My Occasional Thought For The Day

ARCHIVE 3

23rd September 2002 to 21st December 2002

The repetitive purple lines below, in my formatting of this page, are in Persian Cuneiform.

Normally I run these "Thoughts" from one Equinox to the next; yet "My ... Thoughts" have seemingly become wordier & more involved, such that I feel it is best to act long before the next Equinox. My older brother, Steven has his birthday on the date, which is immediately beneath this box. I thought that this, would indeed be a timely date, to split to a new page!
º

In a television programme today, I heard this Musical Critic talking of "back" & "front" Orchestral Conductors; i.e. the former are admired by the public, yet less so by the Musicians in the Orchestra; whilst for the latter it is the other way around. He mentioned Herbert Van Karajan as of the former, saying: "He was not a nice man."

Personally, I have never admired Van Karajan, as to my ear, he turns Beethoven's passion into pomposity.

Last night I decided that the thriving Scotch Thistle up the road, just had to go. It was on footpath "garden island", which vegetation is sacrosant, unless you are a Council Worker. But Scotch Thistle is a declared noxious weed; and it was tall, lush & in flower.

However, this morning, when I passed that way whilst going to work, with a pair of appropriate gloves at hand, I found the offending Thistle was no more. In those hours in between, someone like-minded had been there first.

Dusk. John Howard the Pied Currawong alighted on the side balcony rail, trying for a 2nd biscuit. I was not convinced she should have another.

Ariel, her child, settled briefly not far from her. John Howard snapped with an air peck. Ariel flew to a discrete distance. Mickle & Muckle, the Indian Mynas, arrived to be likewise driven off. So I gave her the desired food; if only to prevent her suffering a stroke.

I actually completed moves in three correspondence chess games tonight, all posted; whilst I have the moves decided for another two, which after a final perusal I will post tomorrow. This is, after a week plus hiatus, during which, even the possibility of touching a chess piece, let alone considering moving one, were an unpleasantry for me.

A small victory for an unusual determination, of my fragile willpower. I doubt with too much eagerness. That is indeed the crux of my self-crucification.

Curious I find it, that over 2,000 thousand years ago, Roman Engineers could fabrciate water-proof concrete that it is still in place & quite intact. Yet, modern concrete is often flaking away in only a few years.

We may have gained in technology; but sadly, have lost both patience; & pride in our constructive creations.

Busy day was yesterday. Following some twelve hours sleep, I was out to the WEA Writers Group Lunch. Then, I bought a single CD, "Purcell In The Alehouse" & a double CD, Joseph Haydn's Paris Symphonies [numbers 82-87] by the Orchestra of The Enlightenment. Both were from Fish Fine Music in George Street, Sydney.

Following some rest, it was out to the Tap Gallery in Darlinghurst for the Factory Space's "A Perfect Ganeesh". This was followed by their Christmas Party in Neutral Bay, after which I walked home, from 12.40am to 1.00am.

I enjoy all this, yet, it is almost survival struggle. Due to my chronic low blood pressure, my joints become very sore. At half-time in the play, I thought for a moment, that I may not be able to stand up.

That was yesterday. Today, in amongst the endless dross which is existence, my only fine point was planting seeds of Golden Everlastings. This is quite easy, as you merely scatter them on moist, firmed down ground!

It probably comes to the surprise of many, that Australia does have composers in the classical tradition; and to a smaller number, that there is an Australian composer other than Percy Grainger.

I have just put on a CD of Margaret Sutherland's "best known" works. The first, of which the 2nd Movement is currently playing, is for me, her best work: Concerto For String Orchestra. It is performed by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra [or at least, by their String Section].

Margaret Sutherland lived from 1897 to 1984. Her major influence is probably Bela Bartók.

Helen Harmer, a friend of mine, once described Sutherland's work as "movie music". I shall not try to delve into whether this is a compliment or not; at least not at this juncture in time.

Life's way of telling you
how an Earthworm feels
when the Kookaburras are hunting
at night, under street lights.

