Thoughts And Recollections Of A Tree Spirit

Kookaburra Sits In The Old Gum Tree…

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

…Merry, merry king of the bush is he.
Laugh Kookaburra, laugh kookaburra,
Gay your life must be.

I remember the first time I heard the call of a kookaburra and it was an amazing experience. I thought it sounded a bit like a chimpanzee and it also brought to mind the above little song that my friend Alix Daley taught me when we were about ten. We must have sung it a fair bit for it to stick in my head all this time, even though neither of us had been to Australia or knew what a kookaburra actually sounded like. We lost touch a long time ago but I wanted to mention it, just in case she ever happens to stroll past this post (unlikely i know), and say that whenever I hear the kookaburras laughing it reminds me of her and this little song. Good friends are never forgotton.

Anyway, back to my main reason for this post. I have been trying to capture the call of a kookaburra on video since I arrived in Australia but somehow every time I got my camera out they would tail off and go quiet. Then I was finally rewarded back in July when Mat, Tom and I were on our campervan tour of Albany to Perth, Western Australia.

I took this video clip just after we’d set up camp at Alexandra Bridge on our way from Pemberton to Margaret River. It had just gone dark and we were in the middle of cooking our evening meal when the most amazing cacophany ensued. It started in one tree, then a kookaburra from another tree joined in and so on, until we were completely surrounded by maniacal laughter. I listened for quite a while before I remembered to grab my camera and start filming. Fortunately they were in no mood to be quiet and I got a good example before they moved further away.

After the kookaburras’ main show you then get a demonstration of other animal noises (lol!), and Tom’s opinion on the fantastic birds! Please don’t judge him on his bizarre ideas about wildlife though, he is a lovely lad really :-)

29.10.2008 Australian Flora & Fauna, Personal, Videos No Comments

Art, Food For The Soul

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008

Art – it is such an ambiguous word and can describe many things, from music to a painting to simply a wonderful landscape, at least in my opinion, art can be whatever you want it to be if it brings you joy.

Whatever your take on art, it is definitely food for the soul and for the past year or more I have had the urge to create some of my own art. I have dabbled over the years in many different crafts but just recently got re-motivated to get out the acrylics by a course that was being run at the local college. It was a short course, just two evenings, on aboriginal art, but I have been so fascinated by the types of paintings that the aboriginals create and the deep stories and legends behind them that I was really inspired to give it a go. I also thought it might help loosen my artist’s block (my excuse for thinking about painting a lot but never actually picking up the brush) and help me find my muse.

However, after spending a whole week really looking forward to it, it was not to be. I had a phone call last Thursday to say that the tutor had unfortunately had to pull out due to personal reasons and that only two people had signed up so it was unlikely to have gone ahead anyway.

Very disheartened, I started to think about whether there were any other courses I could do instead and had a flip through the college pamphlet when I got home. After much deliberation I decided on (more…)

22.10.2008 Personal, Photography, Pictures 3 Comments

Nesting Season For Our Pied Currawongs

Sunday, October 19th, 2008

One of the most exciting things of being in a different country for me is all the different wildlife. This is something I have meant to make many posts on but have not really done the topic any justice yet.

I thought I would make a quick post on a wonderful, truely majestic type of bird that is common to our area in the Northern Beaches and that is the Currawong. To be specific, the Pied Currawong. It is a corvid and is somewhere inbetween a British Magpie and a Crow. They have the most wonderfully sleek clean lines and a strong powerful beak that is long and full with a slight hook to the tip.

We have a pair nesting in a Palm tree near our balcony and every time we feed the lorikeets (they need a post of their own) they come and watch closely until they think we aren’t watching and then dive in and steal the food. We decided to start feeding them too, bits of bread dipped in leftover meat fat and juices, to encourage them to leave the lorikeets alone and now they are in regular attendance on our balcony. One has even got close enough to snatch a bit directly out of our hands.

However, the common is for us to throw the bread, which they then snatch out of the air as they dive past. I tried to capture this on film to demonstrate but had varying results:

(more…)

19.10.2008 Australian Flora & Fauna, Personal, Pictures, Videos 1 Comment

Lots of Rain in the UK Again!

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

We had a fair bit of rain in Sydney today, all over the area in fact and after working hard in the morning, much to everyone’s delight, we got off work early again today.

I thought I would take the opportunity of the extra time and make a much needed post on my blog. There are many things I could and should write about but the current weather has brought to mind some pictures my bro sent me four weeks ago:

At first I couldn’t work out what it was and from the title “Haggard Manor” initially thought they were pictures of an old disused house we had nick-named as such. (more…)

14.10.2008 Personal, Pictures 3 Comments