Darryl Jones
The Magpie That Changed Everything: How One Moment Shaped a Life of Urban Wildlife
A teenage moment of witnessed cruelty sparked a lifelong mission to understand the animals we live alongside.
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Darryl Jones
A teenage moment of witnessed cruelty sparked a lifelong mission to understand the animals we live alongside.
Hear this story
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Darryl Jones grew up on a small farm near Wagga, making his own world alongside the animals around him. Frogs, blue tongues, insects, he watched everything, asked endless questions, and learned early that if you stayed still and quiet, wild things would come to you. At 15, he found a young magpie drenched after a storm and brought it home to care for. The bird, which he named Jimmy, grew strong until a bully named Al shot it with an air rifle in front of him. The loss sent Darryl into isolation, but in that solitude came a shift: get off your bum, realize how little you know, and start to learn.
That message became the shape of his life. While his university supervisors insisted real biology happened in wilderness far from people, Darryl pushed back. He wanted to understand the animals living alongside us in cities. For decades, he chased one guiding question: why are some species able to thrive in cities while others cannot? His work on brush turkeys, magpies, crows, and ibis revealed not creatures broken by human spaces, but animals extraordinary in their adaptation. Magpies remember individual human faces for years. Crows have language with syntax and grammar. Brush turkeys build self-heating mounds so sophisticated they test temperature by taste.
What began in grief became a lifelong mission to help people see the wildlife in their own backyards and streets, not as separate from nature but as part of it. Darryl now spends his time writing, speaking, and encouraging people to engage with the animals around them, through careful bird feeding, through watching, through understanding that we are not above nature but woven into it completely. That connection, he insists, changes everything about how we live.
“We're not above it or superior to it or better than it. If we don't come get to grips with that reality, the fact that we are inexplicably, undeniably part of nature, then we're going to be in worse stuff than we're already in.”
“Get off your bum, realize how little you know, and start to learn.”
“If you can get to know animals really close, like the magpies that bring their chicks each year and all that sort of thing. That's why I've changed my mind about feeding altogether.”
The hero, today
When you stay still and quiet and don't scare animals, they will come up to you, which is how Darryl learned to observe rather than to sentimentalise. After Jimmy was shot, the message Darryl received was simple: get off your bum, realize how little you know, and start to learn. Magpies can remember individual human faces for years and will recognize the specific people they've identified as threats to their nest. Bird feeding, done properly with clean feeding platforms and appropriate food for each species, is one of the safest and most wonderful ways to engage with wildlife. We are not above nature or separate from it; we are inextricably part of it, and understanding that changes everything about how we live.
Yes. Darryl Jones is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.
Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.
When you stay still and quiet and don't scare animals, they will come up to you, which is how Darryl learned to observe rather than to sentimentalise.
After Jimmy was shot, the message Darryl received was simple: get off your bum, realize how little you know, and start to learn.
Magpies can remember individual human faces for years and will recognize the specific people they've identified as threats to their nest.
Bird feeding, done properly with clean feeding platforms and appropriate food for each species, is one of the safest and most wonderful ways to engage with wildlife.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 00:02
Welcome to another episode of Animals and Us, where we explore and honor the awesomeness of animals and our relationships with them. Today's guest is Dr. Darryl Jones, a leading Australian urban ecologist and professor at Griffith University. Dr. Jones has spent over 30 years investigating how people and wildlife interact and why some species have been successful in our cities while many others have not. He's the best bestselling author of books such as Curlew on Vulture Street and Be Wilder, which reveal the surprising lives of the birds that share our towns and cities. In this episode, we'll chat with Darryl about his early life and interesting facts about, about some of our urban birds that might surprise you. Hello, Darryl. Welcome to Animals and Us.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 00:56
Thank you very much. It's— I'm so excited to be here.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 00:59
Well, I've been reading your books and I'm so excited and so grateful for you joining us. Thank you. So let's start with young Darryl. Can you tell us about your early life?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 01:12
Sure. I grew up on a little farm in the middle of nowhere. The big city nearby was called Wagga, which wasn't much of a big city at all, but we thought it was, you know, when you're living on a farm. And I stayed out there. I lived out there as the youngest child for quite a year, quite a while. Until I was 9, I think we moved into town. And when I say moved into town, we moved into a village on the very outskirts of Wagga called Lake Albury. In those days, it was completely separate to the rest of the city. So it wasn't much of a change, but it was a big change from living alone more or less on a farm, you know, like lots of kids have. So you had to be very self-sufficient, you know, just to make your own fun and all that sort of thing. Dad was always busy with the farm, running things. So I lived pretty much a fantasy, you know, made up a fantasy world in which to exist out there, where the other participants in my fantasies were the other, were the little animals around the place. And I look back now and think that's where I became really observant and patient, which you have to be when you become an animal person. If you want to study animals, you know, you've got to stop being a human, if you like. Yeah. And just try and be part of their environment. So I remember thinking that if I just stayed still, the animals would come up to me, and they did, you know. So I became a naturalist naturally like that. A naturalist naturally, that's good enough, you know. Because I was just, I would allow the animals to do their own thing, and they would come up to me. It wasn't in any way a sentimental thing. I mean, I didn't, I just knew that if I was quiet and didn't scare them, they would come up to me, you know.
