
the bird stands erect, either on the ground at the territory boundary (when it bows down
then stretches up again) or on a branch with outspread wings,
which would show the red/black off nicely.

Red-backed Fairywren Malurus melanocephalus, Julatten, north Queensland.
Perhaps the most spectacular of all fairywrens, this little chap really glows even in dim
light. Like other fairywrens most males only retain their bright plumage during
the breeding season, so moult twice a year.

Red-winged Parrots Aprosmictus erythropterus, Gulf Country, north Queensland.
He's the one who needs to catch her attention, so only he wears the full outfit.
Another very impressive bird.

Scarlet Honeyeater Myzomela sanguinolentam, National Botanic Gardens, Canberra.
More usually seen at the coast, but a few come inland to here fairly regularly.

Male Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo Calyptorhynchus banksii, Bourke, northern NSW.
The female's tail panels are orange rather than red..

The next two are more ashy grey than black, especially the Gang-gang, but it's just a question of degree and the principle's the same.

Flame Robin Petroica phoenicea, high in Namadgi NP, above Canberra.
He too glows, in the misty mountains in summer, and in open
country around Canberra in winter.

Male Gang-gang Cockatoo Callocephalon fimbriatum, National Botanic Gardens, Canberra.
This delightful small cockatoo, with its distinctive creaky call and bouncy flight,
is the official bird emblem of the Australian Capital Territory.

And here are some overseas - mostly South American - examples of red/black contrasting feathers, from a range of different families, starting, as many things birdy do in the Neotropics, with some tanagers.

Brazilian Tanager Ramphocelus bresilius, Peruibe, south of Sao Paulo, Brazil

Crimson-collared Tanager Ramphocelus sanguinolentus, central Costa Rica;
found throughout Central America.

Masked Crimson Tanager Ramphocelus nigrogularis, Ecuadorian Amazonia.
This one, closely related to the previous species, is common throughout the Amazon basin.

Yellow-billed Cardinal Paroaria capitata, Pantanal, south-western Brazil.
Despite the name, these 'cardinals' are actually tanagers too!
There's a lot of that sort of thing in the Neotropics...

The manakins form another spectacular family of Neotropical birds, though aren't nearly as easy to see as the tanagers. If you can find a male display post in the darkness of the forest though, you're having a very good day indeed!

Blue Manakin Chiroxiphia caudata, near Peruibe, south-eastern Brazil.
One of many species restricted to the highly threatened Atlantic forests
of this part of Brazil and neighbouring Paraguay and Argentina.

Wire-tailed Manakin Pipra filicauda, Amazon rainforest, north-east Peru.
His courtship dance, where he competes with other males in a lek in lowland
tropical rainforest, is simply amazing. Have a look here.

Another, better-known, Neotropical bird, also competes in leks for the attention of females.

Two males Andean Cocks-of-the-rock Rupicola peruvianus, Manu NP, Peru.
These extraordinary birds compete in leks of 15 or so males, in Andean forests.

The last four examples of black/red-feathered birds are all from different families. 

Long-tailed Meadowlark Leistes loyca, Torres del Paine NP, Chilean Patagonia.
Windblown, as everything is in Patagonia, this male's brown back is edged
with black to provide a contrast with the gorgeous red underside and brows.

Northern Red Bishop Euplectes franciscanus, Murchison Falls NP, Uganda.
One of the many species in the mainly African weaver family, the gorgeous males perform a
display flight to attract females, and build elaborate woven nests to impress her. Once it's
worked though he loses interest in her and his eggs and chicks, and leaves
the rest up to her.

Pale-billed Woodpecker Campephilus guatemalensis, Carara NP, Costa Rica.
Found throughout most of Central America, this is one of a genus of 11 large
New World woodpeckers with red heads contrasting with a black-and-white body.

Darwin's Flycatcher Pyrocephalus nanus, Santa Cruz, Galápagos.
Now recognised as a Galápagos endemic, this was formerly included
in the widespread mainland American Vermilion Flycatcher P. obscurus.
Not many of the New World flycatchers are colourful, and these two
species really stand out from them.

