When I first came to Australia there were periods where I felt an unaccountable sadness. It wasn't depression or the awareness of man's inhumanity to man but a feeling that somehow my immediate world had gone awry. Something was just not right. These moments happened generally after I had been walking outdoors. I realised it was the sere and withered gum leaves which were everywhere under the trees and the look of the trees themselves.

In the United States where I lived there would be an explosion of colour in the autumn as the trees prepared for winter. The oaks blazed scarlet. The leaves of the white birches were a penetrating yellow. The colours were there all the time but were masked by the green chlorophyll. When the chlorophyll disappeared as the leaves died the other colours produced by the now visible keratin and xantophyll were their shroud. The leaves would then drop, and make a colourful carpet under the trees. As time went on the colours would fade, and there were sere and withered leaves under the skeletal trees. One can hear the leaves rustle under foot. Tiny buds can be seen on the branches. We know new leaves will come forth in Spring. Life will renew itself. Leaves die. New leaves come. The dead leaves crumble and disappear into the soil. The rains are over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth. From death comes new life.

In Australia where I live now it is not like that. Leaves droop and drop from the gums all the time. There is no burst of colour to mark their going. At any time of year withered leaves cover the ground. For one used to change and renewal it is perpetual autumn. Waiting for a winter which never comes. Death with no resurrection. Riding down the New England Highway one can see the changing colours of the oaks, beeches. poplars and other trees brought in by European settlers, but the omnipresent gums with their perpetual autumn dominate the landscape where I live.

What in Australia feels most alien to you?

Not sure how long you've been here, David, but given time I'm sure the charm of the Australian landscape will draw you in and win you over.

I can't imagine the stark colours you describe ever lifting my heart the way the muted grey/greens and browns of the Australian bush do. I guess it comes back to where you grew up and what landscape it was that first got under your skin so to speak in those early impressionable years.

I returned to my home state, Victoria, last week for a visit and even though it was incredibly dry, in fact the driest I've ever seen it, that same nostalgic appreciation of its dry grasses and magnificent gums was as strong as ever.

If anything in Australia is to feel alien to me, it's much more likely to be aspects of the built environment rather than any part of the natural landscape, which I love and in which I feel totally at home.

Dear David f,

Thanks for this thread.

What in Australia feels most alien to me?

It would have to be the fact that my father is
no longer alive to share in my life. He died
suddenly at the age of 52 of a massive coronary
while I was living and working overseas with
my husband. I couldn't make it to his funeral
in time, so I never got to say goodbye to him.

He never got to see his two grandchildren.

I miss him dreadfully - especially during Festive
family times like Christmas, Easter, Father's Day...
I get this longing - if I could only sit down with
him one more time. I often feel that there's so
much that I'd like to say to him - Did he really
know how much he was loved?

Then the moments pass - and life intrudes once again.
Greater needs then mine take over.

Another interesting thread from david f. As someone who was born and raised in Australia, and spent much of my childhood in the Australian bush, I feel nothing of the alienation towards it that he describes. Indeed, where I live in rural southern Queensland I'm surrounded by national parks dominated by native vegetation and wildlife, and I'm rarely happier and more at peace than when I'm out and about in it.

In contrast to the drab uniformity that david f sees in the Australian bush, I'm frequently delighted by the splashes of exquisite colour that one finds when the eucalypts or acacias are flowering, in the wildflowers and shrubs, and of course in the birds and insects that are attracted to them. Indeed, david's characterisation of Australian wilderness as being drab and alien is very reminiscent of the sentiments of early European explorers and settlers, who wrote frequently of the harshness and hostility of the Australian natural environment compared to that which they had left behind.

Like Bronwyn, it's aspects of the built environment that I find most alienating in Australia. Shopping malls in particular are soul-destroying places with no aesthetic redemption. Occasionally, I have to go the Gold Coast for family reasons, and I have to say that the entire strip encapsulates for me the meaning of alienation.

That people choose to live and even holiday in such an awful place never ceases to astound me.