[Kookaburra: an Australian Bird. It actually is a very large Kingfisher, which possesses an essentially Crow-like beak, which is comparitively even larger. There are two species, both of which primarily dine on lizards, snakes, small mammals, nestlings & eggs.

The Common Kookaburra is found in most areas of Australia. It is only slightly smaller in size than a Crow, and its call sounds like laughter. Several years ago, I witnessed, in Smoothey Park in Wollstonecraft, a Common Kookaburra hunting for Earthworms under street lights, at about 9pm. Earthworms rise to the surface on damp nights. In this, the genetically determined behaviour of the Earthworm fails to the learning ability of the Kookaburra. Sometimes it helps to be brainy!

North Queensland's Blue-Winged Kookaburra is slightly smaller again. It does "laugh", but is also a good mymic, throwing a range of mimiced sounds together in a long call. In Townsville, I once heard Blue-Winged Kookaburras include in their calls, a sound exactly like a spring bouncing on the ground!]

Sydney is one of the wettest places on the Australian continent. Despite the drought, moss continues to grow on the ground, in quantity.

Oddly enough though, Western Sydney has a massive potential problem with Dryland Salinity. As it has a sprawled out population, of well over a million people, the future cost will be substantial.

[The Dryland Salinity of Western Sydney was an "honourable mention" tonight, on ABC-TV's Catylist. Dryland Salinity, ironically enough, involves lots of water coming close to the surface. Salty water, of course.]

What could one achieve, if procuring the necessities of life, took not the many hours of every day, which it does. But here, I am merely echoing the thoughts of Copernicus.

A single day of persistent, consistent drizzle.
All the bushfires, in & around Sydney, are out.
That easy! Anticlimatic indeed.

Essentially, the difference between Australia & New Zealand comes down to two variables: size & water.

It was much of that oily yellow sunlight today; the result of the rays filtering through ash-clouds. And, in any case, it was fairly dismal for me, to spend the day catching up on housework. But then, at least I am distant from this ring of bushfires.

[Re yesterday: Sadly, an excessively long work day today, proved
the wish not possible, though I kept the hope as long I could!]

I could in no way miss this. Georg Handel is my favourite Opera Composer. I just love his sense of fun, even in the tragic tale of Semele's death. Mind you, Handel * dwells only briefly on her death, switching swiftly to the Phoenix like birth of Bacchus, her son by Zeus.

This performance is "Chamber Opera". So the Orchestra, the Sirius Ensemble, is on the level with the audience, or at least at the bottom of seating slope; while the stage is only raised the sufficient necessary to have the singers clearly visible. Everything is close, which I quickly came to love.

Musically it was a wonderful experience! The ensemble [i.e Singers & Musicians] performed with the lust for life, which is quintessentially Georg Handel! I only wish that I could once more experience the sounds & sights, on monday night's final performance.

My shins hurt from all that vertical body position for so long. Yet it is but a minor burden, in exchange for an exceptional experience of the senses.

[* Addendum 14th December 2002AD: Re-reading this, almost by chance today, I realised that some may complain, that Handel wrote the music, not the libretto. True. But Handel took a libretto that William Congreve wrote some decades before, which he arranged to be updated, probably by Newburgh Hamilton. So I would mantain that Georg Handel was in control. Libretto details from the words of Erin Helyard, in the Pinchgut Opera "Semele" programme.]

Debussy: Prelude to 'The Afternoon of A Faun'.
Beethoven: Violin Concerto.
Tchaikovsky: 4th Symphony.

I went through quite some minor trauma to make this Concert. In to town, after work, I purchased the ticket at the Opera House; then back home, arriving after 4pm; finally, after limited rest & barely recovered sore shins, back out to the Opera House!

But worth it indeed! This Debussy Prelude suffers more than most to the inevitable coughing. And worse still, the beginning was delayed, whilst conductor, Stéphane Denève waited for a clomping individual with mobile phone ringing loudly, to slowly leave the hall just at that precise moment! At the point of final exit, this creature slammed the door! Still, the work survived with its beautiful languor intact.

