Your right John. And i'm not sure if her book explains it in any more
depth.
However, this article alludes to the answers of the question by talking
about aboriginal knowledge of the land and its 'cycles'.
'When the brolga sings out, the catfish start to move'
This is a really profound statement that our western minds are slowly
starting to (re-) comprehend. Its been known by all people through time,
but in our quest to objectify nature to exploit it, we've lost the
relationships of the interconnectivity of all things.
The pelican does not see the rain falling in the outback (how possibly can
it???) It can only see things occuring its its visual sphere. The fact is
though, these 'spheres of influence' interlink the whole globe, in fact
the whole universe. When one thing changes, it affects other things in its
sphere of influence, which in turn affects things in its adjacent sphere
of influence and so on and so on.
When the brolga sings out in Queensland, the catfish start to move, which
signals the kingfisher to feed and breed, which causes the termites to
move south, which causes the eucalypts to flower due to stress, which
carries pollen on the wind to NSW, that sees the honeyeaters migrate from
Victoria, and when the pelican sees the honeyeaters flocking, it knows
that it should migrate inland, because its indirectly heard the brolga
sing to the rains in queensland, that will flow through the Diamantina and
fill Lake Eyre.
This is just a made up example of course, but its just to illustrate that
seemingly unrelated events can have a strong influences on each other. Its
about the reaction to various cues on a subconscious level, which animals
have an inate ability to do. Humans rational minds have limited our
reactions to such cues, but they are still present, being encoded in our
stories and our langauges.
Hopefully human interference in nature, (such as deforestation, draining
of artesian basins, damming of rivers etc) haven't affected the
communications of this chain of cues detrimentally, but i'm sure that such
'stories' in animals are very adaptable due to natural disasters.
John Leonard <>
Sent by:
01/05/2009 10:59 AM
To
Birding-aus <>
cc
Subject
[Birding-Aus] Re: [canberrabirds] Pelican stories for the future -
Ockham's Razor
This is a very interesting talk, but it doesn't provide an answer to
the question 'How do they know there's water available in usually dry
desert areas?'
John Leonard
2009/5/1 Tony Lawson <>:
> http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2009/2551660.htm
--
John Leonard
Canberra
Australia
www.jleonard.net
"I rejoice that there are owls." Thoreau
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