Another seemingly popular option for birds who want to emphasise a red feature against black feathers (the anthropomorphism is ironic by the way!) is to have a red bill, though there is nothing about a red bill which makes it more efficient at its primary purpose. Here are some impressive examples, a couple of which also flaunt red legs. This selection is split evenly between waterbirds and land birds, and ranges across 8 families. I've tried to choose as diverse a range as possible, though in the end I've included two oystercatchers because I wanted an Australian example in this section, and couldn't leave out the other beautiful example.

Blackish Oystercatcher Haematopus ater, Pisagua, northern Chile. Note also
the stand-out red eyes, and those lovely pale pink legs. It is found along much
of the west coast of South America and the far south-east coast.

Sooty Oystercatchers Haematopus fuliginosus, Gooloowah NP, northern NSW.
This is a seriously black oystercatcher, an Australian endemic, which shares the previous
species' bright red bill and eyes.

    

Black Skimmer Rynchops niger, Pantanal, south-west Brazil. One of three skimmer species
(the other two being in Africa and Asia), members of the gull and tern family. They use
their remarkable bill (which itself is black-and-red) to trail the lower mandible in the water
as they fly just above it. It snaps shut when it contacts small prey animals, especially fish.
They can be found throughout South America, either coastally or following inland rivers
(as here) except for the Andes and the far south.

Inca Tern Larosterna inca, surely the world's most beautiful terns, here at Pucusana,
south of Lima, Peru. They are found along much of the continent's west coast,
and I am utterly delighted by them.

Saddle-billed Stork Ephippiorhynchus senegalensis, Amboseli NP, Kenya.
At 1.5 metres, this is one of the tallest storks in the world. I just love the great
red-black-red beak against the inky black head and neck, and the yellow
saddle on the bill. And the delicate pink knees!
This is a female, with yellow eyes (the male's are black).

The other five red bills featured today are of land birds, each from a different family.

Bateleur (sometimes with 'Eagle' appended, though it's not really) Terathopius ecaudatus,
Serengeti NP, Tanzania. This is another 'beak and legs' (and face) example.
Highly distinctive, 'bateleur' is French for a tumbler or acrobat, which is supposedly
to reflect its slow, rocking hunting flight, though I don't really understand that.
In fact it is often claimed to also mean a tightrope walker, which would
make better sense - except that as far as I'm aware, this is not the French word for that!
This bird is carrying a prey item, but I can't identify it.

Black-throated Grosbeak Saltator fuliginosus in the Atlantic Forests near Sao Paulo,
Brazil. Another tanager which is called something else! Little is known of its
feeding habits in the canopy, though this bill is surely that of a seedeater.

Green Wood Hoopoe Phoeniculus purpureus, Lake Nakuru NP, Kenya.
Not hoopoes, but they are in a related family; there are 9 species of
wood hoopoes and scimitarbills in the family, all African.

Rhinoceros Hornbill Buceros rhinoceros, Sepilok, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo.
What an extraordinary bird, nearly a metre long, and unsurprisingly the national bird of Malaysia.
Juxtaposing red and yellow is effective too, as evidenced by this and the next species, and
the stork earlier.

And speaking of extraordinary birds... Toco Toucan Ramphastos toco, Pantanal, Brazil
The largest toucan, the bill alone is nearly 25cm long. Note too the bright red vent.
It is notable also in being the only toucan found in open country.

We talked about birds with red skin last time too, and here are some where this skin is directly contrasted with the black plumage.

Brush Turkey Alectura lathami, Cairns, north Queensland.
And yes, the red skin of the bare neck and head is actually narrowly separated from the
black body by the yellow wattle, but the effect is the same, or even enhanced.

Guanay Cormorant Leucocarbo bougainvilliorum, Pucusana, south of Lima, Peru.
Just a ring of red skin around the eye, as we saw in some examples last time,
but this is perhaps rendered even more effective by being alongside black feathers.