The Beethoven Violin Concerto, curiously enough, I was unfamiliar with. It is very beautiful; touchingly, tragically so! The violin solo by the German, Viviane Hagner was exquisite. This performance was actually supposed to be Bartok's 2nd Violin Concerto, with soloist, Augustin Dumay. Viviane was called up as replacement at short notice. Fortunate it is, that such a talented violinist had just finished performing in Melbourne; and was generous enough to help out. The Orchestra did very well; and the short rehersal time had no noticeable ill-effect.

Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony. Excellent! Only when the Final Movement came did I find myself on familiar ground. A very moving and at times, tempestuous work. The music ranges remarkably smoothly between quiet introspection & angst-filled clamour. The Third Movement, with the entire strings playing pizzicato for the whole movement, I found especially enthralling.

My way home was by Ferry; leisurely crossing the cool, quiet, light-strewn night waters of Sydney Harbour. I found this ambience most appropriate. My only sadness is the difficulty in convincing others, of the value to the soul of such an experience.

[Yes, cool! In fact, the day was oft cold; compared with the wild winded heat of the previous two days. The wind has lessened, although it still squalls at times.]

Yesterday at around 3pm, some forty bushfires began, split between the northern & southern margins of Sydney. Some twenty-three homes lost; plus several injuries; yet fortunately no fatalities.

Today things worsened. Seventy or more fires up and down the coast. In the Shoalhaven, spot fires formed up to 4km ahead of the fire front; while near Cowan to Sydney's north, they were spotting nearly as severely.

When the wind squalls this strongly, one does not so much fight fires, as try to subtly appease them. There is a strong understanding of the fickle nature of fate in these parts; no vengeful Diety, but rather just pure bad luck, as one house is destroyed, the next untouched, with no obvious reasons in favour of the saved.

The fires were all of human creation. Whether the result of an arsonist's psychosis, or sourced from the still glowing cigarette butt, flung without thought from a car window, the result is the same.

At just after seven this evening, I saw the mother & child Pied Currawongs, in the tree next door. The twilighting sky made it their last stop, before roosting. I signalled to them, but they just stayed put.

So I went inside & came back with a cracker biscuit, which I held up. To my surprise, Ariel flew across & alighted on the side balcony rail; then hopped along towards the offering; took it in beak; then flew off, round the rear corner of this building. Mother soon followed, post haste.

I was most impressed! This was the first time the youngster had been on the balcony rail in my presence. Clearly, Ariel is not just a squawking child, but also an acute sighted quick learner.

At 9.15pm, I watered the plants in the cool evening air, post scorcher. The darkness hides the ash clouds of the forty fires, which are ringing Greater Sydney. A Tawny Frogmouth landed on the front balcony rail of the unit below. I only ever see one Tawny Frogmouth here; either, as there is only one, or because they have different shifts.

This evening, I extracted from its earth, the penultimate Chantenay Carrot in my current front balcony crop. Cooked it & ate it fresh; as is best. Very pleasant indeed.

Carrot raising is a most transient pastime.
Yet pleasant enough within its impermanence.

Today's Sydney Morning Herald was the most special edition for the year. Enclosed, as a free insert, is the 2003 Michael Leunig Calendar.

If you enjoy a sincere sense of whimsy in cartoons, and, up till now, you have not had acquaintance with the work of Michael Leunig; well, then, there is a vast empty space within your soul, which you have only just learnt of, this very same paragraph!!

Firstly, John Howard the Pied Currawong flew to the front balcony rail. I gestured to her to stay outside, while I went to the kitchen for a cracker biscuit. This she did. Then I was able to persuade her to stay there, while I brought it to her. She was well behaved today.

With her prize, she flew to the side ledge of the building next door. Ariel, her child, arrived; squawking as usual. But this time, she broke small pieces off the biscuit and fed them to Ariel.