What a simply lovely thought for a Sunday morning, thank you david f.

In the past six years my wife and I have spent four months each winter travelling through remote Australia. The remoteness itself is awesome and the flat landscapes that suddenly produce the most spectacular outcrops of prehistoric geology, mountain ranges, gorges, waterfalls, flora and fauna are constant surprises. Yet the endearing image and most alien for us have been the red, red dessert and the blue, blue sky. It’s like a Childs painting where the colors seem to surreal, false and quite alien

Dear Bronwyn, Foxy, CJ and spindoc,

I have been starting these discussions because so many of the discussions on OLO, especially those speculating on religion and evolution, just draw people in who restate their previously held views. The discussions often sound like children arguing and repeating, “It is. It is not.” So I thought I would start some threads expressing feelings and see what other people felt in those areas.

My wife spent part of her childhood in what is now the Gold Coast and feels about it now the way you do, CJ.

We live north of Brisbane and generally sit on the verandah after breakfast having a cup of ovaltine and talking. We enjoy the colourful parrots, the squawk of the kookas, the athletics and wonderful songs of the butchies and all the other antics of the birds as they go about their business. One time I went back to bed with a portable computer and heard a banging on the window. A king parrot apparently demanded that I get out of bed and put seed in the feeder. We look out at the gums where sometimes a koala and her baby sit. Once we saw one on the ground going from one tree to another. Unfortunately our former neighbour had dogs, and two of them tore a koala to pieces.

Bronwyn, I have grown to love the Australian landscape. The gums seemed to look familiar as though I had seen them in a previous existence. Where had I seen them? Then I remembered a painting I liked with trees that looked like the gums. It was by an American artist, Maxfield Parrish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxfield_Parrish) who incorporated ghost gums in some of his paintings together with Italianate ruins, Greek nymphs and Arizona buttes to make beautiful landscapes that never existed.

(continued)

(continued)

Our American trees that I am familiar with are generally straight trunked. The wattle in our back yard in Australia had a sinuously curved feminine trunk. It is dead, but its daughter now graces our yard with yellow blossoms in season. Gnarly trunks and buttress roots characterise the Moreton Bay Figs. Three fairy tale specimens are in a triangular park between Eagle, Creek and Elizabeth Streets in downtown Brisbane. The seasonal display of the bronze blossoms of the silky oaks, the orange blossoms amid the lacy leaves of the poincianas and the purple jacarandas bring change as the flowers grow and drop off. I am now an alien who appreciates the beauty and changes in the Australian landscape - possibly like many other Australians of foreign origin.

I go out hunting fungi with the Queensland Mycological Society. I met my wife when we were both attending a conference in Cambridge University. I must admit that while some of the lectures and discussions were going on we walked through the meadows hunting fungi. She was living in Norway, and I was living in the US at the time. Eventually she came to the US but didn’t like it. She was born, grew up and went to university in Australia before going to Europe and wanted to go home when I retired. Since she came to the United States for me I came to Australia for her.

In May we are going up the Murray on a boat, will explore the banks in the day and sleep on the boat as it chugs its way to another place on the river.

Foxy, I have nine descendants in the US who I visited last year. I dearly loved my grandparents who none of the my nine descendants had the good fortune to know. I think of them a lot, especially my mother’s mother. I am writing a family history which includes a lot of my memories of my grandparents and material about the milieu that they lived in. I hope to finish it before I die and leave that as a legacy.

Dear David f,

I love reading your work. You write so visually,
and I'm transported. How about having something
published? I for one would buy and read it!

"The recent bush-fires felt alien to me,
Seeing people suffering was so very hard to see.
How would we cope if our families had died?
Yet, as a country we rallied, and took it in stride.

Droughts, floods, and firestorms,
They all have a flair,
To cause alienation and deep, deep despair.
This brown land of ours with beauty to spare,
But, its nature's cruelty that's difficult to bear."