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This conversation includes a farm kid with nothing but questions, digging up frogs and noticing everything, jimmy the magpie, the moment that changed everything, a message from the grief and fighting for a field that didn't exist yet.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 02:50
Yeah, yeah.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 02:50
And so, I mean, I wouldn't have called myself a naturalist because I didn't know what that meant. You know, I was just naturally out there with all these animals around. And the, you know, sorry, go on.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 03:01
What sort of animals did you first encounter as a child?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 03:04
Mostly birds, but there was things like every now and again we would dig up a frog, one of these burrowing frogs that spend nearly their whole lives underneath the ground. And Wagga is a pretty dry area and it has 22 inches a year, whatever that is in points. It's not a very dry area, so some of the animals, like the amphibians that live there, have to have all these strategies for surviving. So these guys would just dig themselves into the mud, and then every now and again, if you're digging a hole for a fence post or something, these things would just pop out, especially in the creeks and things.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 03:37
So you had an early fascination with animals?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 03:41
No, I guess I've always been horribly curious about all sorts of things. And I would have driven my parents completely mad because they had no interest in any of this stuff. I mean, they weren't opposed to the animals, but they were just part of the background. But I would say, why are those frogs? How can we dig up the frog? How do the frogs live? You know, can you imagine all that? You know, why, why, why, why? And they wouldn't have had any idea about that. But they didn't discourage it at all. You know, that was part of being a good kid living in the bush was noticing all this sort of stuff. The blue tongues, we had lots of blue tongues around the area and they sort of gravitated to the farmhouse, I think, where Mum had a really big garden. And of course, that was the only bit of the whole landscape that was regularly watered. So those blue tongues were eating the snails and the strawberries that we were trying to grow and all that sort of stuff. So I also then became vaguely aware that where people lived were was also a place where the animals could use, you know, find some resources that they wouldn't normally have. Because the little farmhouse there in a very barren landscape was naturally attracting all sorts of things that would come there just to get into the food and the things that were to do with water. In that area, water was the big limiter. Yes.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 05:04
And Darryl, when you were 15, you had a profound experience with a 15-year-old or a similar-aged bully and a magpie, and that experience shaped the rest of your life. Would you share us that?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 05:19
It's not, it's not, that's not an exaggeration to say that. So I'm going to pick up my book, which is called Curlews in Vulture Street, which has got a new, the new, new, they're putting out a new edition with a completely new cover, which is fantastic. So this magpie was called Jimmy, which comes in a bit, it's pretty, it's got a G because it's from his scientific name, which is Jim Nohaina, which is the first name that they used to have, not anymore. And I'll read out some little bits for this. So Jimmy's short life was dramatic from start to finish. A ferocious electrical storm smashed through the village very late one hot summer night, ripping limbs from trees, blowing rubbish bins down the street, and flattening wheat crops. There was a brief but heavy downpour of of rain, followed by continuous sheet lightning and deafening thunderclaps. The next morning I was out very early to survey the damage. Branches and large limbs were scattered over the soaked ground, with piles of wet leaves blown against the fences. Among the debris, beneath a shredded tree, I saw a bowl-shaped collection of thin sticks and twigs. It was a magpie's nest. The feathers and wool that lined the interior were intact, but the inhabitants were no longer present. At this time of the year, I hoped all the— or any chicks would have fledged and be far away. But in response to these optimistic thoughts, a plaintive beep made me search more closely. There, perched on a fallen branch, was a young magpie. He was drenched, all still downy feathers plastered to his body, and otherwise he seemed uninjured. Actually, he was in rude good health. As soon as he noticed me, He fluttered his bedraggled wings and started to beg for food from a complete stranger. He didn't struggle when I grabbed him, although he did latch onto my thumb with a strong beak and wouldn't let go until we arrived home. And there he consumed an enormous amount of chopped ham before promptly going to sleep in the back of the dining chair room, dining room chair. And that was less than half an hour after I fed him wet and alone. So that's how I stumbled upon this little guy. A bit later on, things get worse. Jimmy grew fast and soon began to explore beyond our backyard. At this stage in my life, I had a little zoo, you know, all the different things that I guess I was an untrained wildlife carer because nearly all these things were delivered to me. You know, the people in the area knew that I was this mad wildlife guy. And so they'd bring injured animals to me. And eventually, if they were really injured, I'd take them to the vet. But otherwise, I'd just try and keep them there. So Jimmy grew fast and soon began to explore beyond his backyard. That was a good sign. I wanted him to be a wild magpie, not a domesticated pet. Although he continued to accept tidbits and often raided the dog's bowl, he began searching for his own food at an early age. But his complete lack of fear of people was a growing concern. Now I'll skip over here and it says, late one afternoon, coming home from a long wander through the bush, I turned the corner and straight away felt a rising dread. Standing outside my house was a group of teenage boys, Al's Sonnethin' gang. Al was the resident bully, an oversized buffhead who made up for his intellectual deficiencies with brute force and intimidation. It was too late to retreat, they had spotted me. I feigned composure and kept walking. "Where you been, Jones?" sneered Al. "Up the bush," I offered, and then he said something chilling. 'This thing yours?' He was casually pointing what I realized was an air rifle towards the electricity lines above him. Jimmy was perched there, swaying gently, peering down at us with interest. The discharge of the gun was short and shocking, and a terrifying— with a terrifying futile flutter, Jimmy fell in a pathetic spiral to the ground, flapping weakly. I had no words, showed no emotion, didn't react. Stupid bird, said Al, and the gang moved off radiating menace and arrogance. Wow. It didn't happen at first, but a message seemed to resolve. This is me. I had this place called the Common where I used to disappear. It was a bit of bush and nobody else was interested, so I would be able to go over there by myself. Right. And that's where I was most of the time after this. And the message was, a revelation seemed to occur. This was the message. Get off your bum, realize how little you know, and start to learn. And that this was the sort of language from the universe that even I could understand. I didn't discuss it with anybody. It was something that could be— could— there was hardly something that could be explained anyway. But from that terrible time, I emerged with a distinct desire to learn more, starting with the animals I was responsible for in my little zoo. Wow. And then the wildlife that lived in the vicinity. I emerged from that period acutely aware of how little I actually knew. It was the first time that my insatiable appetite for information became a fixation. And from that moment on, I guess I then declared myself, yes, I was a naturalist, and I really wanted to find out as much as I could. And it did take me long to realize that we know almost nothing about even the common animals around us at that stage. There's been a lot more research done since, of course. But, you know, the animals that are familiar to us, often poorly understood, just about only basic basically. Yeah. Yes. So that's where it all began, something like that.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 10:39
A turning point? Yeah, turning point from that trauma.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 10:43
Wow. It was pretty horrible at the time. You know, I can still feel the emotion of that right now just re— um, yeah, absolutely. Yes.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 10:53
