Don't compose a post in the shower
Earlier today, while I showered and generally prepared to ogle very young men (and quite incidentally get some work done) I did some composing (but sadly only in my head) ...
This elegant if lengthy post began with The Interloper, travelled via drinking Victoria Bitter at the MCG, Philip Island and Fairy Penguins, our Kelpie Border Collie, the intrinsic stupidity of sheep, how I nearly got myself expelled (but not for walking out on the Visiting Canon when he was halfway through a Sermon), Weipa (cyclones, crocs, kookaburras and dead snakes) and ended up with our two pet Magpies.
All day long I've been planning to get home, hunt down a sound file of the extraordinarily beautiful (ok maybe its just evocative) sound that is the call of the adult Australian Magpie (which incidentally is absolutely no relative whatsoever of its European namesake).
I've finally succeeded! Click here to visit Birds in Backyards which has the Top 40 Australian bird calls. Just don't ask me what the difference is between a Laughing Kookaburra and a Common and Garden Kookaburra.
The scientific name for the Australian Magpie is Gymnorhina tibicen.
The Australian Magpie is much bigger than its European non-relative and the differences only begin there.
After the Kelpie Border Collie had passed on to The Great Sheep Field and Cattle Paddock in The Sky and the last of the cats had tiptoed along the same path to meet (and in the case of the Cats probably sneer at) the Maker the bird (and other) life in our backyard simply exploded.
Most bizarre was probably the blue-tongued lizard that took up residence. He (she?) was a stocky thing that never did anyone any harm (or much else either as far as any of us could tell) but in summer it liked to park itself under the tap in the back yard that leaked. That tap leaked because although I'd mastered fuses, and painting the house (inside and out) and adding another layer of that thick reflective stuff mum insisted I slather on the corrugated iron roofing of the rear (added on section) every spring, and carpet laying, I hadn't acquired the muscles or know how to change a washer. So that tap leaked and the lizard liked to stay close by. Presumably the water attracted the sort of thing it liked to eat.
By the way (and I never told mum this) I loved doing the roof each spring. I'd get up there, strip off - giving the old bloke next door quite a show, and give my tan a kick start. The reflection off this reflective gunk meant that it was all over (but for the bits covered by my itsy bitsy teeny weeny (not polka dot) bikini.
I digress.
Before I return to the subject at hand let me add that a little later in life I ended up working for the Board of Works; it might have been someone's idea of a joke but I ended up doing a basic plumbing course in the 'sandpit' at Swinburne (Tech) and got myself a basic plumbing course qualification. Bizarre little factoid about me, that. Or is it a factlette?
Anyway, back to Magpies, but not The Magpies (because I'm a self-respecting third generation Melbourne Football Club supporter).
A breeding pair of these magnificent birds took up residence not long after the last of the cats made the trek (which is odd really since a magpie is at least the size of a domestic cat and several times better armed in a fight).
Our house was a weatherboard with an extension (complete with corrugated iron roof - see above) slung across the back. My father, the engineer, demolished all the dividing walls in the back section (which we'd inherited from previous owner/occupiers) and put glass sliding doors in two places across the back. Two thirds of this back section was a casual 'family' room, the other third was a kitchen/informal dining area with a dividing low kitchen bench. The family room had sliding doors we never used. Main access was via the sliding doors leading to the 'informal' (ie, the kids were fed there) dining area.
In summer these doors were left open, with a separate fly-wire screen covering the gaping hole to keep the worst of the insect life at bay (or at least give them something to think about). But one summer's evening the dog (see above) driven either by fireworks - in those days they were legal, or a thunder storm, went straight through the fly wire screen leaving a flapping corner that was no use to man or beast but was a god-send to insect life.
So after a while we stopped bothering with the fly wire screen. Then the magpies took up residence.
Mister Magpie (my English 'friends' tell me I should have addressed him so) would bounce over the garden and across the red brick paving to the open door. Magpies are described by ornotholgists as 'medium-sized' birds but in your typical Melbourne back yard they're about twice the size of the next largest feathered presence. Magpies, and this boy specifically, nevertheless have a rather peculiar way of bouncing along, tilting their heads at neck-achingly awkward angles; constantly on the look out for a territorial threat.
He never quite managed to convince himself that he was entirely safe. His other half was another matter entirely. My mother was rather entranced by these big elegant birds and she would throw to them any available cast off bits of meat. After a while, and a rather short while at that, the bolder half of the partnership took to sauntering through the doors, past the dining table and right into the kitchen. She would stand about while mum 'cooked' looking expectant each time mum opened the fridge.
I can hear still the faint tack tack of her talons (?) on the lino.
I've wandered a long way from my bath. I have photos to post but need permission of the photographers before I put them here (and since I've never attempted that ie, posting photos, before We - that's the Royal We, could be in for an interesting time; I'm not working tomorrow so I've got plenty of time).
