A menace of Mynas

Meanwhile back in Australia Andrew has been taking some picture of Indian Mynas for me to work with. I love his observation notes of this specific twitch:

Stalked mynahs in the South Melbourne Market’s carpark for an hour, baiting them with bits of sausage roll. I have sausage roll grease coating the inside of my mouth and my hands. No luck at Macca’s or at the Preston Market. Weird. Walked around the streets of Preston south and thought a lot about ideal mynah habitats. Noticed that they like to perch places and bounce their calls off hard surfaces like tile or brick. They like open areas in the sun, with a good lookout above. They don’t go as high as crows, or as exposed. Starlings like undergrowth and shade. Sparrows .... just plucky. Hard to get close to Preston mynahs more than 4 m or so—they keep hopping away and looking over their shoulders. 

At South Melbourne Markets they have an undercover loading dock for all the produce. Noticed straight away that the mynahs, sparrows and pidgeons were all ducking in under the roof and having a great old time. Not so good for photos though. A stroke of brilliance was putting their carpark on the roof. Mynahs feel really secure there and there’s lots of stuff dropped out of cars for them. They can get away from trouble by going under parked cars, or make a break for the fence that separates the market’s roof top from the carpark. I got some great shots, could get closer it seems cause they are used to people walking around. 

Leftover trashy food had eluded me ... thinking I could go back to the markets, get some take-away chinese, or salad, or more sausage rolls and leave them in strategic places. The little buggers are really canny though—they know you are watching them, and always keep a safe distance between you and them. Didn’t like the bits of sausage roll I tried to bait them with. Checked it out, didn’t even touch it.  They see or sense intention, I think. 

Emerlo Sky #2

Jackdaws (Corvus monedula) heading back their communal roosting spot for the evening. I saw this each night I was in Ermelo at around 8:30pm.

Amsterdam bird encounters: Westerpark

Ok I have managed to keep this secret but I am actually quiet nervous about having physical contact with birds and am easily intimidated. As proof I offer you this ridiculous moment when I get chased by a Eurasian Coot (Fulica atra) in a Westerpark. I was too close to the pair and their chicks and the parent had given me some feather ruffling and wing beating warning so I was approaching with care as I could only run forward to get out.

 The pond was one of series in old gas tanks. I saw lots of coots with offspring but this was the only case where the parents gave me the warnings and charged me. 

Haico’s friend has an apartment two blocks from Westerpark so I went there quiet a few times, and even managed a jet-lagged evening jog. The top end of the park is your classic turn of the century park. However the much larger part is in the now disused gas works that includes several jogging paths and a large quiet wild area that is fenced in for dogs to be let off their leads. 

Like many city parks there was several people feeding the ducks in the classical park, But I  didn't see any feeders in the wilder section.

Emerlo sky

One of my enduring memories from the last time I was in the Netherlands was of sitting with Haico at his parents place watching the swifts (gierzwaluw: Apus apus, although Haico calls them swallows) circling and catching insects in the late evening. I filmed this between 9:30 and 10pm. The sky is not completely dark till after 11pm, and its bright daylight at 5am. It has been very strange having jet lag in with all this daylight.

The bird that greeted me to the Netherlands was a dark headed duck and some small Grebes- I am going to find a field guide and hopefully it will solve the mystery, if I got a good sighting. The first bird I recognised was a Blackbird: the bird that greeted me in Launceston.

Windy Sunday O'Connor ridge

I went back onto O'Connor ridge this morning, mostly because I really enjoyed the walk yesterday and I was hoping to spot the Speckled Warbler again but also because I had neglected to take my camera yesterday. There is one clearing a the top of the first ridge section (climbing up from Dryandra St) where some of the fire trails meet, that seems to have become a graffiti gallery. The first two pictures are two sides of the same tree.