Yeah, must have been awful, awful. Poor Magpie. So you matured and you went to university and you now actually sometimes referred to yourself as a strange fish because traditionally biologists work in the bush, in the wilderness, but you found an interest in working with urban wildlife. What drew you to study urban wildlife as opposed to wildlife in the wild?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 11:24
Well, that's a good point, good question, isn't it? Because, and you've triggered on something there that's really important, I think. And that was the message that I received all the way through my training, was from my supervisors and all the sort of people involved who were trying to train me and get me to think in a certain way, was that if you really wanted to know what's going on in nature, you have to remove yourself completely from the influence of people. And so that's fair enough, you know, so that you don't, if you really wanted to study what a wild animal does, you don't study it in your backyard. You go off to where that animal lives away from people. And that's important if you want to learn that. But I went, what about all the animals that now live with us? Surely they're worth studying, like all the things that are familiar to us. This was long before anybody had taken much interest in the urban wildlife. And so I said, well, I'm going to find out what animals live in the city. And I've now realised, I mean, decades later, I realised that my little study for my honours project, which was just a year-long project that I did myself, was that nobody else had studied any wildlife in the city before. I think this was the first wild urban wildlife bird study that had ever been done in Australia, back in 1979 it was, way back then. When I was just 19, I was, no, I would have been 21 at that stage, I think. But that was the first time that anyone had bothered to walk up and down the streets and see what birds were there. And it's astonished everybody, the richness of the birds. This is my country town of Wagga, where I did it. The Armidale— I'd moved to Armidale to go to the University of New England, which was my university at the time. And so it was another small country town, and I did some studies up there as well. But even through that period of time, nobody really understood what I was trying to do, and nobody valued it in any way at all. And yet I kept trying to convince them Thankfully, it's all come to fruition. The field called urban ecology now is an absolutely standard part of ecology now. Everybody knows it. Everybody understands how significant it is for all sorts of reasons, including the animals that we see every day. But at the time, I had to really fight against that. I had to really say, "Now, this is worth doing." I guess that kind of, I knew it was important. But if anybody asked me why, I'd have to think about that. But it didn't take me long to realize that there was lots of reasons to do this sort of work. And so that's what I did. You know, I kept going against all the odds, if you like. I mean, academic, I mean, intellectual, it was. It was just like, why are you bothering with this stuff? These animals live with us. They're all tainted, if you like. They're animals like the magpies and things. Why? 'Why would you want to study magpies in the city when you can study them out in the bush somewhere?' Well, that's fair enough, that's a good question, but my answer to that was, 'Well, they've evolved to live with us now. Let's look at all the different ways that they are different to their natural cousins.' So one of the best parts of, one of the most fruitful things that we've now realised in urban ecology is to compare the urban versions of the birds with the wild ones in the same species that live somewhere else.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 14:42
And that brings me to my next question. Why are some species effective in living in cities and urban areas and others just don't have that ability to adapt? Why are some successful and others not?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 14:57
That's probably what this is all about. In fact, that's— the question you just asked then is the guiding principle for my whole research. You know, it's the whole thing I've been doing my entire career. Is trying to answer that question. But now, I'm not the only one doing this. All the way around the world now, people have been doing the same sorts of things. So now, I was a pioneer in a field I didn't even realize was coming. And when it eventually came, I was overjoyed. The true urban ecology is now all over the place. And we now know exactly what those species are like. So when we convert what's often agricultural land or maybe just straight bush into a suburb, as every city grows and expands in its size. Those sorts of transformations of one sort of habitat into the next going on all the time. And so one of the things that happens there is all the animals that live there normally don't just fly away to the nearest bit of bush— some will, not many do— they die. There's nowhere left for them to be, you know, they literally die. And there's some horrifying numbers around the place of how many vertebrates, you know, animals, bigger animals, birds and mammals and things like that. How many of those die when we, for every kilo, you know, every square kilometre area cleared for housing?
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 16:17
Right, well—
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 16:17
And that's something we have to take more seriously, you know. Gosh, yeah.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 16:22
Because I imagine they would move, relocate themselves if they can.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 16:27
If they can, but if there's a near bit of bush, nearby bit of bush, it's already full of the animals, you know. Yeah. Especially if it's already or equal of the animals that have moved from the last time this transformation happened. So most of them won't, won't be able to survive. So on the other hand, so that's the majority of them, the absolute majority, they will disappear. But as the gardens grow and mature, and there's, and wherever there's bits of bush left, those will be filled with native animals that can then come from those areas and visit us in the suburbs, or even live with us, you know, with us successfully in the suburbs. Like magpies. You know, magpies are probably the best example because the conditions that they like just happen to be exactly what we like. Lots of lawn for— and there's grubs and worms just beneath the surface that we water all the time and fertilize and keep it really nice. And a scattering of trees which resembles the sorts of savannah apparently that we liked when we were living in, you know, millions of years ago in Africa, as savannah was the type of landscape that we liked. And it just so happens that that suits magpies absolutely perfectly. So when we created suburbs, we've made what I would call magpie heaven, you know, we've made it exactly what they want. So the density and the number of magpies, that's why there's so many magpies in towns and cities, is because of all that lawn and all those scattering of trees, exactly what they like. So their territories are smaller in the suburbs, They have more chicks in the suburbs, all those sorts of things. So that's one of the examples of how different the magpies that live in the towns are compared to the ones out in the bush. Yeah.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 18:06
Darryl, I'm going to ask you about a particular bird species later on, but can you just tell us how you balance your various parts of your life? So you write books and you have your fieldwork and you also have your university work. How do you manage to balance all three?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 18:25
It's pretty hard, I know, that's right. Well, at the moment I've retired. During COVID we lost our contact with the students and that was terrible. I think I had the best job in the world teaching students, turning ordinary people into fanatics, if you like. Like 1 in 10, as long as it was about 1 in 10, would get the spark. And I was very lucky for years and years, nearly 10 years, I was able to take groups of students over to Borneo. And plunged them deep into the jungle where they learned all sorts of things about tropical ecology and themselves, about their resilience and all that sort of stuff. And that's been incredible. And that trip especially was transforming for those children, those kids who came along. They were all just teenagers, usually late teens when they came with us. And there was definitely a Borneo effect, we know. Those people got the spark really strongly. And went on to bigger and better things. And, you know, I'm still meeting those people. They still come up to me and say, you know, that trip to— this happens all the time, literally— that trip to Borneo changed my life, you know. And they mean it, you know, their perspective on all that sort of stuff. It wasn't just the animals, it was the cultures that they can't— they were— they found the different ways to study things that we don't have in Australia because it's a very different environment, going to a part of the world that had never been changed. The place where we go hadn't even been discovered in the '90s, was only discovered in the 1990s. Wow. You know, it's almost got no people in it.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 20:03
