Lyrebird

The pic is of the Superb Lyrebird

During the early 1930s, a male lyrebird, called "James", formed a close bond of friendship with a human being, Mrs. Wilkinson, after she had been offering food to him over a period of time. James would perform his courtship dance for her on one of his mounds which he had constructed in her backyard — and he would also put on his display for a wider audience, but only when Mrs. Wilkinson was one of those present. On one such occasion, James' performance lasted for forty-three minutes, and included steps to a courtship dance accompanied by his own tune — and also included imitating perfectly the calls of an Australian Magpie, and a young magpie being fed by a parent-bird, a Eastern Whipbird, a Bellbird, a complete laughing-song of a Kookaburra, two Kookaburras laughing in unison, a Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoo, a Gang-gang Cockatoo, an Eastern Rosella, a Pied Butcherbird, a Wattle-bird, a Grey Shrike-thrush, a Thornbill, a White-browed Scrubwren, a Striated Pardalote, a Starling, a Yellow Robin, a Golden Whistler, a flock of parrots whistling in flight, the Crimson Rosella, several other birds whose notes his audience were not able to identify, and the song of honey-eaters (tiny birds with tiny voices), that gather in numbers and "cheep" and twitter in a multitudinous sweet whispering. In order to mimic the honeyeaters' singing faithfully, James was obliged to subdue his powerful voice to the faintest pianissimo, but he contrived, nevertheless, to make each individual note of the soft chorus audibly distinct. Also included in James' performance was his perfect mimicry of the sounds made by a rock-crusher at work, a hydraulic ram, and the tooting of motor-horns.

From Wikipedia

David Attenborough's video of the lyrebird:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3433507052114896375

Black-hooded Oriole, Oriolus xanthornus

I saw a Black Hooded Oriole today at Jadavpur University. At the hem of the Engineering maath. I so wish I had the camera, and it was so close that even with my limited zoom, I’d have got a good shot, what with the bright light and all. Wikipedia says they are shy creatures, so perhaps I am lucky I saw one at all. It sat on a branch right above my head and chirrupped, then took off. Gliding up and down in a wave across to the other side of the grounds.
Also heard one other bird sitting right inside a baby eucalyptus. Krrruu Krrru, that kinda thing. I actually even saw the rear half of the bird, long black tail and white underbelly, it seemed big and gawky, yuuuk! I was looking around a tree, when a dove swooped out of the tree and flew off. Oof, I was so surprised I jumped!
Yennyway, I am putting up an emni picture of a black hooded oriole so one knows what it is. It’s a beauty.

Feel very bad. Is it wrong to ask for minimum decency? And is this the behaviour, the legacy of conduct we will pass on to the following generation? I wish I could up and ante and just go. For there are some things you care about, while the rest you can live with.

Feel very bad. Is it wrong to ask for minimum decency? And is this the behaviour, the legacy of conduct we will pass on to the following generation? I wish I could up and ante and just go. For there are some things you care about, while the rest you can live with.

I was going through this post of Oli’s and I remembered how we’d gone to watch a show of The Divine Child. Alliance Francaise organised it, and it happened at Rabindra Sadan, I think, in first year. It was summer and I think I was quite thoughtless, then. Mane, no deep cogitation went into my actions, and glad for that. I remember it for one, cause the director called it The Divin (as you’d pronounce diving) Child. And there were these scenes: the play is about this child that refuses to leave its mother’s womb when it finds out how terrible the world outside is. And there was a scene where the father of the child has sex with the woman whose carrying the child, can’t get rid of it, and at that, there was a wave of embarrassed laughter through the hall. It was raucous, I guess, and I remember the boys in front of us who laughed the hardest. Were they French students? Perhaps. These are memories, hot sultry afternoons: breathless, meaningless. It is only sometimes that I find the energy that was in those days in the days now.
I am reading Eldest now. My nights and days are being spent trying to finish he book. Note, it is summer now, my favourite time of year. K and I shifted my bed to my room, the first time in seven years. I am pretty settled now: the computer AND the bed in a single room. And I wonder in passing sometimes, how different things were when that bed used to be in that room.. And were they so different really? I yearned for ownership, then. That the room would be stamped mine, now no one says that I can’t stick up what I want on the walls. I am quite agreeable to sharing the wardrobe with ma.
I plan to do up the room a little, whatever my meagre imagination permits. Oli suggested photographs, and I want a lampshade that I’ll hang up, and on summer nights, I’ll close the door that links the room to the rest of the house, light the lamp, open the baranda door, and enjoy bliss.
Je ne regrette rien, goes the Edith Piaf song. I don’t know how to regret, not quite. And I feel clenched today, and it is yet summer.

Victoria Crowned Pigeon of New Guinea

Kakapo

The ancient, flightless Kakapo is the world's rarest and strangest parrot. It the only flightless and nocturnal parrot, as well as being the heaviest in the world, weighing up to 3.5 kilograms. The birds live in New Zealand, an island country which had virtually no mammals living on it for millions of years. It was a place inhabited by birds and reptiles. The only types of mammal were two species of bats. The Kakapo did not learn the defense mechanisms to combat or escape mammalian predators. This made the parrot very vulnerable when new animals started showing up. The arrival of Polynesian peoples thousands of years ago, of Europeans in the 1800's, and ultimately the pets and livestock they brought with them resulted in the massive decline of Kakapo populations from hundreds of thousands to a mere handful of birds. Mother kakapo feeding her chick. Once common throughout the three main islands of New Zealand, there are now approximately 62 Kakapo left. These remaining birds have been relocated to six predator free island habitats, where the birds are relatively safe and have been breeding!
from www.kakapo.net/en/

this here is a coppersmith barbet. it's vague, quite criminal, that, but that it's a barbet will you deny? beautiful beautiful bird. outside my window.
It's call goes knuk knuk knuk, like a hollow tin being beat. It's whole body dances to the sound, like well, it's doing a dance. It's absolutely enchanting. I also think there's another coppersmith in that tree there dehors my window. They are so lovely dear, mane I am just so happy, quite senselessly.

Kokil outside my house.

i'm bored eeeeeee. who knows what witticisms are? am also having mutton biriyani from Saina. it's very hideous, you know. but i really don't care. cause i am going to concentrate on writing two inconsequential stories, one, a tiny one, will be a work of art. yech!

Wilson's Bird of Paradise

This is what I was telling O about, of the same thing in Margo Lanagan's Perpetual Light. It's amazing, the bird, and so utterly beautiful and dainty. Just for the record, though, all Birds of Paradise taste very bad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmmp3wrf9gg

This is a Southern Cassowary. Hideous bird, but wondrous too. It comes after the ostrich and the emu in size. Look at the casque.

And see this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0wsiLWLQLU I mean, I know, but still you'd think that people might look.