My Year with Bluestone: Bird Bath Time

Not far from my new building is a long shallow pool. Water sits about two or three centimetres above rows of small bluestone squares. The pool is newish, and answers to the longer, deeper, rectangular pool that edges the south lawns and leads down to the Medley Building.

This pool extends from the new Asia Centre building down towards a peculiar knot of buildings, annexes, odd pathways and tight corners: one of those parts of the campus where it's easy to get lost and where there is no direct path from anywhere to anywhere else. The pool has two cafes, one at either end, and is also not far from two others. There are four or five places to buy coffee in this corner of the campus alone...

I was thinking I would take careful photos of this bluestone pool at one time but tonight as I was leaving (it was nearly 7.00 pm on what must surely be one of the last days of daylight saving), I saw how the birds had moved in. There were still a few people about, but it was much quieter than normal, and I took this video of a crow having a wonderful bath.

After I stopped filming, I saw a thrush down at the other end, where the water splashes into another square of stones, and also a pigeon with a funny moptop. And then, as if answering yesterday's post about things that land on bluestone, this perfectly fresh white feather, just landed on the water. Did it come from the crow? from its secret underfeathers? or was it a trace of Phebus's crow in Chaucer's Manciple's Tale, just transformed from white to black?



In any case, a moment of exuberance, then stillness, and then dusk, as the campus settled from the frenetic pace of first semester, into the quiet of evening, and as the birds returned to the shallow, still waters.

Bad rufous night heron! bad!

Early dusk, and the pale yellow light of a rain-drenched Hallowe'en shone on the huge reddy brown bird, perched solidly on the edge of the fishpond, amidst growth that after all this rain can only be described as verdant. And shining.  I summoned the others to marvel at its beauty, then we ran outside, shouting loudly, to frighten it away from the fishpond. It flew away; but an hour later was back, perching high in the citriodora. We looked it up, and it's a nankeen or rufous night heron. When it's breeding, it has an elegant white plume down the back of its neck. The one we saw had a plume about eight inches long, as opposed to the much shorter one in the picture here. I understand it's feeding itself and its young, but after such a visitation, we don't see our fish for days. And even if we could frighten it away, it would still come back and be feeding at night. It was huge, solid, and placid. And hungry. Trick or treat, rufous night heron?

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Cockatoos, creek, work

What with going to the gym these days, and gadding about in Europe, and then being sick, and finishing up a big semester, I've not spent much time along the Merri Creek the last few months. So for how long have there been black cockatoos there? I went for a walk on Friday afternoon, and at first thought there was a murder of crows in the tree on the opposite bank, but then I saw a flash of yellow. (And as I realise, the Australian ravens tend to go about in pairs, as I know from seeing them perching on the top of the huge Norfolk pine two houses down.)  Anyway, I think they were yellow-tailed black cockatoos. There were about a dozen of them, moving from tree to tree, hanging upside down and generally ... creating (scroll down this page and click to hear their call). And I've just seen a few more this morning when I rode up to let the chickens out at Ceres.

This creek is full of surprises. I've been living on its banks for sixteen years, as its vegetation has been improved and refined, and de-Europeanised. I hated it when they cut down the willow trees (J used to sing at them in his pram when we would walk along), but since then I've probably seen more birds; and apparently the willows were dreadful for erosion of the banks.

Normally P does the fortnightly morning run to Ceres, but once I'd got out of bed it was pleasant enough riding along the creek. And now I'm back at my desk, it's good to think of those cockatoos busily working their way through the trees along the water.

Now that teaching is over, and now that I have the all-clear from my editor to do the final revisions of my book (and write the last chapter) more or less as I see fit, I'm preparing to fire up the cylinders for a final onslaught. I have to hold all the ideas in my head at the same time, to ensure the balance and sequencing of the argument is right. I had a quick read through the other day. Having a few months' break from it was good (try telling that to the ARC!), and overall it's not looking too bad. Let's see how much I can get done before I leave for Siena in July.

Today will be a pleasant clean-up day: washing, ironing, running Joel to band rehearsal, sweeping up piles of bright yellow leaves from the garden, catching up on email, then the afternoon at a friend's retrospective art exhibition where J, the drummer (the artist's son) and the bassist will play, then a dusk trip up to Ceres to put the chickens away. Then tomorrow? Chapter Seven:

What's that blue thing in the pond?

Little routines before settling to work involve stepping out into the garden to feed the fish. But what's that blue thing that looks like a ball or a toy that's fallen in? Oh! it's the head of a rainbow lorrikeet that has somehow fallen into the water. I don't have a working camera, so here's a picture from the web.

I pick up the bird. It's still warm, but clearly dead. Its colours are extraordinary and detailed; its black and green tail feathers elegantly splayed. I turn it over. Its belly is delicately speckled: each feather seems to have several different colours of flame and autumn leaf and blue sky. How did this poor creature come to this untimely end?

Hmm. Last night when I was bringing in the washing, I saw four large black crows in the lemon-scented gum, which the lorrikeets also like. Is this a territorial war in my back garden?