This elegant if lengthy post began with The Interloper, travelled via drinking Victoria Bitter at the MCG, Philip Island and Fairy Penguins, our Kelpie Border Collie, the intrinsic stupidity of sheep, how I nearly got myself expelled (but not for walking out on the Visiting Canon when he was halfway through a Sermon), Weipa (cyclones, crocs, kookaburras and dead snakes) and ended up with our two pet Magpies.
All day long I've been planning to get home, hunt down a sound file of the extraordinarily beautiful (ok maybe its just evocative) sound that is the call of the adult Australian Magpie (which incidentally is absolutely no relative whatsoever of its European namesake).
I've finally succeeded! Click here to visit Birds in Backyards which has the Top 40 Australian bird calls. Just don't ask me what the difference is between a Laughing Kookaburra and a Common and Garden Kookaburra.
The scientific name for the Australian Magpie is Gymnorhina tibicen.
The Australian Magpie is much bigger than its European non-relative and the differences only begin there.
After the Kelpie Border Collie had passed on to The Great Sheep Field and Cattle Paddock in The Sky and the last of the cats had tiptoed along the same path to meet (and in the case of the Cats probably sneer at) the Maker the bird (and other) life in our backyard simply exploded.
Most bizarre was probably the blue-tongued lizard that took up residence. He (she?) was a stocky thing that never did anyone any harm (or much else either as far as any of us could tell) but in summer it liked to park itself under the tap in the back yard that leaked. That tap leaked because although I'd mastered fuses, and painting the house (inside and out) and adding another layer of that thick reflective stuff mum insisted I slather on the corrugated iron roofing of the rear (added on section) every spring, and carpet laying, I hadn't acquired the muscles or know how to change a washer. So that tap leaked and the lizard liked to stay close by. Presumably the water attracted the sort of thing it liked to eat.
By the way (and I never told mum this) I loved doing the roof each spring. I'd get up there, strip off - giving the old bloke next door quite a show, and give my tan a kick start. The reflection off this reflective gunk meant that it was all over (but for the bits covered by my itsy bitsy teeny weeny (not polka dot) bikini.
I digress.
Before I return to the subject at hand let me add that a little later in life I ended up working for the Board of Works; it might have been someone's idea of a joke but I ended up doing a basic plumbing course in the 'sandpit' at Swinburne (Tech) and got myself a basic plumbing course qualification. Bizarre little factoid about me, that. Or is it a factlette?
Anyway, back to Magpies, but not The Magpies (because I'm a self-respecting third generation Melbourne Football Club supporter).
A breeding pair of these magnificent birds took up residence not long after the last of the cats made the trek (which is odd really since a magpie is at least the size of a domestic cat and several times better armed in a fight).
Our house was a weatherboard with an extension (complete with corrugated iron roof - see above) slung across the back. My father, the engineer, demolished all the dividing walls in the back section (which we'd inherited from previous owner/occupiers) and put glass sliding doors in two places across the back. Two thirds of this back section was a casual 'family' room, the other third was a kitchen/informal dining area with a dividing low kitchen bench. The family room had sliding doors we never used. Main access was via the sliding doors leading to the 'informal' (ie, the kids were fed there) dining area.
In summer these doors were left open, with a separate fly-wire screen covering the gaping hole to keep the worst of the insect life at bay (or at least give them something to think about). But one summer's evening the dog (see above) driven either by fireworks - in those days they were legal, or a thunder storm, went straight through the fly wire screen leaving a flapping corner that was no use to man or beast but was a god-send to insect life.
So after a while we stopped bothering with the fly wire screen. Then the magpies took up residence.
Mister Magpie (my English 'friends' tell me I should have addressed him so) would bounce over the garden and across the red brick paving to the open door. Magpies are described by ornotholgists as 'medium-sized' birds but in your typical Melbourne back yard they're about twice the size of the next largest feathered presence. Magpies, and this boy specifically, nevertheless have a rather peculiar way of bouncing along, tilting their heads at neck-achingly awkward angles; constantly on the look out for a territorial threat.
He never quite managed to convince himself that he was entirely safe. His other half was another matter entirely. My mother was rather entranced by these big elegant birds and she would throw to them any available cast off bits of meat. After a while, and a rather short while at that, the bolder half of the partnership took to sauntering through the doors, past the dining table and right into the kitchen. She would stand about while mum 'cooked' looking expectant each time mum opened the fridge.
I can hear still the faint tack tack of her talons (?) on the lino.
I've wandered a long way from my bath. I have photos to post but need permission of the photographers before I put them here (and since I've never attempted that ie, posting photos, before We - that's the Royal We, could be in for an interesting time; I'm not working tomorrow so I've got plenty of time).
posted by Enyo @ 10:30 pm
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