The noise attracted a Rainbow Lorrikeet; then a second Rainbow Lorrikeet. They watched with intense interest from the guttering. Muckle, the Indian Myna, walked around from the back of the building. He successfully drove off Ariel, who had momentarily landed on this other ledge [about half a metre higher] when John Howard had decided to feed herself instead.

Emboldened by this success, Muckle then tried to expel the Rainbow Lorrikeets. He was very quickly told where he could go. Rainbow Lorrikeets are somewhat larger, heavier & even bolder than Indian Mynas.

John Howard, having finished, flew away; soon followed by Ariel. This allowed the Rainbow Lorrikeets to pick over the crumbs, which were not really to their taste, as they are primarily fruit & nectar feeders. They left, leaving the crumbs to those avian vacuum cleaners, Mickle & Muckle.

It was utterly restrained, by the debauched Senatorial standards of the early & middle Roman Empire; indeed almost serene in comparison. Yet it did seem essentially in the essence of Saturnalia; rather than the aesthetic practice of a certain Jewish Nasryn.

Mind you, I feel, personally, that there is much to be said for the Saturnalic tradition.

In my mail today is "Five Bells", the magazine of the "Poets Union". Curious concept really! "Poets Union" that is, not "Five Bells". In my experience, there seems nothing which unifies or binds all Poetry, or all Poets.

Today, around 1pm in Waverton, I saw two young Pied Currawongs standing on a roof & being fed by a parent. They were quite polite about their requests & were clearly well fed.

~3pm - I heard the unmistakakable food demands of a half-grown Pied Currawong. I looked out of the side balcony window & there was the offspring of John Howard [the Pied Currawong] who was on a wide ledge which overhangs the ground floor, at the front of the next building. I have now named this youngster "Ariel".

On the ledge beside Ariel was an apple core, and just beyond that, two Indian Mynas, Mickle & Muckle. I knew John Howard was around, as it was most unlikely that the kid could have moved an apple core there. Knowing not what to do, Ariel flew off. But before Mickle & Muckle could reach the apple, light on their feet as they are, John Howard had swooped in, lifted the core and flown to a side ledge on the same building. There, in a matter of a minute: she washed the core in a gutter; ate some; regurgitated some of this to the now returned Ariel; then retrieved the core & flew off, pursued by the desperately pleading child.

When following any line of systematic investigation, the key thing is to be prepared for surprises; for those situations where the evidence clearly indicates a certain conclusion, garnered from ones past experience & understanding, but which conclusion is now contradicted in a way that insists a change in ones perceptions.

Now! ... At 7.40am today, the Pied Currawong mother & child, from yesterday, turned up in the trees next door. The mother, however, soon flew around to my front balcony, and had the clear appearance of "John Howard", who, I presume, had so recently nested in one of the aforementioned trees. That it was her this morning, I understood from her appearance, her obvious request for a "Bird's Own" cracker biscuit, and when I came out of the kitchen with one, I saw that she had calmly followed me inside, and was almost halfway across the sitting [or living] room! - Please note that these birds are quite understandably nervous of people, and to so relaxedly follow me in, she had to know & trust me very well. At my calm gestured request, she walked outside, then flew up to the balcony rail. There she collected the offering and flew off, soon pursued by the voracious & verbally begging youngster!

She was back at 9.35am, and in her need I chose to break my rule on cracker biscuits & give her a second. She was reasonably patient at first, but when I walked back in to the sitting room with the offering, she flew to the arm of my chair and perched there. Then almost instantly, flew on to perch on the roof of Ludwig Van Budgie-Bird's cage; and almost immediately again, back to the front balcony rail, where she took the food in her beak and flew off. There was a brief frantic commotion amongst the Budgies due to this, and understandably so!

Now I shall review my evidence, to discover why I had my conclusion so very wrong:

[1] One chick was much smaller & less able to beg aggressively than the other. - My previous experience was with the former mature pair who had the nest until 2000, and who fed both chicks equally. However, John Howard is a young inexperienced mother, & the father possibly likewise. So it seems, as happens with many birds, she had fed primarily the chick which begged better. The smaller chick then, had died, and presumably had fallen or had been pushed out.

