Kookaburras

Well here are a few new faces at the bird feeder. Kookaburras. Our little bay reverberates to the sound of these iconic Australian birds every dawn and dusk.  A laughing cackle from about two dozen shrieking beasts. It is not a gentle sound.

In fact you can’t hear yourself speak when they are in full cry.

We have never fed them; but someone must around here. They all swooped onto the verandah in one orderly rush. And then they sat looking fetching while we raced indoors to get some ham.

That’s why we don’t feed them. We do sunflower seeds, not meat.

And dealing with the lorrikeets and the wretched cockies is enough to keep us entertained.

I have been busy writing my father’s eulogy for the past two days and the morning bird feeder dramas keep me entertained and distracted for about an hour each morning and afternoon.

Heckle and Jekyll come first. Coyly trilling and demanding a feed. They are usually displaced by the louder and brasher lorrikeets who push them off the perch.

But they sneak back when the four louder ones have shoved off.

And all the while the huge cockies line up on the telephone wire and wait to push the little birds out of the way. Persistent blighters. I have to stand by the feeder waving my arms in an undignified fashion shooing them off.

Mind you the action paled into significance last night when we were having our evening whisky.

Small ring-tailed possums like to climb along the thick wire, heading towards my mother’s favourite camelia bush when they come out at night.  But their steady progress was interupted by a tawny owl which had got there first.

The owl was hunting small rodents in the street. Our verandah is perfect ringside action.  But during one moment the owl couldn’t help its instincts and actually swooped on the little possum as it dashed up the wire.

That was an exciting flurry of wildlife, believe me. Shrieking. Or was that us?

I tried to take a picture, but all you will see is a dull blur in blackness. So I’ll spare you that.