Where the Wombats Are

30 March 2008
Museum of Australia
Lake Burley Griffin
Canberra, ACT

I’m sitting in the hall of the Gallery of the First Australians at the National Museum of Australia, listening to Phillip Brown play the didjeridu. It’s a really haunting, mesmerizing sound.

I asked him how they make them. He says the one he’s playing is made of bloodwood and that they are actually quite easy to make. I couldn’t figure out how that could be, given the length of the branch (3-4 feet) and its thickness (5-6” diameter). But he said that he just cuts the ends and taps it on the ground and the insides just fall right out – ants have done all the work of hollowing it out.

He had me help him water up the didjeridu. He pulled out a large tortoise shell, perhaps 2 feet long, and turned it upside down on the floor, making a large dish. I thought it was to be for tips. But then he handed me his bottle of water and as he placed his palm over one end, he tipped the other end up to me and told me to pour the water right in. I had poured about ¼ of the small bottle before he told me to stop. Then he clamped his other palm over my end and sloshed the water back and forth, up and down, about a half dozen times and then emptied the water into the upturned tortoise shell.

He then pulled out a curved piece of bark about a foot long – like a half cylinder ro a canola shell cut in half lengthwise. He put the end of the didjeridu in this cradle on the floor and began to play. The difference the water made was definitely noticeable – a richer, deeper, more vibrant sound, less raspy. And I saw that the little bark cradle was neatly catching the drips of water still leaking out.

I’d thought that was the purpose of the cradle until he began to turn the angle of it with the bottom of the didjeridu and his foot and I could hear how the bark cradle directed the sound very specifically. Combined with the acoustics of the room we were in, the slight change sof direction of the bark cradle dramatically changed the dynamics of the sound.

He took out a couple of paris of short sticks, maybe a foot long and about as thick as sthe handlebars on your bike. He handed them to a couple of kids and had them tap out a beat along with him. He himself had pulled out a boomerang and was tapping on the side of the didjeridu with it as he played.

As the leaking water in the bark sleigh began to dribble on the floor, he pulled out a red kangaroo skin and tossed it on the floor, moving the bark sleigh on top and creating quite a timeless still life at his feet of didjeridu, raw bark, and upturned tortoise shell, on top of kangaroo skin.

It’s a mesmerizing sound by itself. Deeply hypnotic – like the sound of the earth breathing.

I’m out here now on the sunny north deck of the National Museum, on the shores of the lake. The nights have become quite chilly and the days cool and the birds are flying north for the winter. But it is quite warm sitting in the bright northern sun this afternoon. A “fine” day to be sure. “Fine” being among the standard lexicon of weather personnel here, as opposed to “sunny”. The national weather forecast reported each day on ABC Classic FM (my radio station of choice – you can listen too and get to know the personalities I’ve become familiar with: http://www.abc.net.au/classic/) goes something like “Sydney, 26 and showers; Brisbane, 28 and fine; Canberra, 23 and fine; Perth, 35 and fine; Melbourne, 24 and partly cloudy, etc. – well not much more etc, really. Adelaide, Darwin and sometimes Newcastle are the only other cities they cover.

I think I might come down here to the museum more often to write. It’s a pleasant environment on the lakeshore. And there is also a great hall indoors with plenty of tables and chairs for when the weather is less than “fine”. And they have a café with hot and cold food and drink. To be clear, this is the National Museum of Australia – a museum of popular culture rather than fine art. As I mentioned, there’s the Gallery of First Australians (history and artifacts of aboriginal culture) and there are other exhibits on science and space and a temporary exhibition on the history of Australian rugby. (http://www.nma.gov.au/index.html)

By contrast, yesterday I was at the National Gallery of Art. That’s the museum of fine art. I was there with Gabriele and Warren and a visiting colleague of hers and his wife. We went to hear a lecture by another colleague of Gabriele’s and mine, Sasha Grishin, who is a professor of art history at ANU and contributed to her symposium and book on Uncertainty and Risk (http://www.earthscan.co.uk/?tabid=331). She brought together people from a variety of disciplines and sectors to explore the different ways that uncertainty is dealt with by economists, infectious disease specialists, law enforcement, intelligence experts, jazz improvisationists, historians, statisticians, politicians and such. Sasha contributed the perspective of uncertainty in the artistic process – highlighting the work of Australian artist John Wolsley (http://www.johnwolseley.net/) who enjoys playing with uncertainty by creating a drawing or painting, tearing it in half and burying half under a rock or log for a while. He then retrieves the piece to discover the patters of color and texture of natures processes as well as the curious trails of bugs and other unknown effects. He then bridges those patterns with the other half.

