Yesterday the next door neighbour was in her bedroom with
the window open when a kookaburra flew in and hit her on the back of the head.
This is the same neighbour who, as I reported at the time, was sitting on our
deck when she was struck in the face by a low-flying King Parrot. I
wouldn’t want to stand too close to her when the peacocks are flying
around the neighbourhood (which they still are, coming by every few days).
Something, perhaps lack of food, might be affecting the
kookas. A couple of weeks ago the neighbour on the other side found a
young one dead in his swimming pool, apparently drowned after being unable to
get out, the pool being lower than normal due to the restrictions.
The kookaburras have had one food-source denied them since I
put netting over our fish pond. The self-regenerating goldfish stocks had
declined sharply, the coloured ones going first and most of the remainder being
black ones. Evolution at work.
Food has been short also for the magpies. I took to occasional
feeding of the local family because I thought their scruffy single young was
otherwise unlikely to survive. This year worms and grubs are v scarce,
lawns being a bit on the dryish side, and the usual seasonal flush of beetles
did not occur. If I was a parental magpie I wouldn’t know what to
train a young bird to eat. Probably scraps from picnickers and focaccia-nibbers.
It is pleasant to get their little chortle of gratitude when I toss them
something.
The scrubwrens in the backyard have emerged from their well-concealed
nest. They are certainly a noisy lot, ‘tzee-it’s and ‘tiz-tiz-tiz-it’s
echoing in the shrubbery. Do you recall that talk by Dirk Platzen a
couple of years ago about the amazingly varied vocabulary of this species?
Apparently there are different sounds for ‘the currawong is in the Banksia marginata’ and ‘the
currawong is on the ground near the rock border’. Well round here
they’re probably saying ‘the Siamese cat from over the road won’t
come in right now because the bull-terrier cross is sunning itself on the back
deck’.
Speaking of currawongs, this morning was the first of the
seasonal massed currawong symphonic series, with over a hundred of them giving
voice up and down the street. They’ve been going for an hour and
are only now drifting off.
Finally, allow me to give a negative koel report.
Haven’t heard one for a month. Before and just after Christmas,
however, one could be heard every day in the little reserve between La Perouse
and Carstenz. This is flanked by Old Griffith backyards, full of
ancient prunus, apricot and loquat trees and scrawny underachieving grape
vines. These provide the fruit which presumably is attracting the species
to Canberra.
I was interested to note in the birds in backyards website that the koel is
said to be commonest, in the Sydney
area, in the south-west suburbs, being 7th there in the list of
most-recorded birds. The south-west is also the main haunt of the Spotted
Turtledove.