While I agree with all the comments about the particular flora, what I miss so much about Australia are the birds. Though I'm not at all knowledgable about birds and certainly not a bird watcher, I miss evenings when entire trees turning into screeching, cheeping, cackling sanctuaries and brightly coloured birds chatter and yell at their kids, and abuse the nieghbours while they try to find a perch for the night.

I miss walking up the road and seeing the ground near where I lived resemble a huge, billowy pink and grey doona where parrots carpet the ground looking for insects. I miss the slashes of colour that suddenly appear to highlight the bright greens of the palms.

But as to what feels most alien? Got to admit that, more than anything, I find that in the threads of OLO. From what I read here it seems often that I am reading about an alien culture and on some days, that 'My' Australia exists only in my head.

Beautifully written davidf.

I have lived in many parts of Australia, some arid and desert regions, the tropics and the temperate areas where I now dwell.

Each landscape has it's own beauty but, like you I do love the European landscape, the beauty of the deciduous trees changing colour and form with the seasons, the vast pine forests of Europe. Since the drought I have missed GREEN. Oh for a green paddock or a green tinge in the horizon.

Dorothea McKellar certainly knew something about Australia with her poem (in part):

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of drought and flooding rains,
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me.

" A kaleidoscope of many pieces,
A puzzle not yet completed,
A child still,
And yet, tomorrow's woman
you are.

Full of promise, tanned by the sun,
Athletic and proud,
Red-earth coloured hair,
Bronzed, rich and natural.
Like chocolate, deliciously tempting.

Perceptive eyes,
Clear and light,
The colour of a cloudy summer's sky.
Constantly changing with your mood,
Innocent, yet knowing you are.

Tomorrow's woman, dabbling in poetry,
Searching for meaning in things abstract.
You are,
Summers by the sea,
Wind blown hair,
Pre-washed denims,
Turquoise and silver.

Winters on the ski-slopes,
A cup of hot chocolate,
Fire light and guitar music,
And seventeen to-day."

I look in the mirror today, and wonder, whatever
happened to that seventeen year old?

david f, a few years ago I visited Maits Rest on Cape Otway in Vic. where there is a remnant temperate rainforest of the type that was formerly dominant throughout eastern Australia. Here was a moist, verdant forest totally different from the eucalypt forests that abound. On a hot summers day there was a welcome and an embrace in the coolness and aliveness of this forest.

Since the end of the last ice age 8-10,000 years ago fire has decimated these forests and the eucalypt has been the great beneficiary of and propagator of more fire.

As much as I love the bush I know where you're coming from.

I was raised in the Jungles of New Guinea where one was faced with a cacophonic mass of greens. To many this was a claustrophobic mass of vegetation that limited your vision to a matter of a few feet. Others feared as if it were some malevolent monster always ready to swallow you leaving no trace. In many ways this was true many alien adults were.
There was a patch of bamboo which up in its reaches 25 feet or more were the remains of impaled skeleton its identity long absorbed …a victim of war time torture. Some bamboo grows up to 20 cm per day. There were other war remains, planes, gun emplacements and vehicles all claimed by the jungle their decay feeding its relentless reclamation.

Being young and having not yet learned the prejudices of comparison or conditioning it was my play ground. A humid blanket in which I could both hide and be fascinated by its endless peepholes the variety life it offered.

The secret that the grown up never seemed to learn was to change focus from the panoramic to the details nature was revealing.

In these she showed the beauty of her symmetry and surprising gems. From the impossibly coloured butterflies often bigger that the delicate humming birds that shared the same species of flower. The iridescent tans and black and the yellow of nature’s seeming joke...the gawky horn bill (bird). The tracery of multicoloured orchards high up the biggest tree trunks. In my wisdom was sure that I’d get a nose bleed if I ever got that high. And yet this cornucopia of life still offered never changing directional signposts for those who were prepared to be taught.