Please note, that unlike the Koel chick in the nest of the previous pair in 2000, there was no attempt to fed a dead chick still in the nest; nor was there a Koel parent keeping in the vicinity, and sometimes observing the chick from a medium distance in the same tree, as happened in 2000.* Also, unlike 2000, I had heard no Koels calling prior to the chicks hatching.

* [The reference books say a Koel mother takes no interest in her
offspring, but then anyone & everyone may be wrong at times!]

[2] The father abandoning the family. - This is a mystery to me. Inexperience perhaps? The father of the previous pair was a very attentive parent. That pair successfully raised two chicks, both definitely Pied Currawongs, in each of 1998 & 1999.

[3] The reluctance of the youngster to leave the nest. - I suppose they all are, but this one seemed to be distinctly underdeveloped compared to the chicks of 1998 & 1999, and much closer in appearance to the Koel of 2000! It could be, that having only one parent feeding it, and that parent being inexperienced, it was perhaps malnourished. If this already were the case, the mother starving it to get it out of the nest, could not have helped matters. Yet, it is their genetically long established nature, that the young must be moved from the exposed nest to dense lower cover, as soon as practical. Nowadays, there are no Hawks nor Eagles in these parts, but evolution can not work its will in but an instant!

I surmise, that the high exposed nest is to protect the eggs & young chicks from the sensitive noses of nocturnal mammals. I have witnessed individuals of the nocturnal Brush-Tail Possums & Ring Tail Possums*, which have tarried getting home until daylight hours, being rather aggressively harassed by Pied Currawongs. The two Possum species are leaf & fruit eaters. But there are few of the larger animals, regardless of their theoretical diet preference, who will pass up a free meal of birds' eggs!

*[These two species are quite unrelated to each other,
& even more unrelated to American Opossums!]

Surmising further, the eggs & small chicks would have a degree of camouflage in the nest from Hawks & Eagles, which would lessen proportionally to their increase in size; just as the risk from arboreal mammals lessens. So they are encouraged by their parents to abandon the exposed nest for dense lower cover. And, if necessary, they are finally forced to make the move through the effective means of hunger.

[4] The red spot under the tree amongst the droppings? - Well, it was what I thought most probable at the time - berry stains.

[5] Why did John Howard not come for cracker biscuits, when she was feeding her young in the nest? - A bigger mystery! I can give no clear reason, as today's events show that she remembers & trusts me well!

[6] And strangest of all, why was John Howard roosting in her nest tree, without her youngster, on Tuesday 19th November 2002 ???? - This one is the most difficult to explain. It certainly looked like her, and who else would be so drawn to the nest? But where was the youngster roosting? Perhaps, if it was in a communal Pied Currawong roost, she felt it safe to leave it; but then, how did she get away from the all-following child?

And I am most glad that young John Howard
has managed through it all, to raise a child!

At mid-morning, a Pied Currawong parent, accompanied by a single half-grown offspring, passed by this way. She briefly inspected the abandoned nest from a medium distance. Then she got down to feeding her ever-calling youngster, by raiding food scraps from a neighbour's garbage bag.

These two Pied Currawongs were hitherto unknown to me, and requested of me no sustenance. An hour earlier, however, Bigfoot & then John Howard, each arrived for a cracker biscuit, which each duly received.

[Addendum, 14th December 2002AD - Rereading this, in an idle moment or more, I note that John Howard, after so many attempts to purposely deceive me, in regard to having been given a biscuit, has achieved it on the above mentioned occasion, quite accidently!]

Due to a rather inexpensive purchase today, I now have two working monitors, each of which is attached to a rather eccentrically behaving hard-drive.

Early this morning, I noticed there was something odd about the way that Amadeus Bat-Budgie was perched on her swing. A second glance showed me that one of the arms of the swing was not hooked over the correct bar, but was instead on a bar perpendicular to it, with the effect that the swing was at an oblique angle. But, as she had no intention moving from the swing, I left her to it.