Swallow-tailed Gulls Creagrus furcatus, South Plaza, Galápagos.
The world's only nocturnal gull (and indeed only nocturnal seabird as far as I know),
this delightful little gull breeds almost exclusively in the Galápagos.
I well remember my first sight of them when I went up on deck in the night,
and saw one flying alongside, in the glow of the boat's lights.

Wattled Jacana Jacana jacana, Pantanal, Brazil. Here the red skin is in the
form of wattles on the face, which show up well against the sooty head and breast.

Male Magnificent Frigatebird Fregata magnificens, North Seymour, Galápagos.
The amazing inflatable red throat pouch is an adapted air sac, part of a bird's
incredible respiratory system, just under the skin. He inflates it to display to
females flying over, and surely it must work!

And finally, a very handsome pair of red legs to set off a black (or at least blackish) ensemble.

Blackish Rail Pardirallus nigricans, Atlantic Forests near Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Like most rails a shy bird, not easy to get a good look at.

Well I've had fun putting together this three-part series, though it's probably not caught as many people's attention as I might have hoped. However, you're reading it and that makes it all worth while! Thank you.

NEXT POSTING THURSDAY 29 JUNE

 

I love to receive your comments and in future will be notifying you personally by email when a new posting appears, if you'd like me to. All current subscribers have been added to this mailing list and have already been contacted. This will mean one email every three weeks at the current rate of posting. I promise never to use the list for any other purpose and will never share it.
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A Celebration of Weird Bills

And by 'weird bills' I don't mean the sort where someone wants you to pay lots of money to renew a subscription that you never had!

A decade ago I wrote a brief irregular series of short posts on unusually adapted bird bills; those are pretty much lost in the mists of time but I've decided to resurrect the idea and build on it for today's post. A bird's bill (or beak if you'd prefer, there's no difference) is a wonderful structure, and is the sole food-gathering tool for most birds, as well as being fundamental to preening, nest-building, chick-feeding any many courtship activities. It is not too dissimilar to the jaws of other vertebrates in comprising upper and lower jawbones (mandibles) but it is covered in a thin horny or leathery keratin sheath. The top mandible is connected by three bony prongs to the forehead and sides of the skull, so unlike in a mammal's jaw the top mandible is moveable as well as the bottom one, enabling a significant gape. 

Let's start with a couple of the biggest bills, and one of my favourite birds (though that tends to depend somewhat on which bird I'm watching at the time). 

The claim to fame of the fabulous Sword-billed Hummingbird (Ensifera ensifera) is that
it has the longest bill of any bird relative to its body size. Indeed it is also claimed to
be the only bird with a bill longer than its body. Yet another claim is that it always rests
with its bill held upwards, because it's too heavy to hold horizontally, but this female
didn't seem to realise that.

I first saw the species (this photo commemorates that occasion) in Ecuador, at the delightful Yanacocha Reserve, 6,700 hectares of cloud forest on the northern slopes of Pichincha Volcano, across the ridge from Quito. Like other precious Ecuadorian cloud forest reserves, it is run by the admirable Jocotoco Foundation. While the Sword-bill feeds on a variety of tubular flowers which don't require the remarkable length of  bill, it seems to have co-evolved with passionfruit flowers, and especially the species Passiflora mixta. Both the bird and the flower live in a long strip of high elevation cloud forest (between 2500 and 3400 metres above sea level) along the Andes.

A related species of Passiflora at San Isidro Lodge in north-eastern Ecuador. The flower tube
of P. mixta is even longer than this, and probably no other bird can reach the rich nectar
supply at the base of it.

Well that's relatively the longest of any bird bill, but what about in absolute terms? That honour seems to belong right here in Australia, with a very familiar bird - the Australian Pelican Pelecanus conspicillatus. 

A male's bill can be up to 50cm long. The famous pouch, of thin stretchable skin,
is supported by a pair of surprisingly delicate long bones, but can hold up
to 13 litres of water.