Yeah, untouched, unspoiled.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 20:05
Yeah, and there's not many places like that on the planet left.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 20:08
No. Darryl, are there any parts in Australia where you've taken students and have also given them that Borneo effect that you just described?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 20:16
Oh yes, absolutely. It's just that the Borneo effect was particularly dramatic because it's such a wonderful place, you know, with orangutans and elephants and all that sort of thing. That can happen anywhere. It can happen in your backyard. I mean, it's wherever you get the spark is just extraordinary and it's unpredictable for different people. I mean, I've had people, you know, have, if you like, the Borneo effect similar, you know, literally working through Tui Forest, which is the forest that surrounds Griffith University and back up in Brisbane. Because for the first time these people went, you mean all these animals that we've just seen today live here all the time? You know, that sort of thing. You know, where, gosh, I had no idea. Wonderful, fantastic. And from that moment on, they could change their lives, you know.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 20:58
Yeah.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 20:58
So that can happen anywhere, and it doesn't really— it doesn't have to be spectacular. It's a little bit like, if you want nature, you don't have to go to the deepest jungle again to find nature. If you, if you're really honest with yourself and if you've got the curiosity to see, you will realize that you are part of nature. This is my big new, big new mission in life, is to realize that we are all part of nature. Yes. And until we get that message correctly, we're probably going to be in very big trouble. And I think we already are. It's not too late to change that. But if you can realize, if you realize that the way you live your life The breakfast you ate this morning, the car that you drove is made of what it's made of. All those different things, the air you breathe, the water you drink, the food you eat, all of that is part of nature. And so are we. And we are inextricably part of it. So whatever the fate of nature is, that's our fate as well.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 21:55
That's right.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 21:55
And we just happen to be the most powerful species on the planet. We're not doing a very good job of looking after the rest of the things. That's why our connection with nature is critical. It's not just an interesting, fun thing to do. It's critical for our well-being. Together.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 22:09
Yeah, couldn't agree more. That's one of the fundamental principles of humane education. I used to be a humane educator, and, and our intrinsic connection to nature is, is, um, is important.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 22:22
Is—
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 22:23
and isn't it important too to take— to immerse children in nature and so that they can also have that Borneo effect, as you call it, at a young age?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 22:32
No, absolutely. And that can happen really early on, and that's really important to do because we now know that the The richer the experience of nature that we can have, the most and the closest and the most intimate. So get your hands dirty in this stuff, get down on your hands and knees and really get stuck in and collect the tadpoles and put them in the jars and do everything as much as you can and connect as closely as you can to nature. That makes a huge difference to all those people.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 23:01
And without telephones.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 23:03
Without telephones, I mean, you can use your telephone to work out what the identification is, but it doesn't have to be the medium. You don't have to see things on your screens any, you know, if you realise that plenty is going on outside the screen, that's really important. Yes. Yeah.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 23:21
Darryl, let's talk about some of the urban birds you know so well. Can we start with brush turkeys? You earned your PhD in your study of brush turkeys. Can you tell us some interesting facts that the audience may not know about brush turkeys?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 23:36
Oh, brush turkeys are the most fascinating bird on the planet. That's really obvious to me. But why would I say that? Well, all sorts of reasons. Not only are they very smart in a dumb kind of way, they don't have, I don't think they have a very big brain, but their ability to turn just about anything into an incubator is extraordinary. So those big, everybody probably knows that they're mound builders. But what are those mounds? Those mounds are a big pile of organic matter which is slowly decomposing and producing heat. You know, like everybody's compost heap out the back makes heat, we're probably already aware of that. These birds have learned how to utilise that by manipulating it and making it into an incubator. So the males build these big piles of dirt which in the process, if they're in your yard, have probably destroyed the whole garden. That's what people get very upset about, but never mind. And that can be made out of anything, but the best thing it can be made of is just ordinary leaves, but not eucalyptus leaves. They don't work very well. They don't break down. They're so full of organic, full of chemicals that prevent them from breaking down very well. So they still manage it somehow, but it's not the best. The rainforest from where they come is the best, a big mixture of those leaves and damp soil. Now what happens is they make the mound, and when it's about the right temperature, about 6 weeks after it's been constructed, and the male's been there the whole time adding and tossing new things on and digging holes in it and testing the temperature. That's the other thing that they do, they can tell the temperature within half a degree by tasting the dirt, it is extraordinary. And when the females come, she will mate with with the male who owns that mound, but so will every other female that he can attract to the area. And he attracts them by having a really nice mound of exactly the right temperature, and also looking pretty good himself. He's got a bright red head and a yellow wattle, which he extends out to show how great he is. And if he hasn't, if the males haven't been able to get enough food with red substances in them, and I'm not entirely sure where they get it from, in the rainforest. But if they want, they'll look really patchy and motley on their red head. So it's a really safe, safe bet for the females. If he looks really flash and bright, shiny red head, he must be pretty healthy. That's what they're looking for. And they're also looking for a place to put their eggs, of course. They're going to incubate them down in that soil. And that's when things become very strange because pretty much the females will dig the hole down maybe almost a metre deep into the mound. Lay their eggs there. We're testing a temperature to make sure it's 33 degrees or close to that as they can get to that. And then they abandon the eggs. They abandon them and just leave them. They fill it in, and sometime later, about 3 months—
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 26:23
both parents abandon them. Sorry, Darryl, do both parents abandon their nest?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 26:28
Yes, there's no, no, no, nothing at all. No parental care of any sort, because when the chicks hatch, they're down a metre in the soil. They slowly emerge, it takes them about 2 days to get to the top. And when they come up, if they're unlucky enough to meet their father, he'll just toss them off like he would a lizard or a snake or something like that. There's no recognition, it's a very rare situation where the adults don't even recognise their own young. They don't even realise that those things coming out of the mounds are their own offspring. Their extent, the extent of their interest is in the mound, or the, or the laying of the eggs, and that's it. So those little chicks come out and are completely defenseless. Everything they have to do and learn is learned the hard way. There's no one to tell them what food looks like, where to roost at night, how to, how to avoid predators, any of those things. It's extraordinary, isn't it?