But yesterday Sasha was discussing “Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin and the Russian tradition of landscape art” – focusing on one of his landscapes included in the current exhibition “Turner to Monet: The Triumph of Landscape” (http://www.nga.gov.au/Home/08-AUTUMN/). We went partly to support Sasha, and strengthen relations with him, but the lecture was surprisingly meaningful to me in a variety of ways.

Sasha focused on the Russian tendency (or need) to have their landscapes be spiritually engaging (more so than their European counterparts, according to Sasha). This theme of the talk and the accompanying exemplary images lured me into a state of far greater attention that I’d expected to be in. I allowed myself to let go and submerge my mind and soul into the spiritual depth of the paintings. I found it extremely pleasant – not necessarily peaceful or comfortable, but meaningful. The spiritual questions I found myself considering and the exploration of the process of creating physical artifacts, the motivation of which is to both express feelings, emotions and a sense of truth as well as to cause/elicit that experience in others THROUGH the work – well, the questions and explorations were all deeply satisfying. I felt very clear that it was time well spent – a little gift for my soul. Not a spiritual epiphany in any way, but the sort of centering and grounding that a good worship service or sincere prayers can provide. The sort of feeling you get when you are in the middle of a very good book – aware of how much you are enjoying it and pleased that you are only partway through and thus have more to look forward to.

This led to my recognition that it had been a very long time since I’d thoroughly given myself over to an experience, however brief or insignificant. As I explored this realization, I came to the conclusion that the quietness of life in Canberra – the lack of frenzy and speed and explosion of activity and volume of personalities that characterize urban life – has freed my mind and soul from general distraction in a way that has allowed me to go deeper into my experiences, even ones as simple as a 45 minute lecture on a Russian landscape painter. Perhaps it is that with less happening, less that requires my attention or alertness, I am more likely to believe that I can let my guard down for a minute and actually focus intently on something. That I can give it my full attention without worrying that some new, urgent thing will pop up any second or that there is so much on my plate that I can only really value the lecture as time to run through my mental lists and catch up on prioritizing my tasks to prepare for the next developments or to avoid catastrophes.

But yesterday I did not feel such a need. I comfortably submerged myself in Shishkin and Russian spiritual landscape painting and the pleasant awareness of how effortless it can be to create deep personal value out of all kinds of unexpected circumstances if the larger environment has been cleared of real and ambient distractions.

23 March 2008
My office at NCEPH, ANU
Acton, ACT

I’ve been developing a list in my head of some of the little things that are different about Australia (or Canberra in particular – I’m not exactly sure).

• Cars stop at crosswalks – of course they sort of have to because most of the crosswalks are raised (flush with the sidewalks) so they force a slow-down anyway – I’m consistently surprised to find people waiting for me to cross
• Sidewalks are called footpaths
• they don’t wax their cucumbers
• many toilets have an option for a half-flush
• taxi drivers expect you to sit up front with them – all part of the egalitarian, classless society they have tried to build
• the big paper is on Saturday instead of Sunday
• tables at casual restaurants usually have numbers on stands and you place your order at the counter and they bring it to you
• all the rubbish bins are issued by the government: each house has two tall, dark green bins (4’ tall) one for garbage (skinnier) and one for recycling (wider, with a yellow lid)
• everybody wears “thongs” everywhere (these are flips-flops, not underwear)

Hmmm… there were more, but I can’t remember them at present.

23 March 2008
My office at NCEPH, ANU
Acton, ACT

Okay, here I am, picking things up the next day. I had a delightful walk back down the hill (oh, excuse me, “mount”), made especially so by a couple of encounters with kanagroos! I was very much alone on the path and first came across a lone male roo foraging about on his own. He sat/stood up and we looked at each other calmly for quite a long time. He scratched his belly, so I scratched mine. He scratched his arm, so I scratched mine. He seemed to recognize what I was doing and perceived me as non-threatening and went back to foraging. I stepped closer and closer and he periodically sat up. He was as about as tall as me and I noticed his very large, long, sharp claws on his paws. He could easily have seriously hurt me if he’d wanted to, but I never felt threatened. I just sat and watched him for a while (from about 40 feet away). Eventually I moved further on down the track and a short while later came across a small family of roos. There were a few smaller ones, who eyed me curiously and looked back and forth between me and the larger one furthest from me. The male at the back kept an eye on me, while the larger female, closer to me, eyed me briefly, determined I was mostly harmless, and went back to foraging. I think the two younger ones were just interested in what I was as they kept their eyes on me as I followed the road/path as it curved around the patch of light forest they were in.