That afternoon, as soon as I got home, I went to the cage to adjust the swing back to its original position, only to find that a small feathered creature had already done this. I told her I was very impressed, but she just looked at me, with grave suspicion in her eyes.

At around 7.40pm, I saw the Pied Currawong mother, who had lost her chicks to a Koel Cuckoo. She went to her old nest in the fading light; actually briefly sitting on it. Then she moved away from the nest, but stayed within this Eucalypt & seemed to be preparing to roost for the night.

At about 8.00pm, I checked with a torch, and found her roosting high up on a slender branch, among some of the thicker foilage.

As far as I can gather, this is one who hates all infidels, but not quite to the point of attempting any wholesale slaughter of them. I suppose that is reassuring, in a bizarre way.

This morning I managed to do many things;
but this afternoon, all but nothing.

It would be pleasant for me,
if I could construct an entire day of achievement.

Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis".
Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Sydney Opera House.

I knew that the length of this piece would be difficult for me, due to my low blood pressure. Sure enough, only some ten minutes in, my left thigh struck up a pain, which refused to leave during the entire performance.

Still, despite this, the music was an exultant experience. As the programme notes suggested, this work is a religious experience, especially created for those, who, like Beethoven, find organised religion unsatisfactory.

Australian Brandenburg Orchestra
with Elizabeth Wallfisch conducting from Baroque Violin.

This night was composed of various works, notable for that characteristic cheerfulness that Mozart injects into music. Such good humour spread itself to all.

During the Second Movement of the Serenade Number 5, Elizabeth Wallfisch's score fell to the floor. She continued for some bars, then stooped to reclaim it. Meanwhile, the Orchestra continued unbothered, until her lead violin could rejoin.

"I must say, the most depressing thing is that they keep going, whether I'm here or not."

The winds so far this week have been cool & briskly in from the south-east, and scattered with low clouds. This is usual for that direction.

However, while the winds continued today to be cool & scattered with low clouds, they swung right around, to come from an east to north easterly direction. This is most unusual for that direction, as the air currents should have slowed, warmed up, and lifted the clouds from their ridge-hunging race.

Strange to think that only two years ago, I could manage to play in Chess Tournaments every tuesday night, from January to December. It is true that my health destroyed many promising games. Yet I still could make the attempt, whereas nowadays, I dare not do it.

It would be good if all that humidity in this morning's air, could be persuaded to leave its abode & deliver itself to the parched soil, taking the endless airborne ash with it.

Having raced, on a saturday noontime whim, across the Harbour by bus to the Opera House, I was devastated to find that the Sydney Symphony Orchestra's matinee performance, of Beethoven's Triple Concerto & Rachmaninov's 2nd Symphony, was sold out. So, as to not waste the effort, I went up to the Concert Hall & listened to the Concert on the speakers in the foyer. I even bought the programme!

Despite the extraneous noises of the caterers cleaning up, as well as that of some errant ill-minded children, I heard the concert well enough! - Certainly, it was well enough for what I had paid. Be that as it may, I would have far more preferred to have been inside.

6.43am! The side balcony blinds had only been half-open for less than ten minutes; when Bigfoot, the Pied Currawong, appears on the balcony rail. So I go to the kitchen, select a cracker biscuit & return. He has left, but only to a nearby tree perch. Seeing me once more, he shoots back to the balcony rail, collects the offering in his beak; and he is off!

The whole time that there was an occupied nest in the tree next door, I never saw him. Yet "the bird hath flown" for but one day & voilá! Old Bigfoot appears.

One suspects that he was never that far away, and Pied Currawongs do have excellent eyesight, and, obviously, very good memory. It is interests me regarding the social protocols of these birds. Even though he is clearly higher status than the nesting female, "John Howard", since she had always given way to him at "biscuit time", he still kept out of her space while she had a nestling. This was even after the father of the nestling had abandoned the nest, presumably after realising it was a Koel chick.