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 27:21
And yet they survive.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 27:23
They survive really well, obviously. You know, they're taking over the, the world, it seems, sometimes. They were nearly hunted to extinction during the '70s, before the time of their protection, legal protection by the state and the federal government. Up until that time, they were regarded as game birds, like chickens and pheasants and those sorts of things, and people used to shoot them and eat them. That would be terrible. Although I've got a— what is it called— Country Women's Association got recipe book with recipes for these things from the 1930s. So I'm not going to try myself, for sure.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 28:01
No, no. So for people who might be complaining about the brush turkeys building mounds in their backyards, perhaps if they stop and think of their amazing survival, they might be a bit more tolerant.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 28:14
Absolutely. And that's one of the things we've tried and been reasonably successful. Because when you wake up one morning and all the gardening you've just done is in a big pile up the back in one spot, you're not very happy and, and, and, you know, and understandably so. But what we were able to do was explain to those people that in that mound are the chicks, they're hatching, and tell them the whole, the whole sob story about these abandoned babies, no one to look after them. And, you know, in numerous times those people have turned around there completely. You know, they had no idea that that was the case. They had no idea where the chicks were, what the chicks looked like. They're fluffy and beautiful for about a day. They don't stay cute for long. But when you realise that, lots of these people, quite a few, I mean, quite a proportion of the people that we spoke to turned from being absolutely opposed to these horrible birds destroying their garden to being their kind of saviours and looking out for them and giving them food and all this sort of stuff. So. Mm.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 29:15
They are extraordinary survivors. Thanks for sharing that.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 29:19
So that was the bird that got me interested in urban wildlife to start with. Because I thought when you do a PhD, you are by definition the world expert in that thing for about 10 minutes, until somebody else does some other work. So I thought I was pretty hot and knew all about brush turkeys, but as soon as the ranger called, a ranger called Rick Natrasse, who's the famous guy up here that people have known about, he's written in, I'll mention him a bit later in my book as well. He said, well, you think you know all about brush turkeys? Well, come with me now and we're going to go out to the suburbs up near Mount Coot-tha in Brisbane where these things were building their mounds and starting to, just starting, that was the beginnings of the first urban encroachment of brushturkeys into this area. And yes, I might have known all about their sex lives and how many legs they laid and all those sorts of technical things, but nobody was interested in that. They just wanted, what can I do? How can I get rid of this bloody bird that's been destroying my garden? And that's when I had to come up with these other things, other techniques, such as, you know, such as information. And that worked really well in some cases, quite a few, quite a few of the cases. I was able to write that up as a scientific study because it's a, it's a form of wildlife management when you can explain to people and they change their minds.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 30:35
Can we now move on to magpies? It's spring now in Australia, and a lot of people are dreading magpies and being swooped by magpies. Can you offer some tips about prevention being—
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 30:50
Well, what the first thing to do is we need to know why are they doing it. You know, that's the strange thing. What on earth are these birds trying to do? And what they're trying to do is keep us away from their precious chicks up in the nest. A lot of people just assume that because it's spring, as you mentioned, every magpie up there is out to kill them. But it's not until, you know, and there's no pattern to it, it'll just be all magpies hate people and so they're going to try and beat us up. And that's not the case at all, thankfully. If every— and it's only a tiny fraction, it's around about less than 10% of the magpies out there, the males, it's only the males will do the swooping. And their job is to keep what they regard as threats and predators away from their nest. And it only happens when there's chicks in the nest, not when there's eggs. So this is very much parental defence of the chicks. So they're kind of the opposite to the brush turkeys who just give up altogether and let them lead their own lives. These guys are protecting them very hard in the hardest possible way. You know, they risk their lives chasing out goannas and snakes and cats and things like that. The strange thing is every now and again they decide that humans, usually an individual somewhere along the line, also poses a threat. And that's really strange because they don't. You know, most of the time they've got that wrong. I don't know many little old ladies who've climbed a tree and eaten a baby magpie in front of the parents. Just doesn't seem to happen very much. And yet it doesn't take much because we've done some experiments simply staring at the mound, staring at, sorry, staring at the nest and walking around the tree a few times. And it only took 5 times for those magpies then, that male in particular, to start being really aggressive towards the humans who were involved with that. And that magpie remembered him for a long time, like many years later when we came back, there was the magpie.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 32:40
Is it true that magpies can remember human faces, individual human faces?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 32:48
Absolutely, yes. Most magpies live in a permanent little territory, and if it's in the suburbs, it might be, you know, 5 or 6 houses. That's all it would be because they're very small. They have everything they need They don't need anything bigger than they need, if you like. They've just got enough, enough lawn on the ground and enough trees to hide in, hide their nests and, and watch the world go by. If they've got that in the suburbs, it doesn't need to be very much. The suburbs are absolutely a perfect place for these big birds. And so they've moved in and there's more magpies in cities than there are outside. And the density is much higher as well. Yeah, so, and what you said is absolutely true. Or they'll— if there's 5 or 6 houses there, that's probably around, you know, at the most about 30 people who might live in those houses. And those magpies can live for 20 years at least, and they will see these kids growing up and they remember them. And just like us, they use their facial features— nose, eyes, and mouth, and all that sort of thing— in order to distinguish between individuals. And so if you happen to be a person that that magpie has— you've just done something that you didn't even realise And we don't know what they are. I mean, just staring up at the nest isn't very much. But there might be all sorts of things that trigger them, and they've got a very low level of tolerance, I guess. After that, they start swooping people.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 34:06
Do you have any tips about prevention?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 34:09
Yes, we know.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 34:10
Prevention to prevent being swooped.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 34:13
Yes.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 34:13
I've twirled many sticks in my life, walking around trees twirling sticks.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 34:19
Yep, yeah, well, that's all that's doing is trying to keep the bird away from you, you know, keeping it— if it's got, if you've got something above your head that's tall and spiky, they're probably not going to strike you because it looks dangerous. And that's really the secret behind why all the cable ties on people's bicycle helmets works pretty well as well. The magpies don't stop swooping those people, but they don't come anywhere near their heads because it looks just dangerous, you know. They are risking themselves if they slam into the back of something like your back of your head or anything like that, or a dog or whatever, if they injured themselves, that's pretty much a death sentence out there. There's no way they would survive that. So they've got to be very careful. And so all those spikes that look, look dangerous on the tops of helmets, that's— that works. Not many of the other, of the other, you know, so-called solutions work, like putting eyes on the back of the head. Now that we know that they can distinguish between us by our facial features They're not going to be conned by a couple of, you know, round dots with a hole in the middle.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 35:19
False eyes, yes.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 35:21