The important point is that pelicans do not carry food (or water) in the bill, but eat it immediately.
As soon as a food item, nearly always a fish, is scooped up along with the surrounding water,
the pelican presses its bill back against the breast to squeeze the water out.
As can be seen here, pelicans (along with gulls and owls) can spread the bones of the bottom
mandible to increase the width of scoop. The fish is then manipulated to be swallowed head first.

As we'd expect, in most birds (though not the ones we're looking at today) the upper and lower bill mandibles are essentially the same size and shape so that they fit together snugly when closed. However if 'biting' or tearing is required, the upper mandible is often hooked to provide grip and leverage to rip and crush flesh, hard seedcases or even wood. In this case the tip of the lower mandible is often broad and square; when closed the top hook fits over it. Here are a couple of examples.

Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoo Zanda funerea breaking open Banksia marginata cones
to extract the seeds (in our backyard in suburban Canberra.) In this situation the
force is exerted by the bottom mandible against the top, which hooks into the cone.

The same cocky species has ripped deep into this very hard-wooded Blackbutt
Eucalyptus pilularis to extract moth or beetle larvae.
Near Ulladulla, south coast New South Wales.

Wedge-tailed Eagle Aquila audax with road-killed Red Kangaroo carcase, far
north-western NSW. The hooked bill will have no trouble opening the body.

However in a few specialised cases, this hooked upper mandible is greatly attenuated for extracting edible material from within a hard case with a small access. The big apple snails (Pomacea spp.) are abundant in Neotropical wetlands, but despite (or because of) being a valuable potential food source are protected by their large, smooth, hard shells with a small opening. However two species of raptors have evolved a long slender upper mandible to solve the problem; they are snail specialists.

Snail Kite Rostrhamus sociabilis, Panatanal, south-western Brazil,
at work extracting an apple snail, above and below. (The Slender-billed Kite Helicolestes hamatus
has developed a similar bill for the same purpose.)

But snails aren't the only food hiding in a hard shell; many seeds do the same. In the south-west of Western Australia the Marri tree Eucalyptus (or Corymbia) calophylla dominates large areas of dry forest; its fruit are not entirely dissimilar from an apple snail in appearance.

Marri fruit near Perth; the cases are phenomenally hard, but a couple of bird species endemic
to the area have solved the access problem in the same way the South American kites have. Both
these birds are experts at extracting the seeds without damaging the fruits.

Red-capped Parrot Purpureicephalus spurius, Albany,
a truly glorious large parrot, and the sole member of its genus.

The key feature of the Red-capped Parrot from our perspective however is the extended upper bill, fairly clear in this picture. Experienced older birds show great dexterity in nipping off the hard ripe Marri fruit, holding it in one claw, testing it and, if it is of good enough quality, rotating it while inserting the upper bill to extract the seeds. (Green fruit are simply chewed apart.) An earlier study found that 54% of Red-capped Parrots in winter had been eating Marri seed. 

Given the value of the resource offered by Marri, it is not so surprising that another bird has independently come up with a similar solution to the issue of accessing the seed. This is Baudin's Cockatoo Calyptorhynchus baudinii, named for French commander Nicolas Baudin, sponsored by Napoleon to lead of one the most impressive exporatory expeditions ever to visit Australia, in the first years of the 19th century. (I won't digress here into the vexed question of whether we should be lumping animals with people's names, but it was certainly simpler when the two white-tailed black-cockatoos were referred to unequivocally as Short-billed and Long-billed!) As you'd expect from the previous story, Baudin's is the long-billed version.

Baudin's Cockatoos, Stirling Ranges NP. The special mandible is not as clear as it is in the
Red-capped, largely because the bill is part-hidden in feathers, though the light isn't helping.
In this pair it can best be seen in the female (with pale bill) on the left.

