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)

Sunday surprises #2

I went to check out the Primavera exhibition with Andzrej. This year due to the refurbishments of the museum, it is being held off-site in The Rocks area, with an exhibition in the Bond Store and surrounds. I am not sure whether it really works too well as a show- maybe that is the venue? Or maybe just that Primavera is a show that put together around a group of young artists without too much relation to each other? I enjoyed some works individually, although I think it was not so interesting for show that was at least partly conceived of as working in public space.
The Brown Council have three videos in the exhibition, I can't quiet remember the titles (the wall panels are non-existent which is REALLY frustrating. I had no idea who made all the works...), 2 in the Bond Store and one installed in this historic stone room that looked like it was a laundry at some point as there was some cement and brick troughs on one side of the room.

 The three videos are inter-related with the one installed outside playing on the idea of disappearing ( I just looked it up on their website it's called Disappearing Act.)

There are quiet a few nice things in the work- like the awkward mix of theatrical acting/movement and deadpan performance to carry out the "disappearing act". Its really clear how the artists 'magic' themselves away, and it that way the work opens up the magic of the viewers imagination rather than dazzling us with techno wizardry.

 

The room is not quiet light tight and there are plenty of gaps that let light in. There was a moment in the when the video went to black, which was just before the moment below when each of the four performers came into screen to start walking out backwards.

 Instead of getting a black screen there was an incidental image projected from an accidental camera obscura or the room was a giant pin hole camera. I couldn't work out what the image and was and where it was coming from but, it was a very nice unexpected magical moment.

Sunday surprises #1

This morning the sky told me:

Somewhere on the Midlands Highway,

in someones front paddock, this good advice:

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.

Cafe birds #1 Brisbane

Are all cafe birds "junk birds" or just behaving like "junk birds"?

A typical Launceston bird moment

Saturday daylight savings.

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

Monkey #4: waiting over

twitch tip #3

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.

Twitch tip #2

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...

But at least a couple of leads to follow up..

Yoko and Zorro

are the names of the two birds tether at the MCG to scare off the Silver Gulls. Yoko is a Peregrine Falcon and Zorro is a Wedge-tail Eagle.

There is a short video news item on the smh. site that has some good footage of the gulls on the pitch, in case you are like me and never watch AFL, and so don't have an idea of the issue. But even better The Doctor on Triple J has a short interview with Alice and Graham (the handlers) and the birds, on his radio program where Zorro interjects a few times. (its at 27:00- once the story has loaded you can move straight to that point)