A day trip from Melbourne today, Sunday 9th May, to these two adjacent
locations in north-eastern Victoria produced the following interesting
and/or noteworthy sightings:
Noisy & Little Friarbirds - abundant and assailing both the eye and the ear
(For an interesting footnote, see below*)
Little, Purple-crowned & Musk Lorikeets
Swift Parrots
5 Robin species (Scarlet, Flame, Red-capped, Yellow & Hooded)
5 Thornbill species (Brown, Yellow, Yellow-rumped, Buff-rumped & Striated)
A roadside flock of 40-50 Turquoise Parrots
Speckled Warbler
Southern Whiteface
(But, for David Geering's info, no Regent Honeyeaters)
* Tonight while checking out the first episode of the Scarlet Pimpernel on
ABC TV (rather ordinary, I thought), I decided to look up the origin of the
word Pimpernel in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary ("A small annual
with smooth opposite ovate leaves, and scarlet flowers which close in rainy
or cloudy weather"). As usual, my eye wandered to other nearby words (as
one's eye is wont to do while browsing through the SOED on a Sunday
evening, I'm sure you'll agree!!?), finding Pimp ("A pander, procurer")
immediately before Pimpernel, and immediately before that, the word
Pimlico. A London suburb I hear you cry - well, yes, indeed, but here's
the coincidence: The SOED mentions no suburb, of London or elsewhere, but
instead reads: "1848. (Echoic, from the cry of the bird.) The Australian
friar-bird."
Well, well! How's that for the ultimate in serendipity ("The faculty of
making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident.")?
(Sorry about all this - probably a consequence of a day in the lovely
sunshine in which northern Victoria was bathed today - unlike southern
Victoria which suffered under grey skies for most of the day.)
Richard
_____________________
From: Dr Richard Nowotny,
Melbourne, Australia.
Tel. (w) 61-3-9214.1420
<>
_____________________
To unsubscribe from this list, please send a message to
Include ONLY "unsubscribe birding-aus" in the message body (without the
quotes)
|
