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.