Baudin's Cockies are even more dependent on Marri than the Red-Capped Parrot, with wood-boring grubs comprising most of the rest of the diet. Sadly they are listed as Endangered, by the IUCN and both Western Australian and Australian governments. The single population is estimated to comprise between 10,000 and 15,000 birds; the main threat formerly was habitat clearance, while now it is regarded as a mix of loss of mature Marri trees (the key food source), competition for nesting hollows with feral Honeybee colonies, and illegal shooting (primarily by orchadists).

Another Australian cockatoo has also evolved such a bill, but for an entirely different purpose. 

Meet the Long-billed Corella, Cacatua tenuirostris, here at Urana in
south-central NSW. Its long upper mandible evolved to extract tubers, of a
native daisy species, from the ground.

Murnong, or Yam Daisy, Microseris lanceolata, here in Canberra.

The daisy is not uncommon, though never abundant, but once it was almost unimaginably profuse. Accounts from the grassy plains and open woodlands of southern New South Wales and northern Victoria tell of swathes of Murnong flowers turning the plains golden to the horizon. Their small sweet tubers were harvested by Aboriginal people, eaten raw or roasted to a delicious treacly consistency. European settlers learnt the trick from them.There are stories of wagon wheels turning up thousands of Murnong tubers from the soft soil, leaving them to rot on the surface. Then the sheep came, eating the plants and learning to push into the soil to eat the tubers as well. The plough finished the job. 

 

The corellas used to come in vast flocks to feed on them, but when the Murnongs largely disappeared so did the corellas. They rebounded when they found that the grains which replaced the Murnong were also edible, but of course this was a capital offence and the numbers fell again. Today numbers seem to have again recovered within their fairly small range of south-western NSW and western Victoria, partly due I suspect to their ability to adapt to eating the tubers of exotic weeds.

But what about the lower mandible; can that be adapted to a particular food-gathering purpose? Well of course it can - nature can do anything!

The skimmers comprise three species (one each in Africa, southern Asia and the Americas) of birds in the gull family (though until recently they were given their own family). They are distinctive birds with large bills, usually seen loafing on sand bars or mud banks either in rivers or at the coast.

Black Skimmer Rynchops niger, Pantanal, south-western Brazil.
Here you can clearly see the much longer and heavier lower mandible.

African Skimmers R. flavirostris, Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda.
You can click on both these photos to better see what I mean.

But for what purpose? This photo, ordinary as it is, gives you the answer.

Black Skimmer 'skimming', Isla de Chiloé, southern Chile. It is flying along steadily, just above the water, with that long lower mandible cutting the surface. When it contacts a small fish or shrimp it automatically snaps shut, flipping the snack inward. Wonderful!

OK, so much for unusually long slender bills; what about bills that seem abnormally flat and wide for scooping? No problems. Here are two examples in totally unrelated water birds. The first is the Shoebill Balaeniceps rex (ie 'king whale-head!'), sometimes referred to as a stork, but actually the only member of its entire family. Its massive bill is well over 20 centimetres long - only pelicans and some large storks have longer bills.

Shoebill, Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda.
The slightly mad-looking eyes can be a bit disconcerting, but more so I suspect
if you were about to be seized by that huge bill! They mainly prey on fish, especially
lungfish, concentrating on low-oxygen water where the fish are forced to come
regularly to the surface to breathe.

From this angle the savagely hooked tip is obvious, as well as the mass of the bill.

Across the Atlantic in the mangroves and streamside forests of the Neotropics, from Mexico to northern Argentina, lives a bird with a surprisingly similar bill to the Shoebill, but though it is equally massive relative to the bird's size, the Boat-billed Heron is only a third as big as the Shoebill.

Boat-billed Heron Cochlearius cochlearius, Pantanal, Brazil.
The very big eyes tell us that it mostly nocturnal, so we can only see it
in the very late afternoon and at night. It is probably not particularly uncommon
but because it can mostly only be seen from a night-time boat ride, it seems scarce.

The strange bill led it to be regarded as 'not-a-heron' (and there are some who would reinstate the older view that it belongs to a separate family) but the general opinion is that it is an out-lying member of the heron family. It snaps up a range of prey, especially fish and invertebrates and small land mammals, often using its bill as a scoop in a way that no other heron does that I can think of. 