For the last 6 years I’ve spent much of my time doing bush care in a near urban bush. That same drab eucalypt riparian forest but what I see is an ancient and less ebullient but more deliberate nature. One with its own set of clearly defined rules where each plant, bug, bird animal has its allotted integral part to play.
Continued

Continued...
Here there are no bit players it is far more sophisticated in its organization that a switz watch. Nothing is left to chance nothing is surplus to requirements.

The other key word is calm, go about your business calmly and as if you are entertainment special a hundred eyes will watch you. If you do the same thing regularly and calmly you will be accepted as part of nature’s society (habitualized)

While looking for seeds of a groundcover I was regularly on hands and knees under an nesting tree. One day I looked up and saw two of the most fancifully white fluffy chicks engrossed in watching me. Their parents (normally shy) flew in with feed ignoring my presence. Goss hawks feeding their young a rare site indeed.

When I dug weeds I was under constant bird surveillance a yellow breasted robin kept peeking around a tree. After a while a cranky fan (grey Willy Wag Tail) watched then started flitting around excitedly chirping. I moved back and both birds dove into the hole to get the bugs. When finished they went back to their surveillance. I learned to work on two neighbouring weeds simultaneously. Eventually more species turned up for the feeding.

One hot day I laid down for a ‘nanny’ nap to awake to a superb blue wren directing his brood (6-8) from the vantage point of my boot.

Another with my gum boot off I awoke to find a 1.5 metre python investigating it. Everyone’s a critic he quickly slithered off… what did he expect it’s hot and of course my feet stunk.

Lastly eating lunch in roughly the same time& spot each day a juvenile Lace monitor used to turn up for scraps.

David f I’m never alienated by the bush. Try a more focused approach a few field guides (“Tracks, scats and other Traces” by Barbara Triggs in Brisbane “Mountains to Mangroves” are a must) will tell you what to look for… it’s the one place it all makes sense

I probably get much more out of the native vegetation and landscapes than most people do. In fact, I’ve made a career of it, as a botanist, ecologist and geomorphologist….and half-mad birdo!

I just can’t get enough of it. I’m out there at every opportunity. I’ve just returned to north Queensland from a quick trip to the karri forest and Cape Leeuwin. Another round-the-country driving trip looms – the third in three years. Every weekend is spent exploring and gathering botanical and fauna records. There is nothing drab about it. It is all full-on fascinating!

Hardly any time for OLO!

What do I find alien? Well, it’s not hard to guess…

The constant humanisation of landscapes, especially the complete conversion from bush to urban sprawl that continues rapidly in so much of coastal Australia.

Massive clearing of bushland in Queensland for grazing or sugarcane…or just because landholders could do it, with government support, only a decade or so ago.

Enormous regions practically devoid of natural vegetation, such as the Western Australian wheatbelt.

Changed hydrology leading to the death of riverine and swamp ecosystems in the Murray/Darling.

Weed invasions and changed fire regimes that have led to large-scale ecological changes.

Salinity, erosion, ecologically destructive feral animal species.

Invading humans that just can’t get their act together to live sustainably and in some semblance of harmony with all the native residents of this continent.

Nothing here is alien,
Everything's terrific.
Vegetation greatly varies,
but's to its place, specific.

With colour-muted palette
dry sclerophyll's adorned
with purples, olives, creams, greys;
and pinks outside the norms

On OLO's page if you but ask,
Mad Ludwig of Herbaria,
in language quite botanic
Will set you right within a flash,
on matters taxonomic.

Sans chlorophyll, the sclerophyll
the hard-leaved woodland litters.
It lies around until a fire
Moves on all bushland critters.

A mis-titled topical poem. Should have been called 'The Best Man', or 'An Old Flame'.

Bannerman of the Dandenong
by Alice Werner 1859 - ?

I rode through the Bush in the burning noon,
Over the hills to my bride, --
The track was rough and the way was long,
And Bannerman of the Dandenong,
He rode along by my side.

A day's march off my Beautiful dwelt,
By the Murray streams in the West; --
Lightly lilting a gay love-song
Rode Bannerman of the Dandenong,
With a blood-red rose on his breast.

