High in the mountains of the Wet Tropics, it can be surprisingly cold. Even the birds seem to only really get into a morning spirit when the arriving sun provides some warmth. Just as the first rays shone through, I spotted some rather excited birds – spotted pardalotes. The excitement soon turned to battle with two of the birds engaging in physical combat as a third looked on.The battle was so intense, that soon the birds totally ignored my increasing proximity. It was not long before I was very close and cursing my camera for not focusing, until I suddenly realised that I was so close that I had to put the camera into macro mode. Despite my blasting the birds repeatedly with a strong flash, they rolled around on the ground for several minutes. Once the top bird broke off and flew to perch a few metres away, leaving what looked like a mortally wounded opponent gasping and unable to move on the ground. When I went to pick him up 30 seconds later, he managed to get up and flap to a twig a metre away. A second later he spotted his enemy and took off after him. The birds meet in mid-air, locked together and feel 3 m to the ground, striking the ground with a thud like a dropped orange. Several times they flew up, grappled in mid-air and crashed into the ground. Then they again wrestled in the leaf litter. It would have been 15 minutes before the fight was won. One of the birds flew up into a tree and the other into the opposite side of the tree. Who won, I could not tell. Perhaps it was the weaker bird – an avian Rocky who could take unlimited bashing and still be able to keep coming back. Click photos to enlarge.   A few minutes later, a freshly preened and fully recovered male pardalote landed on a branch in front of me and then flew down into his nest. Shortly he re-emerged, followed by his girl (pictured). Was she the reason for the fight?    When I grew up, bird books told me what birds were. Many of today’s books tell us something about what birds do and this is far more interesting as this allows us to see into their lives. Still, the books do not have it all and the bird watchers that I showed these photos to all told me that they had not seen or heard of such a battle between normally melodious pardalotes. Have you made some observations supported by photos that you would like to post on this site? Send the text and images to FutureOfCairns@iig.com.au