I"m not sure whether this type of eucalyptus sheds its bark, meaning that these pictures will be fall off over the coming months. Given the way that Canberra public space is organised and policed it doesn't surprise me that graffiti artists have taken to painting trees, although I am concerned for the trees health. The large trees could be at least 80 years old and providing nesting hollows for birds and marsupials. 

The wind was blowing pretty hard so I knew it was not going to be an easy day for seeing small birds. In the area that was alive yesterday I only saw one juvenile Red-Wattlebird. In fact the day pretty much belonged to the Crimson Rosellas and Red Wattle birds. Although I walked further this time and came to a grassy area and a family of White-winged Choughs. 

On the way down I heard a familiar repetitive 'kek kek kek' calling of several birds. On the dead tree pictured below, I saw 3 Sacred Kingfisher. The subtlety of their colouring makes my heart sing.

Walk on O'Connor ridge this morning

Birds:
2 Friar Birds gleaning in the flower eucalyptus blossom
Several of solitary sulphur crested cockatoos at various points on the trail- they all seemed to have gather at the park across the road in the evening.
A pair of Crimson Rosellas with 2 green juveniles
A juvenile Dollar Bird perched on the top of a dead eucalyptus squawking (my first sighting of the season)
1 Pied Currawong
I paused for a long time in a mixed feeding flock that was buzzing around in a thicket of small eucalyptus and acacias and identified for sure:
Several beautiful Spotted Pardalotes
A Weebill with a very pink-looking bill
A Buff-rumped Thornbill
Brown Thornbills
A family of Superb Fairy-wrens
and under an wattle a Speckled Warbler - listed as vulnerable in NSW. I think I have only seen one of these birds before ( I don't have my field guide with me.)
3 Galahs flying over on my way down the ridge

Heard but not seen:
Striated Pardalotes
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrikes
A White-troated Tree-creeper

Animals:

1 feral rabbit
2 Eastern Grey Kangaroos (that link will take you to a website that tells to the best places to see each species, they Mt Ainslie in Canberra! This link will take to the ACT government site that has information on some tracking they are doing on Eastern Greys in urban areas)

2 humans with dogs
1 human sweating on a mountain bike
1 human with a pram and a sleeping baby
1 human in training for mountain climbing
3 wide brim hat wearing retirees

(most bird-links are to the excellent Canberra Birds website)

Twitch tip #1: Nankeen Night Heron

After my talk at the Launceston Art School I got a good twitch tip from Penny Mason, head of Painting.

Nankeen Night Heron, Lauceston Gorge, about 500 metre in from the gate keepers cottage.

I must remember to keep my camera in the horizontal position...

List keeper

Two still from the video I have been working on. It will be in the National artist's self portrait prize at the University of Queensland Art Museum.

Paper birds #2: the green screen

work in progress. Using the green screen at ANU. Not sure of the title yet.

This will be a new video that re-tells my first encounter with a Pink Robin in the Styx Valley in Tasmania. I was told at the time that it was a Rose Robin. The misidentification lead me to become a twitcher. The video will have a narrative where I try and think through why the correct identification was important to me.

feeling nature

On the way to work on Friday morning I heard a pack of Australian Ravens making short barking sounds. It wasn't there usual call and when I spotted the group to my horror, I saw that they had flushed an owl from a  daytime roost and where driving it away. They where soon joined by Magpies and Sulfur-crested Cockatoos, with the poor owl pecked and harried. It was so distressing to watch. The owl was having trouble flying and getting away as its sight is affected in daylight. I couldn't help but anthropomorphise the event and project a feeling that the aggression of the birds was because the tables where turned on a top predator, who was weakened by being outside of his dark realm. I followed them around awaiting to see if it fell out the sky but they went over the Art School and into a groups of trees. 

