Sunday, June 14, 2009

THE BIRDS

I'm used to being woken up by the stomping of blackbirds in blundstones all along the roof, digging out the moss to find insects and wormy things. So I mentally said thank you to the one I saw this morning as I trawled around the corner to get the paper.

Whatever he had in his beak looked like a cross between an anaconda and a basilisk. He landed on the nature strip ready for breakfast when a magpie swooped down and stole it, after giving Mr. Blackbird quite a wallop.

The maggie found a quiet nature strip further away for his ill-gotten snack just in time to be whacked in the back of the head by a kookaburra who swiped the morsel and took off for the trees over in the golf course.

All this happened in a matter of minutes. I fully expected David Attenborough to swing down out of a tree with one of his running commentaries.

The kookaburra was a big surprise as I have heard them but not seen one since Australand and Mirvac ran roughshode over the small piece of bushland we enjoyed.

I hope to wake up to the blundstones again tomorrow, the spouting obviously needs a good clean.

11 comments:

Jayne said...

Aren't they lovely housekeepers, cleaning up the nasty crawly things like that?
That reminds me I better get up a ladder and do the pirouette dance, too.

Brian Hughes said...

"I fully expected David Attenborough to swing down out of a tree..."

Nah...Bill Oddie, ornithologist extraordinaire and lesser spotted bearded tit would have been more likely.

hazelblackberry said...

We get lovely, croaking black cockatoos in our street, ripping the peppermint trees apart. The old man next door chases them out of his garden. To him they're just pestilential. He doesn't acknowledge what they both have in common: they're a dying breed.

Also, I love magpies.

River said...

I would have loved to see that. Each bird in turn getting whacked.

JahTeh said...

Jayne, I'm not going up any ladder, the spouting will have to overflow hopefully on the garden.

We have never seen his bird show over here which is probably a good thing.

HB, all birds make noise and mess but I love watching them. After the bushfires we were told to watch out for birds foreign to the neighbourhood since they'd probably be refugees looking for water and food. So along with the cafeteria out back, I started a mini-bar out the front.

River, it was the timing that was so good. I didn't even see the kookaburra on the branch until he swooped.

R.H. said...

This is a classic case of the DT's.
The worst I've heard of in quite a while.

Anonymous said...

I reckon if the wattle bird was a meat eater, he/she would have taken it forcefully from the, what is the old word for a kooka? Jackdaw? Jackie? Funnily, I was singing Sitting in the old Gum Tree today at work. Great to have one nearby. No snakes slithering up your path.

JahTeh said...

Robbert, it was tonight I had the sherry and lemonade not yesterday. I'd have been into the gin but I forgot the soda water.

Andrew, the thought of you singing that at work is quite disturbing.

Kookaburra laugh means snakes or rain.

Anonymous said...

I don't normally sing at work, but there was a reason today. I shan't say why as it is way too convoluted.

JahTeh said...

'Laughing Jackass', it came to me in the middle of the night, Andrew.

Singing eh, luscious new straight employee turns out to be gay with the hots for cameras with faces.

Ozfemme said...

We have a kooka in our big tree who was having a laugh earlier. God, I hope it means rain. I don't do snakes at all well. Come to think of it, it must mean rain because it's freezing out there. The snakes would be frozen stiff.