The grandmas look like eyes, you know, they're not going to be fooled at all. So that's the magpies, and we did lots of work on those, and we've worked out how to humanely take the males that were really aggressive. We— you couldn't— some of those males were— had caused all sorts of injuries. So any that are really serious, we have to catch and take them away. And the best part about that is the male is replaced by a different male. He'll just come back. He was, he was already there. Females are desperate to have somebody to help them out with the child raising. So these new guys just move straight in and start being as good as they can be, preferably not being aggressive because they— we don't know what set off the original male, but the new one often isn't, isn't aggressive either. As well.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 36:09
Carol, for how long do they swoop? You said that when the chicks have hatched, so how long was that time?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 36:17
It's about 6 weeks or so, sometimes less. So that's, it's a very brief period of time really for us to put up with. But really the simplest and best way to approach things is if you're walking down and you get swooped, you know for a fact that you are, if you've been swooped by Magpie Bee, you know in a tree around here somewhere, probably from the direction that the male came, there is a nest. And if I'm going to get out of here safely, you just don't, you face the magpie. They'll never attack you from the front. If you face the magpie and then back away from where you've been, that's the safest thing to do. And then go right away as soon as you can and don't go back to that location. If everybody knew, if everybody just simply avoided the places where the magpies are, then we'd have a lot of attack. Yes. Which is, it's still happening.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 37:06
Leave them in peace if, when possible, yeah.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 37:09
Yeah, that's right. That's those.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 37:11
Darryl, thanks, thanks for that. Yes, can we move on to crows now?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 37:16
Crows, yes.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 37:17
Fascinating birds known by their extremely high intelligence.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 37:21
Yes, absolutely, and they're so different. I mean, magpies and crows are both common, you know, fellow citizens within the cities that we live in, without a doubt. You know, they're all around, all around us. Their approaches are completely different. Male magpies have lost all their fear of humans. That's why they happily attack us. But they'll also come to us and ask for, you know, train us to feed them, as they do many times. They'll bring their chicks, you know, all those sorts of things. They're in straight away, you know, they won't hesitate to take advantage of their, of the, whatever the opportunities are. With the crows, they're totally different to that. They're very risk-averse, they're very smart, they watch and carefully check out what's going on. They will not, you know, they will not do anything dangerous or tricky, or they just watch carefully what's happening and, and think about it and plan and all that sort of thing and strategize in order how to do things. And so they, they have a totally different approach to, to this sort of stuff. For example, we did some study, I had a very bright student who did his PhD on wild crows, and we— there's all sorts of tests that have been developed for crows, different sorts of crows in Europe, that they've given them to do, like a test of where, under which colour is the food and all those sorts of things. And we tried, we found a whole lot of these things were appropriate for the wild birds, and on the Griffith Nathan campus, Griffith University Nathan campus, there was lots of crows there. There was, I think, there's 7 different pairs. We went to each of them and gave them little tricks to do. And although they worked out, they worked very quickly how to do them to prove how smart they were. And these were wild crows, had never been tried on wild crows before, which was the good thing. But what we had discovered was that the butcherbirds were not standoffish and careful like the crows. They would come straight in and solve the problem instantly. So although we set out to try and discover just how smart crows were, this project actually showed us how smart, completely unexpectedly, the butcherbirds were. They were solving the problems much more quickly.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 39:36
I've heard, thinking of butcherbirds and crows, I've heard that Butcherbirds are one of the few birds who can safely manage cane toads. Is that true?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 39:47
Yes, that's true.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 39:47
And can crows, can crows predate on cane toads safely as well?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 39:52
That's right. And so, and the most recent thing is ibis have discovered how to do it as well. So if you're going to eat those, they're big. So cane toads are a lot of food if you can get around the patches on their shoulders, if you like. And these are the toxic areas. If you can turn the crow, turn the flattened cane toad over, or the live one that you've just found, and eat them from the outs— from the, from the bottom first, and, and leave the, the toxic bits on the outside and underneath, then you've got lots of food. And that's just been spreading through the whole thing. The thing about that that is absolutely remarkable, we think that they learned how to do it in southern Queensland, but the Torresian crow spreads all the way up Queensland and across the Northern Territory and then down to Western Australia. And what was amazing was we think this is one of these, an example of cultural transmission, because they, the ones in Brisbane learned how to do it, and then as the crows, as the cane crows up the coast, they were encountering naive crows who didn't know how to do them, learned how to do it from cultural exchange from what the ones who knew how to do it, they would just watch what they did. And by the time they got— it took— then there was a gap. There's a very dry section in the middle of just below the Gulf of Carpentaria. Took a long time for the cane toads to get across. Eventually they did. By the time they got to Darwin, the crows there already knew what to do. They didn't have to worry about it. They just flipped them over and started eating. And as far as we know, that's cultural exchange. Isn't that— that's just absolutely extraordinary. And that's been proven various times.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 41:31
Yeah, it is amazing. Wow. So Darryl, do you know much about— this is not birds, but do you know much about cane toads? Because these bird species are learning to eat cane toads, is that reducing the number of cane toads?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 41:47
Yes, it is, but it's still having a huge effect because not all the birds and animals out there are as smart as crows.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 41:53
Yes, that smart. Yeah.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 41:54
Yeah. Because I think the Northern Quoll, there's a species of quoll which is found only in the Northern Territory. Is just about extinct now because it's been trying to eat the cane toads. It just turned up in their habitat, they didn't know what they were, and it's too toxic for them. So it's not all smarts. Sometimes there's plenty of naive animals out there who simply don't know what's going on.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 42:16
Yeah, yeah, tragic. And Darryl, I remember you telling me once before about, which I think is amazing, about the language of crows. Can you tell us about that?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 42:25
Yes, so, so Matt, who was the student who did the tests out for his PhD, for his honours before this, has got very interested in, in their language. And language, you know, that's— isn't that only for the humans? But he was able to prove by very careful— and I don't even understand how these— how he does these things, but he was able to record hundreds of calls and and then break them down into little, if you like, syllables or words. And those syllables and words are put together in strings, which you could call strictly sentences. And so those sentences have 'ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar,' and that means something, but we have no idea what it means. But they always do it in that order. So it's just like telling each other about something. So these birds, without a doubt, can be called having language. A really sophisticated language. They have syntax, they have all the usual rules for the use of a language. And this is just a bird.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 43:28
And conversations. They basically talk to each other in conversations. Amazing.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 43:34
And let me say straight away, we have no idea what they're saying. That's a long way off yet, actually knowing what they're saying to each other. We probably will never understand that, but at least we know what they do.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 43:45
You have so much knowledge of birds and urban wildlife, we could go on for a long time, but could you just quickly tell us a few interesting facts about a bird that— about the ibis, which has a very undignified name of the bin bird, because they're so often vilified and treated badly. And if you could tell us some interesting facts that might help people to respect the ibis, that would be wonderful.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 44:13
