I should pay attention, it's been a tough couple of weeks back on the mainland. I have been feeling a little behind on my documentation of the I live with bird project and overwhelmed with reading students papers and prospective students applications- as a result the usual fear freeze.
After packing up at the John Hart Conservatory Fernando and
I went to look at the monkeys. If you don’t know Launceston then you are
probably doing a bit of a double take at the sentence.
Short story is that City Park has a zoo display of Japanese
Macaques. There is a history of having animal displays in City Park and some
years ago Launceston wanted to keep this tradition and so found the animal most
suited to the weather conditions. Unlike the monkey park in Beppu, the monkeys
are contained behind perspex walls because they have hepatitis.
Saturday was the day the clocks shifted to Eastern Summer
Time; it was also the first day of the monkey being on display till 4:30
(instead of 4). We arrived at about 10 past four. The monkeys were very
restless and soon started milling around the cave in the corner of their
enclosure where the door is their evening enclosure. I think their body clocks where telling them that their keeper was
late. Below are 4 short films of there behaviour during the 20 minutes of
waiting.
Monkey #1: forlorn sitting and pacing
Monkey #2: agitated calls
Monkey #3: temporary abandonment of the waiting game
Fernando and I meet up with Ralph this morning who is the co-coordinator of the Birds Australia Atlas entries in the North of Tasmania. We had a really good conversation about birding and the Tamar Island Wetland site. We were sitting in front of the large observation window so the footage has the aesthetic of a 4 Corners program as though Ralph was a fugitive whose identity needed protecting. The quickest part of the conservation to post is his twitch tip for the Banded Lapwing- occurring more reliably in the north of the state instead of the south.
One of the first bird stories in Launceston was the photo of the Grey Goshawk in The Examiner. I have seen Grey Goshawks, but only the grey morph, which does not occur in Tasmania. I noticed that the photographers had a Spanish last name. As Fernando, (this project curator) is part of the South American diaspora I was wondering whether Launceston was small enough that he would know all the other Spanish speakers in town, so that we could get a chance to see the bird. It is of course, with the photographers being friends of Fernando's sister Amparo. But of course, seeing birds is never guaranteed...
Guest Post by Fernando do Campo, curator of I live with birds
The first
birds I ever cared for were two juvenile pied butcher-birds. Not too young,
early days of fledgling stage – it was my first shot at being a wildlife carer.
The matriarch of ‘Rockhampton Wildlife Rescue’ dropped them off, with cage, pot
of raw (ironically kangaroo) mince and dried insect mix. Jimbo and Joshua, as
they were affectionately named by Hilario my brother, were a certain-to-survive
rescue mission. That woman is partly responsible for my animal addiction. I was
a nerd, a fanatic that could not be on the highway for 5 kms without yelling at
dad to pull-over so that I could check the pouch of a carcass. Art school got
in the way of what I was certain would be a career of wildlife veterinary. Until
very recently I was happy with this and refocused all my energy into the
colourful, sometimes gratifying art world. Raquel Ormella’s project for
Iteration:Again, I live with birds, makes me recall these stories. I don’t
think it’s the reconsideration of career paths or Raquel’s contagious
bird-fever, but rather the revising of priorities and commitments, of things I
love and enjoy.
Fernando and I had a interesting conversation this morning with Bek Verrier about an architecture project she is working on for University. The idea is for a community centre in Adventure Bay on Bruny Island. I'll post some more about that soon but below Bek is talking about how she grew up on an emu farm just outside of Hobart.
Male emus (like male cassowaries) are the ones that sit and brood the eggs.
There have been lots of articles in the Sydney Morning Herald at the moment about swooping Magpies. The photo above comes from a great series by Darren Pateman in Newcastle. From the picture above, you can see that Pateman has a camera mounted in his helmet capturing a series of stills with the Magpie in various positions including an amazing image of the maximum downbeat of the birds wings. This article also has some moving images of the event.
Having grown up in dry woodland country I know exactly the trepidation of having to cross a nesting Magpies territory. There was a pair in the large hockey fields that I had to cross from Kingswood station to the Univeristy of Western Sydney campus. For six weeks I would walk with a automatically-opening fold-up umbrella at the ready to point towards the incoming bird. The 'pop' of the umbrella worked every time to dissuade the bird from attacking me.
One of the things I am enjoying about seeing this common bird in Launceston is that the subspecies here: Cracticus. tibicen hypoleuca is a "White backed" magpie where as the magpies in Sydney are C. tibicen tibicen and are part of the "Black back" group. Anyone know of a swooping male in Launceston?
I have had some feedback that you haven't been able to comment without a Blogger ID. I have changed the settings so hopefully this will not be a problem now. You still might have to fill in the security text - which is to stop spam.
Under the comment box there is a drop down menu which asks for a blogger or google etc account. You don't need one of these- the very last option is anonymous. If you use that option but want to tell me who you are just sign off in the comments box.
thanks!
Thanks to everyone who visited the temporary sound installation in the John Hart Conservatory over the last two Saturdays.
I have heard that for many visitors it was the first time they have visited since the renovation a few years ago. I first saw the conservatory about 4 months ago and don't know what it was like before. I've heard it described as a jungle and a kids adventure wonderland, also that the plants where being vandalised. Does anyone have any photos to share?
send to: raquel.ormella@anu.edu.au
Cycling in to Sawtooth on Friday I heard a mixture of Masked Lapwing (I notice people call them "plovers" here) and Magpie alarm calls. Looking up I saw an adult White-bellied Sea-Eagle being chased and harried. Penny had told me you could sometimes see them over the Gorge, so I was not so surprised to see one, but never the less still find it quiet amazing that an urban centre 60km (?) inland is visited by one of these birds.
post impact from a bold Magpie
It's a bit hard to see in this photo but the belly is a solid white
From the Launceston Examiner Tuesday 13/9/11. Photo by Julian and Oriana Santamaria. I particularly like that that s/he is eating a feral Spotted Turtle-Dove.
I have seen a couple of Grey Goshawks- one who is resident in the Royal National Park south of Sydney and the other in the mangroves near the Cairns airport- however both where the grey morph. Fingers crossed I see Launie's resident. Any tips on a reliable spot for a sighting?
Tamar Islands Wetlands this morning with Liam and Fernando filming. I arrived in Launceston on Monday and since then it been a fairly hectic schedule of work.
For those who follow my blog regularly, my blog has been temporarily taken over by a project I am working on called I live with birds, which is part of a larger exhibition:Iteration:again.
This is just the briefest of posts as its time to sort out a artist talk that I will be giving at the Art School at 12:30.
I went out to visit my parents today and took the chance to dig through some boxes to find some poetry books that I was into when I was a student. I have a student at the moment who is writing poetry and so I wanted to find the sorts of things I was reading when I was her age. (which the time in my life that I now think of as when I was not a birdwatcher, or sometimes I think of it as the time when I didn't realise I was a bird watcher, as I have some many bird associated memories.)
One of the books was a collection of Emily Dickinson poems and flicking through in on the train home I found this one about a robin, a nice synchronicity with my current project.