Curiouser still, even though she took biscuits when she was sitting on the nest & very hungry, after the chicks hatched [the Koel interloper, & the Pied Currawong original, which the former soon killed] she never came for a biscuit. Not even once. ... I await with interest to see if she too will revert to her old habits!

On arriving home at 1.49pm, I looked out the side balcony window. The Pied Currawong nest was empty. The most likely explanation is that the Koel fledgling had flown away. Their normal style is to simply leave when they are ready, and being far more instinctive a bird than a Pied Currawong is, a young Koel can feed for itself without parental tutoring. However, it would mean that its wings must have strengthened very quickly.

The other possibility is that it fell & died; with the body being removed by one of the neighbourhood cats, or by the residents of that ground floor unit. The ground beneath the nest is just outside their front door. I carefully scrutinised the pavement below the nest. Amongst the uneven spread of droppings there, is a dull red splotch, which may be blood. However, it may also be a stain from certain berries which are favoured by Pied Currawongs. After digesting the berry flesh, they sit in a branch & regurgitate the seeds, which give a reddish stain to whatever substrate they fall upon. Be that as it may, these stains do wash out in time with rain, and while there has been little of sky-descending water in these parts of late, is is also true that it has been around two months since these berries were fruiting.

The Koel fledgling has been, through the afternoon, sometimes standing, with a few wing stretches & an occasional flapping; but othertimes just sitting in the nest, immobile.

At 4.48pm, I looked out the window & saw the Pied Currawong foster mother there, right next to the nest. I did not see it feed the fledgling. But as it is still alive, it must be getting some feed from the mother. [The father is quite absent from the nest now.] Then she carefully picked up what appeared to be a dropping and flew away with it.

At 5.39pm, I saw the fledgling do a dropping from over the edge of the nest, which fell straight to the ground. Immediately the mother appeared, flew to a branch some distance from the nest, and looked down to where the dropping had descended. She then disappeared.

At 7.14pm, I saw the mother on the building ledge, some distance from the nest, watching the fledgling flap its wings. These wing flappings are to strengthen the flight muscles, but the exercise leaves this observer with no expectation that the young Koel will shortly take to the air successfully. What the mother thought, I can in no way say.

She came closer to the young, skirting from branch to branch, with elegant little half-flights, until she was right next to the nest. She was very close, briefly, and while I could not see clearly at the critical point, she swallowed shortly after, which could mean a feeding, albeit it must have been barely a mouthful. Then she was in the nest, shouldering the fledgling out of the way, but not out of the nest completely. The mother pecked several times at something in the bottom of the nest. The she flew out of sight, to the west, at 7.18pm.

I have had the opportunity to carefully observe the nest. The bottom of it is gradually coming apart, including some of the secondary supports, and not just the final fillings. The whole structure may be leaning slightly to the south, although I suspect it is not in imminent danger of collapse. Yet, if the recurring high winds persist, it is unlikely to last the year. The Koel clings very firmly when the nest is blown about dramatically.

I find it curious that, while the Pied Currawong foster mother seems to only have marginal interest in feeding her purported offspring, she is still assiduous in removing excrement from the nest!

Today I ate some leaves from the lettuce which I picked yesterday, from my front balcony. The Budgies had some other leaves of the same specimen. Very fresh & very tasty. Enjoyed by all. When I picked it, I carefully removed two ladybirds by gently shaking them off, leaving them with the other lettuce. As they are carnivorous, they would have been removing small herbivorous insects, a habit of which I fully approve.

I saw little of the Koel today: sometimes it stood & sometimes it sat. The bottom of the nest appears to be fraying somewhat. "Chick" seems rather inappropriate, for while its behviour is still very immature, it is as big, perhaps even bigger than its foster mother. Maybe "fledgling" is more appropriate.

Three visits I saw today, from the Pied Currawong foster mother to the Koel chick in her nest. They were at 4.15pm, 4.23pm & 4.35pm. None went past five minutes & they all followed the same pattern: the mother at times was close to the nest; at times skirting on more distant, and often slender branches; but within my sight fed not the chick, despite its plaintive calls. She did, however, pick up something whitish from inside the nest, then fly away with it in her beak. Possibly this was a dropping.