"Red, red rose of the Western streams"
Was the song he sang that day --
Truest comrade in hour of need, --
Bay Mathinna his peerless steed --
I had my own good grey.

There fell a spark on the upland grass --
The dry Bush leapt into flame; --
And I felt my heart go cold as death,
And Bannerman smiled and caught his breath, --
But I heard him name Her name.

Down the hill-side the fire-floods rushed,
On the roaring eastern wind; --
Neck and neck was the reckless race, --
Ever the bay mare kept her pace,
But the grey horse dropped behind.

He turned in the saddle -- "Let's change, I say!"
And his bridle rein he drew.
He sprang to the ground, -- "Look sharp!" he said
With a backward toss of his curly head --
"I ride lighter than you!"

Down and up -- it was quickly done --
No words to waste that day! --
Swift as a swallow she sped along,
The good bay mare from Dandenong, --
And Bannerman rode the grey.

TBC

Ludwig,
See any Red Goss hawks up there? Greg Czechura Queensland museum was doing a long term project on them. He would be interested to know.
The ones in the nest were Brown Gossies.
I'm an armature twitcher emphasis on the armature but I'm keen.

Romany
Parrots generally eat seed, fruit and Rainbows Lorries (they’re the multi coloured ones) and smaller Green and yellow 'Scaly Breasted Lorries' often seen together eat nectar.
The pink and greys were probably galahs and they go crazy over a ground plant’s rhizomes.
In Adelaide parks early morning and late afternoon it wasn’t unusual to see flocks of them with red dirt faces from digging them up.

These rhizomes are translucent white, have the constancy of cucumber and the taste of waxy potato and almond (awful). Mostly water as bush tucker you would need about a kilo to cook up cup full…why bother?

More useless information from the mind of examinator wasting your brain cells.

DavidF

I am enjoying the varied topics you have been introducing to OLO.

Having been born and growing up in rural Australia, my country is not at all alien to me. But I do understand where you are coming from.

I lived in Arizona for 12 months and, in contrast, seasonal change in Victoria was distinctly missed. Every day in Tucson was around 105 and sunny - as much as I enjoy chatting to strangers I meet, the topic weather was not a great icebreaker in the American southwest.

Stands of eucalypts are common throughout California - the sight of them always brought on painful bouts of home sickness.

When living in Tucson I used to go jogging every morning, I recall following a trail among saguaro cactus and mesquite and caught a flash of red. There are not that many brightly coloured birds in the US and from what I could see of the bird's size, to me it looked like a glimpse of a rosella. I pursued the flight of this bird and finally it alighted on a branch of mesquite; a brilliant red cardinal. Glorious creature which inadvertently brought on another wave of homesickness. Lovely as the bird was, I missed my Aussie parrots.

Romany I share your feelings about the birds of Australia, I live in the Yarra Ranges a day never passes where I fail to see birds; from the tiny blue wren performing a fan dance, to the constant taunting of kookaburras cackling through the mountain ash, or the heavy landing on my balcony of the ever alert cockatoo hoping for a free meal.

I guess I suffered from both arboreal and avian alienation while in the US.

I loved my time in the USA, but it is so good to be back; preparing as I am for tomorrow's threat of fire - oh the irony. Bushfire is (unfortunately) a great icebreaker between strangers, but at least here I can say the word "kookaburra" and not be looked at blankly.

Continued from above.

The hot air scorched like a furnace blast
From the very mouth of Hell: --
The blue gums caught and blazed on high
Like flaming pillars into the sky; . . .
The grey horse staggered and fell.

"Ride, ride, lad, -- ride for her sake!" he cried; --
Into the gulf of flame
Were swept, in less than a breathing space
The laughing eyes, and the comely face,
And the lips that named HER name.

She bore me bravely, the good bay mare; --
Stunned, and dizzy and blind,
I heard the sound of a mingling roar --
'Twas the Lachlan River that rushed before,
And the flames that rolled behind.