Again I sat and hung out with the family for a bit. I really like their shape, their fur, their thick tails, their muscular arms, their big ears, their large eyes (full of personality, like horses). It was great to just sit there and observe and be observed. It is always a cool experience to be so close to something so large in the wild. But kangaroos are somehow different than deer or other large animals I’ve been close to in North America. Perhaps it is the paws instead of hooves. Probably more it is the calm and confidence and curiosity of the roos that makes them seem like they have more personality. Deer are always nervous and run away quickly. The roos, however, seem to treat me as a fellow traveler in the forest.

Okay, let’s see, what else have I been doing. Well, last Friday I went to a free film festival down at the National Museum of Australia. “Lights! Canberra! Action!” was a special contest as part of the Canberra Festival (associated with Canberra Day – anniversary of founding of Canberra). This was the fifth year of the contest for local filmmakers. On the 29^th of February the theme of the contest was announced along with a list of a ten items that must be included in the film. Filmmakers then had 10 days to write, film and edit their production before submitting on the 10^th of March. The top 12 films were screened on the 14^th – which is the event that I attended.

Each of the films were about six or seven minutes long and most were humorous, though there were a few artistic ones. It was a great way for me to get a little eclectic introduction to Canberra and a sense of how Canberrans view themselves. It would be too hard to describe all the films, but you can see a list here: http://www.eormedia.com.au/lca/toptwelve.htm

What may be interesting, however is to describe the items that were required for inclusion. Here were the instructions:

Ten items from around Canberra will give your film extra points. These items will
usually have something to do with the competition’s theme, which this year is
‘Y’
2008 is the 100th anniversary of the selection of Canberra
as the site to be the Nation’s Capital and as we approach the Centenary
of Canberra in 2013, we remember the selection, planning and building of our city
with the theme of ‘y’ – Why Canberra? Y-axis? Why? Y! Interpret as you will!

The 2008 Items have been announced. They are:

• A Yowie (for copyright reasons, don’t use the chocolate)
• An ACT Vehicle Number Plate (starting with Y)
• Y-fronts
• King O’Malley (The ‘Yank’)
• The Yarralumla Woolshed
• Y-Audio: DOWNLOAD (left click to listen, right click to save)
• Canberra’s Y Plan
• The National Museum of Australia (‘Yesterday’)
  Any part of the Museum or something from the Museum’s collection will count
• Australian American War Memorial
  Call 6265 3343 first if going up close
• Yarralumla Bay

A Yowie is like the Australian equivalent of the North American Sasquatch/Yeti/Bigfoot. I thought that the inclusion of a car license plate with a “Y” in it was curious, but then the next day, when I started looking around, I realized that all the ACT license plates start with Y (each state starts with a different letter). Y-fronts are, well, in the US they’d be called “tighty-whiteys” or briefs. King O’Malley was a member of parliament and became Minister of Home Affairs, where he played a key role in the selection of Canberra as the site of the capital of Australia (in 1908) and declaring architect Walter Burley Griffin (of Boston) as winner of the planning competition (Canberra is a totally intentionally constructed city). O’Malley’s is also a pub in Canberra. The Yarralumla Woolshed was built in 1904 in the suburb of Yarralumla – it’s now available for hire for events and is in the midst of a public park. Y-Audio was just a funny bit of chat with words starting with Y and finishing with the radio identification of 666 ABC Canberra (“triple six” – any instance of more than one number is spoken as “double” or “triple” never “six, six, six” or “two, two”). Canberra’s Y-Plan for the city layout was created by Walter Burley Griffin (above) and is formed by the suburb of Tuggeranong at base with Belconnen northwest and Gungahlin northeast; and on a smaller scale, Parliament House at base with BlackMountain northwest and Mt.<Ainslie northeast. The National Museum of Australia is a museum of popular culture with a very interesting architecture. The Australian American War Memorial is a key site in Canberra, commemorating the assistance of America in protecting Australia from the Japanese in World War II (if you open all the doors from the prime ministers office all the way to the front door of parliament house, you can see directly across the lake to the war memorial). Yarralumla Bay is a little inlet of Lake Burley Griffin.

