south-eastern Australia in the honeyeater family. It is grey with a
black head, orange-yellow beak and feet, a distinctive yellow patch
behind the eye and white tips on the tail feathers. Its almost constant
vocalizations, particularly from young birds, include a large range of
calls, scoldings and alarms. Primarily inhabiting dry, open eucalypt
forests without understory shrubs, noisy miners are gregarious and
territorial; they forage, bathe, roost, breed and defend territory
communally, forming colonies of up to several hundred birds. Birds that
live close to each other form stable associations called coteries.
Temporary flocks are formed for activities such as mobbing a predator.
The noisy miner is an aggressive bird, chasing, pecking, fighting,
scolding, and mobbing both intruders and colony members throughout the
day. The bird's numbers have increased significantly in many locations
across its range, particularly in human-dominated habitats in which
avian diversity has decreased.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noisy_miner>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1670:
A Royal Charter granted the Hudson's Bay Company a monopoly in
the fur trade in Rupert's Land.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson%27s_Bay_Company>
1757:
Konbaung forces captured the city of Bago, Burma, to end the
Konbaung–Hanthawaddy War.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konbaung%E2%80%93Hanthawaddy_War>
1945:
World War II: General Helmuth Weidling, commander of the German
troops in Berlin, surrendered the city to Soviet forces led by Marshal
Georgy Zhukov, ending the Battle of Berlin (Soviet soldiers pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Berlin>
1986:
Henri Toivonen was killed in an accident while leading the Tour
de Corse rally, resulting in FISA banning the popular Group B rally cars
for the following season.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Toivonen>
2011:
Osama bin Laden was shot and killed by U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6 in
a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Osama_bin_Laden>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
mental gymnastics:
1. Difficult and complex logical thought processes.
2. (pejorative) Inventive, complex arguments used to justify unjustifiable
decisions, or situations.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mental_gymnastics>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
No explanation is required for Holy Writing. Whoso speaks truly is
full of eternal life, and wonderfully related to genuine mysteries does
his Writing appear to us, for it is a Concord from the Symphony of the
Universe.
--Novalis
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Novalis>
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