Safe -- safe, at Nammoora gate,
I fell, and lay like a stone.
O love! thine arms were about me then,
Thy warm tears called me to life again, --
But -- O God! that I came alone! --

We dwell in peace, my beautiful one
And I, by the streams in the West, --
But oft through the mist of my dreams along
Rides Bannerman of the Dandenong,
With the blood-red rose on his breast.

I guess Alice Werner would have to have qualified for acceptance into the Cysterhood of the Coup de Grace, all things being equine. I wonder whether any current member agrees?

Romany,

Around 500 years ago the then undiscovered, but postulated Great Southern Land was indicated on some maps as 'Terra Psittacorum', or 'Land of Parrots. Just another little bit of useless information for you.

Ludwig,

Have you ever seen a Night Parrot in your botanical bushbashing?

What a wonderful thread and such beautiful
sentiments, written so expressively, makes
one long for more, much more. A good read
that you don't want to end.

Thank You David f!

This is like a breath of fresh air compared
to some recent discussions on OLO.

I remember only too well
while living in LA ( working at the University of
Southern California) and coming across
Eucalypts on a week-end drive. The feeling of homesickness
was overwhelming. So I understand what you David, and other
posters are talking about.

Home is and always will be, where the heart is.
But its only when you're away from it that you
full appreciate it. (Sigh).

Howdy Forrest, half-mad Ludwig from Herbaria here! Not yet the bearer of full madness. But don’t despair, I’m workin on it!

Nope, no night parrots, dammit. But I have been very mindful of them when travelling in the vast outback, especially roadkills. I’ve stopped many times to check out potential roadkill night parrots, amongst all sorts of other critters. I’ve built up a huge collection of roadkill photos! D’oh, maybe you are right…I might have attained full madness (:>/

Examinator, yes I’ve seen red goshawks. In fact I was with Greg Czechura when we encountered them near Musgrave on lower Cape York Peninsula, including a bright orange juvenile on the nest.

Further to your (not so) useless (but actually quite interesting) information…several species of cockies dig up bulbs or rhizomes, including galahs, sulphies (sulphur-crested cockies) and corellas (three species – little, western and long-billed). You see them in anything from little groups to enormous mixed-species flocks all over the country picking away at the ground. Their ranges have extended and populations increased as a result of clearing and the spread of introduced species such as onion grass (Romulea rosea).

Dear Foxy,

I’m flattered but realistic. I wrote a short story and sent it in to Australian Short Stories. They published it and paid me for it. When they sent me a copy of the issue I saw that the Victorian Council for the Arts sponsored it. My story was an ego trip on my part, and I saw no reason that Victorian taxpayers should pay for it. I really don’t think government should be supporting writers. To become a good writer takes years perfecting one’s craft, and I am an engineer. I am 83 and am not going to become a writer. My present goal is to become 84.

Nature is neither cruel nor kind. It is up to us to live with it. If we build our house on a flood plain we can expect to be flooded. If we build our house surrounded by trees we can expect to be in danger of forest fires. Trees surround our house so I cut down those closest to the house and hope we don’t get burned out. If we pollute our world or cause its temperature to rise we will suffer from pollution or global warming.

We can appreciate a sunset, but I doubt that the appreciation is mutual. I have fallen into the trap of thinking in the previous bit of nature as apart from us. We are part of nature.

Dear Romany,

There is an area in Strathpine where I have heard the screeching of the rainbow lorikeets that congregate in great noisy swarms on the gums.

Sometimes I awake before dawn, and kookaburra chattering heralds the dawn. As the rosy fingers of dawn clutch the sky I can hear the trills of the magpies and the lyrical voices of the butcherbirds with their many songs.

I feel alien to the culture, language and social attitudes of Australia. Shortly after I came here there was a headline “RUG UP/COLDER IS TIPPED” Its meaning seemed to me to be that the rug was pulled out from under someone named Colder.