How’s that for a little Canberra introduction. I wish the films were available online. It was a fun introduction – lots of the humor was beyond me, but the bits that I did get gave me a sense of what Canberrans find amusing about themselves and their city. For example, it’s apparently impossible to find a cab in Civic on a Saturday night, everyone thinks the Gungahlin extension (roadway) has taken far too long to build, and poor Canberra gets picked on by the rest of Australia for being really boring.

Okay, I’m going to take a break. Next up, my list of little things that are different about Australia (or Canberra, at least).

22 March 2008
Summit of Mt. Ainslie

Pictures from Mt. Ainslie walk

I’ve just climbed up to the top of Mt. Ainslie – a whopping 842 meters. A pleasant, if mildly dull, walk. Reddish/orange dirt. Dry grasses and small trees – scribbly gums and she-oak. No furry critters, just birds. Mostly magpies and ravens and quite a few lorikeets and crimson rosellas. I did see a noisy friarbird though. There were a few Indian Myna birds and I think I saw a yellow thornbill (small, sparrow size with yellow breast).

I’ve gotten behind on writing. Sorry. Mostly because I haven’t been taking any pictures. And I haven’t done much – mostly just work and reading. I’ve been enjoying reading, but it’s not that interesting to write about – though I suppose I could give a little annotated bibliography. I think I’ve mentioned some of the early ones. Right now I’m in the middle of Alan Greenspan’s autobiography, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World. A little too interesting for me – got me wondering whether I should have been an economist. Also some interesting reflections on various presidents (Nixon and Clinton were smartest, from Greenspan’s perspective). I’m also in the midst of a book called Discovering: Inventing Solving Problems at the Frontiers of Scientific Knowledge by Robert Root-Bernstein. It is written in the form of journals and transcripts of conversations with half a dozen scientists discussing, systematically, how scientists actually discover things – exploring things usually outside the domain of the scientific method including the role of creative thinking, play, serendipity, politics and personality.

As far as Gabriele’s eclectic Australia bibliography, I’ve just finished Joe Cinque’s Consolation. It was an unsettling account of the murder of a young ANU engineering student by his neurotic ANU law student girlfriend right here in sleepy Canberra. She killed him with quite a few doses of Rohypnol and an overdose of heroin once he was unconscious (he’d never done heroin before). What’s so compelling about the story is that she told dozens of people that she was going to do it. Some people even helped get the drugs. But nobody tried to stop her, nobody else was convicted of anything, and she only spent 4 years in jail (or “gaol” as it is called here). The author, Helen Warner, did an amazing job of exploring the mind-boggling social, psychological, legal, ethical and moral dimensions of this unbelievable crime.

Before that, I finished an autobiography of Brett Whitely, one of Australia’s most well known artists. He was a classic artist, in that he had a wacky personality, a drug habit, and a semi-mysterious death. The book was an unauthorized biography (Brett Whitely: An Unauthorized Life) and so there were no pictures of his art. Plenty of descriptions of it, but I decided no to look up his art til I was finished. In fact, I still haven’t seen any of it. I suppose I will when I post this to the blog and link to his web page. His last house/studio has been turned into a gallery/museum which I plan to visit when I have a weekend in Sydney next month.

Before that, I finally finished Creating a Nation – a history of Australia primarily from the perspective of women and aboriginal people. It’s amazing the importance put on breeding (for want of a better word). Increasing the white population was an obsession for many years. It seemed that Australians were legitimately deeply afraid that the Asian hordes would come from the north and take over Australia. There was also a great deal about the battles regarding women’s right to work and how their lower wage work was a threat to men’s wages. Actually the whole bit about labor really helped explain some of the egalitarianism here. I’ve never read a women’s history of America. This made me want to.

