I live on a rural-residential block in the early stages of development. One of the "benefits" is having your own mob of Eastern Grey Kangaroos and Red-Necked Wallabies to study each morning mowing your lawn (and vegie garden) as your crunch your cornflakes.

This morning I witnessed an interesting interaction between a Pee-Wee (aka Australian Magpie-Lark or Mudlark) and a male Eastern Grey. I don't know who or what started the argument, but essentially my eye from watching Sunrise to the Pee-Wee dive-bombing the roo, and the roo rearing up on its hind legs and pawing at the bird. This continued for about 10 seconds with various dives by the bird and sky-raking by the roo, till the Pee-Wee roosted on a nearby powerbox on the adjacent vacant Lot. The roo ambled up to the box, and continued goading the Pee-Wee in the classic Looney Tunes boxing pose, intermittently with some half-hearted grazing.

As I ran to get the video camera, fantasizing on how I was going to spend the $200 000 from winning Funniest Home Videos, the fight resumed again. Unforunately, auto-focus cameras will not focus thru flyscreen despite no matter how much colorful language you apply, and by the time I ran out to the back verandah, the combatants had departed - the Pee-Wee nowhere to be seen, and the roo back with harem, and me $200 000 short. 

I have seen the same behaviour exhibited by this species in a small patch of remnant trees in open farmland in the Wyong area. Perhaps it has to do with the type of roosting habitat available (no tall trees in this instance) and safety in numbers. This species does everything else en masse (mating, rearing of young), why not dying?

Just thought I'd start a new thread to put in those little tid bits of info we cant put in a report but may be interesting to someone somewhere.

Last nite while spotlighting in some underscrubbed dry sclerophyll, I came across a group of about 20 Noisy Miners. While seeing these birds commonly roosting in pairs or up to 6, i was surprised to see this group sitting in a small (6m) she-oak like Xmas decorations. Birds sat as low as 1.5m above ground to the crown (high enough for a clever fox to get a feed) and did not move even when I was <1m away.