I didn't have my binos so couldn't see what kind of owl it was, but going on size - it was bigger than the magpies but smaller than the crows, and colour - dark streaked brown, it was either a Tawny Frogmouth or a Barking Owl. The outline - a stubbed head and neat fan-shaped tail make me think that it was a Barking Owl. Will have to check the birders chat line to see if anyone has seen one recently.

conversation between sea eagles and mice

A coupe of weekends ago Haico and I went camping at Congo Beach on the south coast. I spent one afternoon lying down on the grass reading and looking up to see adult Sea Eagles glide by overhead. At one point both adults where directly above me- divine! I don't think I have ever seen two Sea Eagles together. One day we walked further down the coast, threw the narrow strip of Euraobodalla NP, to Bingle Bingle Point and we saw a a juvenile Sea Eagle too. So I guess the pair had a successful breeding season like the pair at Olympic Park. The pair at Olympic Park raised two chicks and there is some great footage of the adults feeding the chicks on the Birds Australia Eagle Cam. Next year the camera is going to go onto Live feed- very exciting- I love turning and watching even when "nothing" is happening.

When we packed up the tents under Haico's we found a squashed mouse- just a house mouse. Haico figured the mouse must have crawled under the tent during one of the raining nights and decided that being near him was nice and warm- fatally when Haico rolled over and squished him.

Birdland

A couple of months ago I posted a poem by Marian Waller. Marian had uploaded to the ABC radio Pool site where they where collecting material and for part of the of a radio documentary "Birdland". Marian poem was included- Hurrah!

What birds mean to Australians... and how we'd feel if they were gone. A unique collaboration between ABC Radio National and its listeners, brings you Birdland.

Birds are everywhere. Even in the center of the cities, the white cockatoos call as they form silhouettes against blue sky; the rosellas squabble for fruit.

But Australia's bird populations are under threat, as even such iconic and common birds as the Kookaburra are diminishing in numbers.

The Birdland project asked Radio National listeners to tell us what birds really mean to them. Responses ranged from audio to text, and images. The best contributions are a part of and have informed the direction of the radio documentary.

The result is a profound exploration of what birds mean to Australians... and how we'd feel if they were gone.

As well as the radio broadcast, Birdland also became a slideshow, at Federation Square, Melbourne, which you can see below.

Music on the show by Gretchen Miller, Russell Stapleton, Boyd, Stephen Adams, Bree Van Reyk, Alex Anderson, Rose Lang, Sean Scott, Al Kash, Terry Plunkett and Ashley Holmes.

Poems and writing by Anne M Carson, Catherine Evans, Judy Fander, Maya Ward, Willow, Marian Waller, Carolyn Leach Paholski, Rebecca Newman, Belinda Hansen and Barbara Henery.

Produced by Gretchen Miller you can download the radio documentary here.

One thing that stands out to me immediately is part of the introduction states that (me paraphrasing) "birds have gone from Tokyo and instead you get their sounds broadcast from speakers". The "truth", as Tim Low would say is much more complex- we humans create winners and loosers. While there is probably less diversity (in Tokyo and Australian cities) some birds are doing extremely well in the environment that we are creating. For me the sound of Tokyo in winter is the mocking laugh of the two species of Crows and the squealing of the Brown-eared Bulbul. Both rise above the white noise of the millions of people going about their business. I saw some rare birds over- wintering in Tokyo, that we much much harder to see in the Summer when we where high in the national parks. And the memories of birdwatching in reclaimed wastelands, planted forests and shrines strengthened my conviction that we Australians, have generally become lazy about our immediate surroundings.

Take a look at this article on the Sulfur Crested Cockatoos of Sydney from today's Sydney Morning Herald to get a sense of complications.

However the State of Australian Birds- which is put together by Birds Australia and is based on observations by their thousands of members, as well as scientists, does indicate a decline in overall bird numbers, including the Kookaburra. And habitat loss, that's us and our sprawling cities, retirement and holiday home developments, are the number one cause of declining numbers.

Pied Currawong and Magpie song

It's been a pretty full on today in Australian politics - after 48 hours of whispers Prime Minister Kevin Rudd stood aside for Julia Gillard- Australia's first female Prime Minister. It's been a pretty dramatic day but I hope this means that Labor is stronger against Abbott and that we don't see a return to a Liberal government.