Well, if they could respect our ibis, we've made some pretty big inroads, haven't we? No, they are very good for us because they get rid of so much putrescible waste. We are very, very messy when we throw our rubbish around all over the place. So it's no surprise that these birds are taking advantage of that. What we have discovered is that ibis, the white ibis, there's two 2 common ibis that we see quite a bit, the white ibis, which is the one that we see often in towns these days. Wasn't always the case. 20 years ago there was none. Now they're all over the place. You know, in every, all the main, wherever they occur, they are in the cities. And their cousins, the straw-necked ibis, which never do that. You'll see them on the outskirts of towns and you'll see them on sports fields. But you'll never see them downtown getting into the rubbish. Totally different, even though they're almost identical in terms of ecological needs. And both of them were called the farmer's friend because of all the insects that they used to eat. You know, they used to go out during plagues of grasshoppers and chew everything up, did lots of things, and everybody loved them. That has changed now. City dwellers don't like them, I think primarily because they are in bins and things and they're doing undignified things like scrounging around in a bin for scraps or whatever it might be. But from their perspective, this is really, they're being very clever. So the Straw-necked Ibis have 7 different foraging things that they use their beaks for, just 7. And we've discovered now that White Ibis have 16, double the, more than double the number of feeding actions. For example, you know, to eat, how do you get chips out of a bag that's been tossed away? That requires a completely different set of skills than, you know, probing down for worms in the mud. Yeah, so that's the kind of thing that we've come up with. I think the most important thing that we need to understand about the ibis is that they clean up so much of our rubbish and we do a really good job of that very quickly. So we should respect them from that at least, you know. And although lots of people don't like them, plenty of people do like them. I mean, We— I had another student who looked at the cultural side of this kind of thing, and she found that there was lots of overseas students, especially from various countries in Asia, who couldn't believe to see such a large bird commonly walking around. I mean, they don't— the biggest bird in most cities of the world will be a pigeon. These things are much, much bigger than that. So to see them around and very tame and jumping up on your table is not just weird, it's absolutely fascinating to lots of these people. So She looked at all the different sorts of interactions there were, and the commonest interaction of them all, trying to get a selfie with an ibis was the commonest one. I thought it was hilarious.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 47:00
Right.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 47:01
Yeah.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 47:02
Thinking of birds, wild birds on tables, there's a wide belief that we shouldn't feed birds, and yet in one of your books, you've written actually a guide on feeding birds responsibly. Could you give us, tell us your key message about feeding birds responsibly?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 47:20
Yes, this is all part of what I'm trying to do these days. My, I think my motivation to do all the writing and all the speaking and all the things that I do, talking to you right at this moment, it's all about trying to encourage as many people as we can to engage with nature as close as we can. Because it's only when we engage closely with nature in an intimate way, we care about them. And that's what I'm interested in. Connecting with nature. That sounds a very sort of strange thing to say, it's a bit formal, but if you can just get to know animals really close, like the magpies that bring their chicks each year and all that sort of thing. So that's why I've changed my mind about feeding altogether. My objection to feeding was simply that the food that we were giving to people, that people were giving to the birds, was the wrong thing. And that's not their fault, there's nowhere you can go at the moment, there wasn't anywhere to find out what you can feed. You know, if you asked a ranger or the member from the council or something, what should I be feeding my magpies? All that will happen is you'll be berated for feeding them in the first place. You know, it just shouldn't happen. They would say to you. So, and the reason I've changed is because I think bird feeding is one of those, if you do it properly, it's one of the safest and most wonderful expressions of an engagement with wildlife. With nature.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 48:35
Yeah. So doing it properly is key, I imagine. That's right.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 48:39
I'll tell you how to do it properly in a minute. But just simply to be able to have something truly wild come to your place and visit, and then go off and continue on doing its, doing whatever it's doing in its own way, is a fantastic thing. And for some people, that's truly an almost spiritual experience. But the main thing to remember is we can't possibly replicate what nutrition they need. We simply don't know. So give up all notion of that you're providing, trying to provide all the food they need. You don't, you can't, and you won't be able to do it. We just simply don't know. But if they, if you think of it as like a cup of tea and a Tim Tam with your friends, that's all it is. It's a snack. That's not going to be any problem. So that means you don't have to put too much food out. You're going to enjoy it. And most importantly, you're going to keep the thing clean because one of the definite issues is how clean the plate is, if you like. So don't, you know, we do something really weird and artificial when we feed birds. We place all the food in one place every single day and have lots and lots of different birds come. If any of those birds, and some of them will eventually be for sure, they'll be sick and infectious and they'll spread that disease, whatever it might be. So you've got to make sure it's clean all the time. Don't leave old food there. Clean it off every single day, clean the plate, whatever it is that you're putting the stuff on, and just be very careful about that. That's probably the most important thing to say. Provide sensible food for your particular species. So if they're a feed eater, seed eater, then put out some nice seeds that you've been able to find from a good place. If they're fruit eaters, put out some blueberries and apples and whatever it might be. And try a whole lot of different sorts of food, but never too much because you don't want them to become used to you. One of the biggest concerns that lots of people have is that they will become dependent on us. There's no evidence from anywhere in the world that that's the case. That's good news. That's really good to know that. And none of these, none of the, all these birds are sensible enough. They say, well, thanks very much for your whatever it is you've just given me. Now I know that it's just a snack and it'll fill me up a bit, but I'll, it'll give me some energy because it's probably full of sugar. But I'm off now to get my own worms and grubs and whatever it is that I normally eat. Yeah, and they know that, they're not gonna be that stupid, yeah. And again, I'll reiterate, to keep the thing clean, whatever your platform is where you're putting the food, make sure it's absolutely clean every day.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 51:02
Okay, yeah, thanks for those tips. Darryl, can we now talk about your latest book, one of your latest books, The Curlews on Vulture Street? Firstly, where did the title come from?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 51:14
As you all know, this starts with a police officer who says, 'Curlews on Vulture Street?' And that's the point, because curlews, stone curlews, are not the sort of bird you would see downtown in Vulture Street, Brisbane, which is one of those funny— the reason it's famous is because it goes right past the Gabba, the cricket ground. And so you'll often see, 'Are they bowling from the Vulture Street end this time?' You know, that sort of thing., and so lots of people know it from that. But this is not in any way, shape, or form wilderness, you know, it's downtown, grotty, pretty, pretty, you know, pretty built up, absolutely full of people and all that sort of thing. So the very prospect that it would be a stone curlew on Vulture Street seems to be bizarre. And yet here they are. This is a species that is almost extinct in southern Australia, but up here in Brisbane and further north, They are everywhere, they're doing very well, and we don't exactly know why. They're just, they somehow, they're confounding all the sceptics who say it wouldn't ever happen. I mean, they're the most unlikely bird to be a common bird in the city, that's for sure. They really are. So I don't know exactly what's going on. It might have something to do with the fact that like all birds, and I think I mentioned this earlier, like all birds that are going to make it in the city have to abandon their sensible, otherwise sensible ideas about how dangerous people are. Just ignore the people and don't be triggered by them all the time. If you can do that, you can get access to all sorts of resources that normally wouldn't— you wouldn't be able to. So that's one of the reasons. And if they, if they do that, I think they've also become really fearless after that. And then they'll be fearless towards the cats and the dogs and the foxes, which would the normal sorts of things to come and predate their chicks. Because they've got this spectacular display that if you go too near them, I don't know if you've ever experienced this, they put their wings out like really wide, blow themselves up and start hissing at you. Now you'd have to be a very brave person to go any further when they start doing that. This is a big bird.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 53:22