(continued)

(continued)
Lots of people try to imagine themselves by what they are not. Australia is the most conformist country I have encountered, and I have lived in the US and Europe. Yet, many Australians seem to think they are a nation of larrikins.

Coming from the US I was shocked to hear that the Australian government actually subsidised religious schools.

I miss the smell of the balsam pines in the northern forests near the Canadian border in the US. When my daughter was 12 I took her up to the north country so she could enjoy the forests that I love. She started to turn colour, had difficulty breathing and her eyes swelled up. I picked her up and carried her out. She was allergic to the balsam pines in my beloved forest.

Dear examinator,

I am familiar with “Mountains to Mangroves” and have taken groups on nature walks in Osprey House on the Pine River estuary and in Roma Street Parklands in Brisbane. I quit because hearing loss in the higher frequencies made it hard to hear the questions from the treble voices of children. In the Spectacle Garden at Roma Street is a plot with different kinds of grasses. I was telling the group about grasses evolving and spreading during the Miocene epoch 23 to 5 million years and large grazing animals evolving along with the grasses when a man who might have been the grandfather of the little boy he was with put his hands over the boy’s ears, yelled, “What about Adam and Eve?” and pulled the child away.

Avicennia marina, the river mangrove, has little projections sticking up out of the soil around them is so they can breathe. Roots need air but the tidal soil is anaerobic so the roots grow pneumatophores to breathe. Seeds will not grow in anaerobic soil so the seeds germinate on the tree, grow into little saplings and then drop off the tree. It’s an arboreal live birth. The saplings have to root before the tide washes them away. They can travel long distances before finding hospitable soil

Dear david f,

You write beautifully, and I'm not trying
to flatter you. I'm simply expressing the
feelings you arose in me as a reader when I
read what you've written. You've got a talent
that you should use. Reaching 84 will happen
anyway - but in the meantime - think of the
people whose lives you could touch
by putting pen to paper.

My husband and I lived and worked in Los Angeles
for nine and a half years. My two sons were born
in LA. We travelled all over the US, Canada, and
Mexico. And saw the beauty and wonders that make
up the many dimensions of the country. Its natural
beauty is truly awesome.

David, you once paid me such a lovely compliment on
an article thread - and taught me what my pseudo "foxy"
meant - much to my delight. So now I'm going to
tell you - straight from my heart - that you are
such a pleasure - a truly compassionate, intelligent man,
from whom all of us can learn so much. We're lucky indeed
to have you as a poster on OLO. If we could only clone
more like you! A man who is able to quote Ogden Nash, John Donne,
and appreciates natural beauty - an impressive, fascinating
rarity!

All The Best,

Please?

cont'd

The last 'Please?' refers to your writing David.
Don't give it up - but continue with it...

Man's greatest inheritance is the gift of speech.

The gift of words is the gift of imagination, and
you've been blessed.

Each of us has been designed for one of two immortal
functions, either as a storyteller or as a cross-legged
listener to tales of wonder, love and daring. When we
cease to tell or listen, then we no longer exist as a
people. Dead men tell no tales.

You've got plenty to tell.

Nice to see a thread that isn't immersed in the usual rough'n'tumble.

My childhood was spread across New Zealand and Oz, though now I'm not living in either.
Davidf, Your 'arboreal alienation' concept awoke within me some fleeting feelings of nostalgia that I'd sometimes get in a few when trekking some of the rainforests in South East Queensland, particularly after a drenching rain.

The colours of NZ were typically of a much darker green - in Australia, even on those rainforest sojourns, I never really encountered that all-encompassing dark emerald green.

When I was very young, I lived on a seaside street in Auckland where the pohutakawa trees grew bright red brushes.
If there's any tree that marked my childhood, it was easily the pohutakawa trees along that shore, or the massive tree that towered over the local library spreading thick trunks for many metres, above massive serpentine above-ground roots each bigger than five men.
In the mornings, I would watch the fog envelope yachts in Auckland Harbour then recede with the morning, while munching on a piece of toast.

