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A couple of birthdays ago, one of the brats presented me with an Audubon
bird caller. It's a little birch-wood cylindrical thing, 30 mm long. The open
end is fitted with a pewter 'piston' which, when twisted, emits lots of
twitterings, sqeakings etc which are supposed attract birds. But no. The dopey,
feathered philistines are largely unresponsive to my virtuoso
performances.
Save for one time, last spring at ANBG, when I brought my Audubon bird
caller into play before an audience of Brown Thornbills. They reacted by
flitting about within a metre of my head. Subsequently, however, I noticed I was
near their nest site. So perhaps my intrusion, rather than my Audubon bird
caller, caused their angst.
Does anyone out there use the Audubon bird caller? Or has acquisitive brat
been sold a pig-in-a-poke? I've tried thinking of an avian equivalent to
pig-in-a-poke sans success. Should I revert to oral 'pishing and twishing' ? One
needs to be careful when pronouncing that in front of smart-Alec/Alexandra
non-birders because they may react with ribald remarks.
I recently acquired an old duck-caller that resembles a sawn-off
wooden megaphone. If you blow really hard, it produces a loud QUACK! We took it
to the Fyshwick sewage ponds and, after a lot of experimental huffing and
puffing, Samantha transmitted a glissando of creditable quacks
that reverberated across the tranquil, turbid waters but, other than
sending a raft of some 50 Eurasian Coot into frenzied retreat, nothing
happened. A few (apparently hearing-impaired) ducks treated us with
ignore. Dear brat needs more duck trumpet practice.
John Layton.
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