Yes, they're small but they can be very intimidating.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 53:26
Very intimidating, and especially when they blow themselves up, in 3 times their size.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 53:30
Yes.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 53:30
So that might be the reason that they've lost their fear of the predators as well as the people. Yeah.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 53:37
Yes.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 53:37
And so that book is called that. It's primarily this, it starts off with my early days of how on earth did I end up being an urban ecologist because it's not a common thing for people to do. And then it's my adventures primarily in the streets of Brisbane, looking at all those birds we've just mentioned, all the different things and many others as well. Including stuff about the feeding, because that occupied my time for a very long period of time. Lots of investigations in that field. And you'll be pleased to know that there's a sequel, more or less, to Curly's and Bullock Street, and it's the one that I'm promoting right now, called Beewilder. It's Beewilder. Be— there's brackets around the we— be, B-E, and then wilder. And you can use two terms, you can say Beewilder or Beewilder. Which is what is my intention, to get people to be wilder as they possibly can.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 54:32
Yes, can you tell us a bit more about Be Wilder?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 54:35
Be Wilder is more or less the overseas adventures. The ones in Curlews is primarily about being in Brisbane. This is part of my job, was to take students, for example, to Borneo. I went on a postdoc to the Arctic. I've been to Africa, I've been to New Guinea, all kinds of places like that. And that's— so there are stories of encounters with people, encountering animals like bearded pigs and elephants in Borneo, and all sorts of other things as well. And trying to understand what it is when we— how we interact.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 55:10
Great. I think we need another whole episode to discuss some of your key learnings from BYA. Wilder and your overseas experiences. Could you touch on the challenges that you think urban wildlife, the main challenges that urban wildlife are facing, the ones that particularly concern you?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 55:31
Yes, well, what you have to, although I'm concentrating primarily on the birds that have been successful and lived back in where we live, you know, in the suburbs with us, that's a tiny fraction of the birds that would have been there originally. When we transform the bush or a farm or whatever it might be into the suburbs, clear everything, pretty much take down every tree and replace it with, you know, European gardens and houses and swimming pools and roads and cars, virtually nothing can survive that. The only ones that come back when the gardens have grown up a little bit are the things like that we're so familiar with, magpies, Crows, you know, all the birds that I've talked about today. So that's the biggest thing without a doubt across the board for wildlife out in wherever it is and including the suburbs is loss of habitat.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 56:26
Right.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 56:26
Yeah. Yes.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 56:28
And it's so important because I would, and I'm sure many, most other people too, like to believe that when development happens, when land is cleared, development it happens, the wildlife just manages to move away and relocate somewhere else, but it's actually often not the case. They most of them die.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 56:48
The brutal reality is almost all those animals will simply die. If there's forest nearby, it's already full. You know, it's probably been crammed full from the last time there was a clearing just nearby. So there's no— we have to get around the fact— we have to accept, I think, the reality that when we clear lots of land, most of the animals, and it comes in the thousands and thousands of how many will die. And they die, you don't see them because they all get— they're not going to die in front of you. Those, I think if we did, we'd be probably horrified. But still, you know, we certainly need more, we certainly need more housing, but we don't have to do it in the brutal way that we're doing it at the moment. There's plenty of other ways to do that and other other special— specialties in the urban environment, urban ecology environment, are coming up with clever ways to build suburbs that don't have to be so destructive, which is really good.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 57:41
Yeah, interesting. And you encourage people to, when they do landscape around their houses, they landscape using native plants?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 57:50
Yes, absolutely. Not too many grevilleas, because we now know that what happens with— if you put in too many grevilleas and other nectar-bearing plants, you'll only get noisy miners and rainbow lorikeets. That's the trouble. So we need to have a bigger diversity, but these days the nurseries are catching up quick.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 58:05
So you've spent decades researching and also observing wildlife and urban wildlife. What is the main lesson that you've learned that you wish everyone would understand?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 58:17
It's probably as simple or as complex, depending on what your perspective is, of understanding that we are part of nature. We're not above it or superior to it or better than it. If we don't come get to grips with that reality, the fact that we are inexplicably, undeniably part of nature, then we're going to be in worse stuff than we're already in. And that's everything that I'm doing. What I'm trying to do with my Connection Nature activities is all about that. It's all about trying to get people to take that seriously. As soon as you start to realize that you are part of nature, that you're in it, you're a bit of it. That changes everything. Your perspective on many different things will change. You'll be, you won't be able to condone all sorts of activities that are going on at the moment. But that's, I think that's probably my message always.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 59:09
And Darryl, finally, for the audience after they listen to this podcast, what is one small action or one small habit you would encourage people to do for our local wildlife?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 59:23
I'm going to give you 3, now that I've got the opportunity. Drive carefully because there's too many animals get hit on the road. Put out a birdbath because that's not controversial like the feeding. And keep your eyes open because there's— nature is all around us. No matter what, how deeply in the middle of the city you live, there's no doubt that nature is there as well. That's the most important thing.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 59:47
Thank you, Darryl. And Darryl, finally, one last question. How can people find your books?
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 59:52
Um, if you go to my website, which is just Darryl Jones Nature, one word, Darryl Jones Nature, they're all on there and they're all available. But at the moment, they're everywhere. I mean, I can't believe how many bookshops have got them. People have got them all over the place. So yeah, all the books are in there. And my main Australian publisher is New South Books. And if you just go to their website, you'll find me all over the place there as well.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 1:00:15
New South Books. Darryl's been a pleasure, and I would hope you might come back for another episode of Animals and Us and talk about what you've learned about international birds and international wildlife.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 1:00:28
Yes, I would be thrilled to be able to do so. Thank you. Wonderful. Wonderful.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 1:00:33
Thanks very much, Darryl. Animals and Us is a production of Kintsugi Heroes.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 1:00:41
Thank you to Xavier Rudd for his permission to use "Follow the Sun" as our theme music for this series. If you enjoyed this conversation, share the podcast with a friend and let us know by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 1:01:00
If you'd like to support Kintsugi Heroes and the stories we share, head to kintsugiheroes.com.au and follow the instructions to make a tax-deductible donation.
Darryl Jones (Guest) · 1:01:11
Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time. Brand new moon, brand new sun.
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