The last 24 hours I have been hooked to ABC news TV there where so many crosses live to Canberra for on the spot interviews as the vote on the spill was happening and then the last and first address of the PMs- all of these interviews and comments where accompanied by the beautiful song of the Pied Currawong and Australian magpie, echoing off the concrete walls of the Parliament house- the back ground white noise of Canberra. It rang pretty clear and loud in all the interviews- their calls suddenly changing my sonic landscape and making me feel like I was in a drier cooler place. I loved that their song was oblivious to the momentous occasion- life goes on, as does the ring and warble of territorial calls.

Thanks PM Rudd, for the apology to the Stolen Generations, for signing the Kyoto Protocols, for appointing the first female Governer General: Quentin Bryce and for being the first Prime Minister to speak a second language publicly- especially the difficult tonal Mandarin, for basically not being your usual Aussie bully boy.

And..

Fingers crossed for PM Gillard, first woman PM sworn in by the first female Governor General incredible!

Field Guide to the Birds of Tokyo's Metro System.

Ryuto's hand holding the finished prototype of A Field Guide to the Birds of the Tokyo Metro System. One of my works in the exhibition Tokyo Story at TWS Shibuya is a collaboration with a talented young artist Ryuto Miyake.

It started with my recording of the bird sounds used as alarms in the metro system, soon after I meet Ryuto who has a passion for drawing birds. The question was then how do we illustrate a field guide to these Metro birds while avoiding the mannered ‘imaginative’ drawings of people who know too much. Children drawings? How do I find a group of children? Enter Kate Gane: an Australian who is teaching English in the Kanagawa area as Warnambool's cultural ambassador. Kate and I did a series of workshops with the students playing them the alarm sounds and shown them images of Japanese and Australian birds. Ryuto’s drawings are based on drawings by first year students in classes 1-1, 1-2 and 1-3 at Hasse Junior High School, Kanagawa, and photos of birds we thought they looked like.

Oi Yacho Koen- third trip

Birds by Masato Degawa, Fuji-san and visitors centre by birdmonkey.

Spent windy cold Sunday at Oi Yacho Koen, a nice day including meeting new people and seeing lots of ducks, including the Common Teal and Tufted Duck (above).

Out the way out Masa told me you could see Fuji-san from the walkway bridge over the rain line. When I saw it I clapped my hands and squealed like a ten-year-old girl who has been told that she is going for a pony ride. I still don’t understand the pull it exerts over me. Even this pollution hazed view was exciting.

I have started to think about collecting views of Fuji has a work and see if I can meet any Fuji-san enthusiasts.

Sarah blogged her falling in love with the mountain from the top of the Town Hall. Does anyone have a favourite spot to view Fuji? Or a special story?

Happy Birthday Sarah!

Birds- Meiji shrine

Photos of birds by Masato Degawa, photos of human watching birds by birdmonkey.

I had a great Sunday. I meet Masa, who I meet at Oi Yacho Koen, for a day of bird watching in the Meiji Shrine. Masa had told me about the group of Mandarin Ducks who over winter in Tokyo but I had not been able to find them. As it turns out I was looking in the wrong place. We wandered up to the North pond and there they where a group of 9 males and 4 females. The females lack the bright colours but have a beauty of their own in the subtle changes in greys, brown and whites in their feathers. You can see one on the far right of the image 2nd from the top. I am wondering whether the Japanese sensibility for subtle details comes from their wide range of birds that are predominately brown, grey and white.

I explained to Masa that we did not have woodpeckers in Australia and that I had hoped to see several of the species they have in Japan. As is the way when you go to an area with an experience bird watcher you usually see more than you would on your own- hey presto! My second species- a Japanese (green) woodpecker.

Later at the bird reserve in Yoyogi we also saw Hawfinches. A field guide I like, 3 new birds, good company- a great day.