While typing this I've thought of another, entirely different, group of birds with similar broad scooping bills. The frogmouths comprise a family of well-camouflaged nocturnal birds from Australia-New Guinea and south-east Asia, mostly dwellers in dense forests. The best-known however is the Tawny Frogmouth Podargus strigoides, found in open forests and woodlands throughout Australia. Their short broad bills enable them to 'swoop and scoop' on prey, from large insects and spiders to frogs, lizards and even small mammals and birds. They are related to nightjars, swifts and hummingbirds!

Papuan Frogmouth Podargus papuensis, Cairns, north Queensland.

Finally a couple of bills that really don't fit any sort of pattern used by any other birds. 

 

Toucans, from the Neotropics, have famously huge colourful bills with which they toss down fruit, and extract nestlings from tree hollows. However we now know that the driving force behind the bill is its role as a heat disperser, to manage body temperatures in the tropics.

Toco Toucan , Pantanal, Brazil.
Rather than reiterate things I've written about in detail recently, see here for more on
toucans in general and here for the temperature-management story.

Flamingoes have an extraordinary feeding behaviour, which requires an extraordinary bill. In all the birds we've looked at today, the top mandible is the larger one with the flexible lower one working against it. In flamingoes the opposite is true.

American Flamingo Phoenicopterus ruber, Galápagos Islands.
Here the lower mandible is clearer larger than the top one.

What makes this seem especially peculiar is that the flamingo then turns its head upside down in the water so that the bill is almost horizontal, to feed with its bill in the conventional bird shape - larger mandible upwards! Presumably only thus can it get its bill close to and parallel to the substrate.

American Flamingo, same location, feeding in shallow water. It is separating water and
unwanted muddy particles from food items using a large, fatty, highly sensitive tongue with
numerous fleshy protuberances (lamellae), complemented by a keeled bill also fringed with
fleshy lamellae. The tongue is used as a pump which beats from five to 20 times a minute to
suck in beakfuls of muddy water and wrigglies - including algae, small fish and invertebrates -
and to expel unwanted gunk via a complex set of movements. Remarkable.

And while all these bills are, I believe, fascinating variations, I've left one of the most peculiar and  mysterious - ie whose function has only recently been properly understood - until last. There are two species of openbill stork, genus Anastomus, one in Africa and one in Asia. They, like the Snail Kite earlier, feed on the big apple snails but their approach is quite different. There has been a lot of debate as to how they use this structure to extract the snails, not least because the process is both rapid and mostly occurs under water. It is now agreed however that despite earlier beliefs they do not break the shell, or use the gap to carry snails away.

African Openbill Anastomus lamelligerus, Entebbe Botanic Gardens, Uganda.
You can see readily enough the outward curve towards the end of the lower mandible, but not
obvious from this angle is the twist to the side, so that the tips don't meet. Stalked pads at the
tip of the upper mandible hold a big Pila snail against the ground (or underwater mud) while
the lower tip stabs past the protecting operculum to cut the muscle which holds the flesh
in the shell. Even more remarkably a narcotic in its saliva trickles down the bill to assist the
process by relaxing the snail.

Well, there's probably nowhere to go after that story, at least in my opinion. I've gone on longer than I intended, but that's the (only) problem with good stories. Maybe we can even follow this thread in different directions one day. Meantime, thanks for perservering!

NEXT POSTING THURSDAY 13 OCTOBER

 

I love to receive your comments and in future will be notifying you personally by email when a new posting appears, if you'd like me to. All current subscribers have been added to this mailing list and have already been contacted. This will mean one email every three weeks at the current rate of posting. I promise never to use the list for any other purpose and will never share it.
Should you wish to be added to it, just send me an email at calochilus51@internode.on.net. You can ask to be removed from the list at any time,or could simply mark an email as Spam, so you won't see future ones.