Before that was Ten Prime Ministers: Life among the politicians, by Wallace Brown (journalist) – my introduction to Australian politics. I’ll just list them the way Wally does (when I get back and can find his list – because my memory isn’t perfect on the order):

1. Robert_Menzies, the most accomplished politician and parliamentarian.
2. Harold Holt, a most courteous and capable lieutenant who had spent too long in Menzies’ shade. [and who disappeared off a beach after just a few months in office – never to be found]
3. John McEwen, the most single-minded and strong-willed.
4. John Gorton, the first modern Australian nationalist larrikin in the job.
5. William McMahon, the most disappointing.
6. Gough Whitlam, the most innovative, self-confident and erratic.
7. Malcolm Fraser, the most controversial and complex.
8. Bob Hawke, the most egotistical but a good chairman of the Cabinet board.
9. Paul Keating, the savage big-picture man who liked to live dangerously.
10. John Howard, the most conservative, and the most tenacious, under-estimated survivor.

And now we have Kevin Rudd. Then there was Dirt Music – a thoroughly enjoyable fictional tale by Tim Winton with characters complex enough to make the reading thoughtful and trigger some self-reflection.

Aaaggh, clouds and rain coming in and I’ve got a long walk back. Will finish later.

Caryn

7 March 2008
Canberra Theatre
Civic, ACT

Well tonight was my first foray into the arts culture in Canberra. A colleague with season tickets to the Australian Chamber Orchestra was going to be “interstate” (i.e., away) over the weekend and offered me their tickets. The orchestra was going to be playing with vocalist Katie Noonan, on a tour titled “Sublime.” Katie would be singing a program ranging from Handel and Purcell to Amy Winehouse and Radiohead. I didn’t know what to expect.

I invited Gabriele to join me, and she and Warren invited me to dinner at Sammy’s Kitchen – a stunningly popular Chinese Malaysian restaurant in Civic (i.e. downtown). The place was mobbed and I shortly learned why. I let Gabriele and Warren order – very smart move. The food was really excellent. As Slade will tell you, I’ve gotten a bit fussy about restaurants these days, and I haven’t been a particular fan of Chinese food. But Gabriele and Warren informed me that Chinese food in America is quite a different experience – “not the same thing at all.” And more right they could not have been.

We had soft-shelled crabs, lightly fried in a pepper crust with garlic and scallions. We had a bowl of green vegetables, which sounds uneventful, but the snow peas, asparagus, spinach and snap peas were steamed to absolutely perfection with a tiny bit of a peanut glaze. And the final dish was okra and prawns in some sort of Malaysian chili seasoning, which was a totally new flavor to me. I’m not a food writer, so I’m not going to enable you to taste this meal along with me. Let me just say that unlike my common experience with American Chinese, which I often find to be heavy, saucy, salty and occasionally a kick in the gut (either going down, or later), every one of these dishes was very fresh, light, flavorful, texturally diverse, and friendly.

After dinner we stopped in to a chocolate shop (Koko Black) for Gabriele to get her fix. She got a pistachio chocolate. Warren got a chili chocolate truffle and I got a Belgian truffle. Chocolate and I don’t often get along, but hanging around with Gabriele it’s hard to avoid. I will say, however, that with her it is always the really good stuff – and that seems to agree with me.

On to the Canberra Theatre. It is a pretty new theatre with lovely simple décor and very comfortable seats. But the conductor opened his remarks with a joke about the theatre and its acoustics, which I didn’t get until the interval when I got chatting with a colleague of Gabriele’s who said that the chamber orchestra normally performs in Llewellyn Hall over at the music school at ANU, but that a terrible hailstorm last year and damaged the roof beyond repair and all the groups have been scrambling to find other places to play and that the Canberra Theatre really wasn’t appropriate for this type of music – more of a dramatic theatre from what I can tell. (was that really all one sentence? sorry)

So, Katie Noonan. Beautiful voice. Clarity and quality of tone were lovely. But…ummm…thin. Like she was holding back, or tired, or like she’d never had her heart really broken. I kept getting the feeling that the style of singing that she’d chosen to specialize in – light, melancholy, whispery – just wasn’t the best showcase for her talent (or in many cases for the music she’d chosen). I’m not sure what would better, but I kept thinking of my friend Jan (Hi Jan). Jan’s been singing punk rock for decades, and she’s got a fabulous voice. But every time I see her I get this little voice in my head saying “Yeah, but she’d be an amazing folk singer.” I guess I wanted hear Katie sing a Mozart birdsong type thing. I think her voice would have been perfect for that.