Nowadays I find myself occasionally longing for both New Zealand and Australian landscapes. Whilst New Zealand had interesting bird life, the other wildlife couldn't compare (except for the rascally possums, which for adults in NZ were as popular as cane toads. To kids however, a possum scrambling through the roof was a great excuse to make mischief and avoid bed).

In Oz, my father befriended a kookaburra, which would follow him about as he went about his yard work. My father also had a constant war with a bush turkey which was quite determined to build its nest on paths my dad had painstakinly cleared.
Little bugger just wouldn't give up and must have rebuilt that nest a dozen times, and the dog which was supposed to dissuade it from doing so, seemed to have a strange camaraderie with the damn bird. Probly raided the compost heap together.

I miss the experiences that these creatures and environments create.

Ludwig
Pickies? Wall size please :-) I've never actually seen one outside my field guides.
My favourite birds have always been the oddities.
TRTL the male bush turkey is certainly a single minded bugger one has his mound is next to a local nursery’s office and he will NOT move. The owner gave up and lets him do his thing.

A dollar bird (dark green with a pale blue circle under his wings) returns to the same nest across the road each year. He flies down from PNG to breed. He patrols the area clicking crossly if any other bird gets too close. I’ve been told that if the tree falls he won’t nest that year.

A pair of Thick knees (stone Curlews) has taken up residence in our area and we are often woken at all hours with their blood curdling domestics (a cross between doing awful things to a cat and a whistle) on our front lawn. Recently they raised two chicks and it is easy to anthropomorphise the family. The chicks were always behind and the parents repeatedly call them to keep up eventually and come running round the corner to the parents. They lay their eggs on the ground and lay perfectly still. If disturbed they lead you away faking an injury when far enough away they simply run into the bush.

A neighbour has a long time resident pair of Tawny frog mouths roosting under his pergola. In season bring their brood once fledged mum the chicks and dad off to one side.
And who isn’t be amused by the tree creeper (birds) who walks up trees trunks (Aust’s answer to wood peckers?) seemingly defying gravity.

We have resident bearded dragons, a baby carpet python who visits, green tree snakes.
And which garden doesn’t have a native stingless bees nest. They look like tiny flies … rescued from destruction six years ago ….hours of entertainment. We all talk to ‘the girls’ each day…the neighbour we’re mad (feeling’s mutual)

I grinned at your Tawny Frogmouths examinator - we had a family of those too.

Not to mention the Kookaburras, though they're quite territorial. I've witnessed a group of kookaburras banding together to send an interloping kookaburra packing. Quite the spectacle and more than just a tad unsettling.

Seems like the bush turkeys always seem to win. Eventually my father gave up and made a new path, muttering about persistent birds and bloody useless dogs all the while.

Dear TurnRightThenLeft, and Ludwig,

My wife carried on a war with a bush turkey for a while. She would cut up chicken wire and put it where she didn’t want the bird to scratch. She finally gave up and let it make its mound.

We have been putting all our vegetable garbage in circular enclosures. Two turkeys have used those enclosures as a base for their mounds. After several months they abandon the mounds. The turkeys have improved the soil immensely. We spread out one of the mounds and planted flowers and shrubs in it. We planted stuff in the other mound without spreading. Both produced lush vegetation. We hope that we get more visits from those producers of garden soil.

We have had up to eleven kookaburras turning up along with butcherbirds, noisy miners and magpies for bits of ground meat. The noisy miners tease the other birds swooping down on them but not actually attacking. The maggies have very different personalities. He struts around and is very bold while she is a timid soul. A young butchie sits on my wife’s head, and she reaches up to give it a piece of meat.

The seed eating birds have included pale headed rosellas (they seem the most beautiful to me.), king parrots, crested pigeons, maggies, double barred finches (none for a while. Possibly other birds have chased them away.), rainbow lorikeets and drongos (they’re nasty wrongos).

We made the mistake of digging a hole, filling it with water and stocking it with goldfish. The kookas didn’t even thank us for the meal.