Re: blackface

Hi Mike,

Thanks for that.  I am an apartment dweller in Sydney and so my 'garden' is the nearby National Parks.  I also put up signs on my apartment noticeboard encouraging some of my neighbours to not feed the lorikeets that visit them regularly (but if they must then try to pick grevilleas and put them in the feeding tray so as not to encourage bad habits) .  I have seen people feeding birds both bread and chocolate - not great.  

I have also done surveys of the birds around my building and photographed them, creating posters that have gone on the apartment block noticeboard.  Neighbours that I haven't known have stopped by and showed their kids these posters and read the information in the posters to them.  It's a small effort on my part being the 'anonymous' composer of these where I can sit by and watch people's reaction to them :-).  When I first started doing it, I thought they would be torn down as noone has interested but it was with some amusement that I visited an old neighbour from a block I lived in two years ago and found them still hanging there :-).

Creating these costs me virtually nothing in time or money but has given me tremendous satisfaction as I feel I have done something to raise people's awareness of their local avifauna in an apartment metropolis like Hornsby which also has a huge ethnic population.  I usually create funny stories or tell people about birds as if I were the birds talking to them - an idea which sounds a bit silly but at least it hits the spot and people take notice.  A small effort but with big impact.  If we all did something like this and got the information outside of birding circles - imagine the difference we would make?  

Incidentally I didn't advise this on my first mail but the member of the public who questioned me about photographing swamphens also mentioned that they were good eating and he himself had dined on a few when he lived on a farm in northern NSW! :-).  

Seriously though, even on this day and with the conversation I had with this gentleman.  He brought his 7 year old grandson over to talk with me where I explained the differences between the Pacific Black Ducks, the Coots, Purple Swamphen, a couple of introduced Muscovy ducks, one domestic Goose and one lost looking Hardhead among the collection of animals present on that lagoon.  Had I looked a bit further I may have even discovered a Rail amongst the reeds.

I guess what I am trying to say - the trick in getting people to take note of what is around them is to be able to tell a good story.  I often get asked to take groups along on bushwalks so I can point out stuff to them that they might not normally see.  I have done this with both colleagues from work and friends and family.  Even David Attenborough admits (although I hardly compare myself with him) that he is no scientist - he just tells a good story.  And MOST IMPORTANTLY to not lose faith in humans - there are more of us out there that care than what you would think - it's just plain ignorance.

To answer David, I am also from the country and now live in Sydney where I have done so for just over 6 years.  I feel it is a bit of my responsibility to tell people what's around them as I probably look at my surroundings through different eyes.

Until the collective public knowledge is increased through individuals stepping outside their 'circles', I guess I will have to keep plugging and continue to enjoy the visiting lorikeets who fly around to every window of my flat looking to see if I am up or the two baby brushtail possums that watched me put my washing out last night.  My secondary alarm clock in the morning is either a Tawny Frogmouth in the winter or Koels in the summer.  An apartment city Hornsby may be, but it is still a small slice of nature to me and I don't even have to go too far to look at it :-).

I guess it's the old adage, you can take the girl out of the country but can you ever take the country out of the girl?

Cheers,

Inger

Mike Tarburton <> Sent by: 07/07/2005 09:04 AM

To:         Inger         cc:                 bcc:                 Subject:        RE: [BIRDING-AUS] Re: blackface

G'day fellow birders

Inger has made a couple of points that I think are very valid, both in Australia and up here in PNG.

I print off some of my bird photos onto A3+ photo paper and laminate them.  I include a little text and place them on public noticeboards.  This creates interest and comment and we are at the stage of developing more permanent interest and commitment to looking after the wildlife.  This is something PNG has a great need of, but attitudes are changing for the better.  I use the names from the standard field guide as the locals already know their names and expect us to have different names.

Incidentally your name of "redbills" is similar to "red combs" the name widely used up here for Purple Swamphens - a bird that gets eaten along with most other species on this island.  I recall that in Fiji all birds have indigenous names except five that were too small to eat and they all got clumped under the name "gigi"

Happy watching and communicating

Mike Tarburton

Dr Mike Tarburton
Dean: School of Science and Technology
Pacific Adventist University
PMB, Boroko
Papua New Guinea


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