The orchestra was very enjoyable. About a half dozen violins, another six violas, three cellos, a double bass and a harp. The most striking thing to hit me in their pieces without Katie (a few right before and after the interval) was how long it has been since I’ve been to a live concert. I’ve been listening to nothing but ABC Classic FM since I got here, but I was overwhelmed tonight by the physicality of the live performance – the energy, expression, motion, conversation of the players. The musicians were all standing except the cellos and the harpist. It was wonderful. The body movements were so much more expressive than I remember when musicians are sitting. They would bend their knees and dig way down underneath some notes and scoop them up with their bows and then zoom up to their tippy-toes, reaching for the delicately intense sparkling notes at the treetops. They would fall back into a tempered “at ease” – letting their breath and muscles out like a summer breeze through a shirt on a clothesline (still attached, but unstarched), shaking their trousers and ankles every so slightly. Then they would slowly shuffle-step themselves back into a firmly balanced stance in anticipation of their next entrance – either to deliver an explosive attack of sound or to gently spin a spider’s web of a note so whisper thin it required every muscle.

The arrangements and selections ended up producing a program that sounded somewhat homogeneous, but there was enough diversity, physical energy, and non-verbal conversations among musicians that overall the evening was a very entertaining experience.

I hope I will be able to get to more music in the coming months, but it is expensive here, like it is in the states. Perhaps I will investigate being an usher? Maybe I could volunteer and get to attend (like Blue Man Group).

That’s it for tonight. Off to bed. It’s a holiday weekend (Canberra Day on Monday) and Robyn and Liam and Buzz went to Sydney. So I’m looking forward to spending the weekend by the pool and reading, reading, reading. I love reading and I feel like I haven’t been able to do it for years. It’s supposed to be warm, finally. I’m peaceful.

Ciao for now,

Caryn

3 March 2008
Pool House
Lyneham, ACT

David and I snuck out for a long lunch today and walked up to the Australian National Botanic Gardens. I treated him to lunch and he treated me to a thoroughly engaging tutorial walk through the gardens to spot and hear birds.

Our first stop was the bookshop where I picked up the Field Guide to the Birds of the ACT and a little Pocket Guide to The Birds of Canberra. The woman at the desk recognized David from the Canberra Ornithologists Group. David recognized Sue as well, though apparently she hadn’t been active in a decade or so. Nevertheless he remembered her fondly as one of the young and active members who really got COG out into the community – setting up stalls at various Canberra fairs and events with sample nests and eggs to attract visitors. David mentioned to Sue that he’d just finished his “reports” on 27 birds and she chuckled knowingly. I smiled, unknowingly.

Over lunch, David revealed the mystery of the “reports” – all the birders take a section of the physical territory – often approximately 2 minutes by 2 minutes (of longitude and latitude) and do quarterly surveys to identify all the types of birds they spot in that area. They also collect miscellaneous reports from non-members and special sightings, etc. All the information goes into a giant database and once a year they split up the birds, download all the data from the region and do a summary. So what David meant was that he spent the weekend downloading data, importing it into his statistical analysis software, analysing it and writing up a report on each of 27 birds. The reports from everyone get compiled into a single book for the region and the data is also used for national level reporting. Apparently the Australian birding community has the longest running tracking of any type of animal. So long that they’ve been able to contribute the data to analyses related to climate change and such. Impressive. I asked David if there were any surprises this year. He said that the most interesting and exciting thing is seeing the recovery in many bird populations. There was a massive fire here in 2003 and thousands of acres were destroyed (I think I mentioned that in my Tidbinbilla post). Some bird populations were thought lost forever, but David says that they are finally starting to come back in a healthy way.

I also discovered over lunch that David has tracked his family history back to Scotland as well and his family was less than 60 miles away from where my great great great great great great grandparents John and Betty More came from! Our lunch was accompanied by my first birding lesson as we were surrounded by a small family of about a dozen white-winged choughs (pronounced like “chuffs”). They look kind of like crows, but when they spread their wings they are white on the inside. And their beaks are longer than crows and curved. Apparently they are one of those rare species in the animal kingdom that are cooperative breeders. The whole group raises one or two young. And if there aren’t enough folks in the family, they go and kidnap birds from other families to be helpers. Especially odd is the fact that if the dominant male has his back turned and one of the younger males sneaks in for a quickie with the missus and it results in a chick, the dominant male will still supervise the raising of it. Flies right in the face of all the theories about the selfish gene and the drive to populate the country with only your offspring.

Shortly we headed out for a walk along the main path (the checkered line on this map), which was easily identifiable by its pebbled texture, which allowed us to easily stroll through the full complement of habitats without a map. I knew very little about the plants. David began to enlighten me in between bird sightings, but I don’t remember a thing about them now. Sorry. The first bird we saw was a crimson rosella diving through the brittle gums (a species of eucalypt with very white trunks and silvery green strips of leaves way up high – oh, I guess I did remember some of the plants). The crimson rosella is what we might call a parrot because of its shape and colouring (brilliant red and blue), but it is smaller. While I’m looking for things flying around, David exclaims softly, “oh, look, there’s a kookaburra.” I follow his pointing finger and szwooble my eyes around for a bit til I spot it on an open branch. It’s bigger than I thought. It’s amazing how you can miss something right in front of you when you are looking for something smaller! I think the reason I thought it was smaller is because I remember reading that it was part of the kingfisher family and I always thing of those as reasonably small birds – you could close your fingers over a kingfisher if the bird was in your hand. But this bird was definitely a two-hander! It had the long, strong, straight bill and the classic neckless look of the kingfisher family – like somebody in the assembly department had a liquid lunch and attached the wrong head for the body.

Aha, a pied currawong just landed outside my doorway! And I know exactly what it is!!

That was a very exciting moment during the walk, actually. Earlier at lunch I was looking up the white-winged choughs in my bird book. They are on the page of “black and white birds,” and the pied currawong was on the same page. So I had spent a minute distinguishing between those and the choughs and the ravens and the magpies and the magpie larks (the “mini-magpies” of a previous post). So on our walk, when I spotted one, I gingerly, timidly offer my identification of “pied currawong” to David. “Exactly!” he said, with the kind of earnest and encouraging sincerity and delight only a teacher or true lover of birds could muster – the unrestrained joy of bringing a novice into the magnificent world of birds. It was quite exciting for me really. “It must be funny for you, having me get so excited about spotting what is the equivalent of a pigeon for you.” But I could only sense from him what I can only imagine must be akin to what a proud parent feels as their children learns about something they themselves love.

Okay, more birds. After the kookaburra, “laughing kookaburra” to be precise (I knew the song from my childhood, and if you don’t, here’s a recording of the music and the lyrics so you can do your own karaoke), we heard the next bird before we saw it. David identified the call and shortly thereafter the red wattle bird came zooming through. It is an elegant, sleek, silver spotted creature with a little red spot on its neck. As we arched around the back of the gardens we heard more than we saw, but then a New Holland honeyeater crossed our path. The honeyeater has a longish beak for getting at nectar in the flowers. It is smaller than the red wattle bird (definitely a one-hander), also slim, but with more pronounced black streaks on its white breast, a black eye mask, darkish grey wings and then a brilliant splash of bright oriole yellow at the tips of its wings. Beautiful. All of these three birds were totally new to me. “Lifers” David called them. “The first one you’ve seen in your life. You see a lot of lifers early on.”

As we finished up our walk I made my first identification – the pied currawong! And then we saw one of my favorites – the superb fairy-wren. A tiny little thing (two in the hand wouldn’t be much trouble) with stunningly bright blue cheeks, cap and cape. Wait, there’s probably a name for that part of the body… book check! Okay, that would be “stunningly bright cheeks, crest and nape” to be precise. We also saw a fair number of what David teasingly called LBJs. Silly me, I thought it was going to have something to do with Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson, but apparently that’s what folks around here call “Little Brown Jobs” (aka LBB “little brown birds”) – they all look the same: little and brown. Example

And that was my lunch at the Australian National Botanic Gardens!

On my way home I saw a bunch more of the birds I see every day. Now, armed with my book, I can give you their proper names:

Pied Currawongs
Sulphur-crested Cockatoos
Galahs
Magpies
Magpie Larks
Ravens
Australian Wood Ducks
Crimson Rosellas<br />

And I found the name of the crazy looking thing I saw down on the river the other day: a Purple Swamphen (more photos here). Looks like a kid drew it and God took a look, after a few cocktails, and said, “Ha, ha! What’s that? Sure, what the hell…”

Okay, that’s it for birds for me today.