Yesterday it occurred to me, that she may be trying to lure the chick out of the nest, to move it to lower cover. This is the pattern for Pied Currawongs - when the chicks can fly a little they are moved from the high exposed nest to lower dense bushes, where the parents continue to feed the young.

While this chick is of the right size for this, if it were a Pied Currawong; as it is a Koel, it still can not fly. So there it was at 7.30pm; all alone; standing on the nest; at times flapping its wings, which still lack the strength to free it from its lonely eyrie.

I admit I am obsessed by this drama in minature. But then it does seem to sum up some many contradictions of existence. If there is to be a creature which is called "sympathy", in which axis should it lie?

I saw the Pied Currawong "foster mother" there for the first time this day. She was right beside the nest, but I did not see her feed the Koel chick. Soon she moved in a series of small leaps to more distant branches; then on to a second storey ledge on the next building. Finally she flew out of sight, to return only a minute later. Again she went from branch to branch; even climbing quickly up a branch to a point almost directly under the nest. However,she did not feed the chick, although the nestling was calling for food the whole time; sometimes standing, sometimes seated. At 7.15pm the mother flew away & did not return. Afterwards the chick stood some while, did some stretching & even managed a few wing flappings. But then it sank once more in to its twig constructed prison.

An hour later, when it was rather dark & the Pied Currawong had long gone, the Koel chick began calling for food once more, in to the empty night. This lament continued for some ten minutes, before it settled for sleep.

At just before 7.30pm today, when the sun had set, but the last light of the day still lingered, I saw the mother Pied Currawong alight in that tree. The Koel chick in its nest was begging for food desperately & vocally, sometimes standing & sometimes sitting. I had noticed during the day that it was standing quite a lot, stretching its wings at times, but no flapping. The mother moved from branch to branch, watching the chick, but never getting very close to the nest. After about a minute, she flew off.

Five minutes later she returned. This time she went right up to the nest. The chick begged very vocally & furiously. It, at length, was rewarded with three mouthfuls, at discrete, separated intervals. Then the mother descended to a nearby low roof. Shortly later she flew away.

The previous time I had seen the chick fed was friday afternoon; and that was equally meagre. One should note here, that Pied Currawongs are, by nature, very devoted & hardworking parents. If a chick does everything right it will be well fed, without hesitation. There seems to be in this case, a conflict between her natural maternal instinct, and her assessment of the chick's behaviour & appearance.

My feelings towards this Koel chick are mixed. I like Pied Currawongs, and it murdered one of their chicks! - I saw the victim oh so briefly in the nest. On the other hand, it is trapped high up a gum tree in that exposed nest, and it is hungry. A very effective prison indeed, for one who can not fly!

It had one excellent extra consequence. My dramatic & rapid cleanup of disorder, prior to her arrival at 3pm.

Early this evening, I was back at "Discontinued". King Crimson "Starless and Bible Black" I exchanged for King Crimson "In The Court Of Crimson King [30th anniversary edition]". I was warming up, so I also bought two Emerson, Lake & Palmer CDs: "Brain Salad Surgery" [with bonus tracks] & "Now & Then" [live double album, recorded from 1974 & 1997/98].

People who only buy the most utterly fashionable music, are indelibly foolish. Age never wearies real quality, whether it be C.P.E. Bach, are E.L. & P.!!

If one considers it quite dispassionately, it seems odd that old bones, dragged up out of dirt, could make compelling viewing. Stranger still, that some like me will even at times, watch it while eating.

Finally I lodged my Tax Return, which I compiled last night. After a longish day at work, it was in to Town to lodge it personally!

To celebrate, I bought 2 CDs at "Discontinued" in Wynyard's Hunter Arcade: Jethro Tull "A Passion Play" & King Crimson "Starless and Bible Black". On the way home by bus, I had a persistent doubt about the latter. As soon as I was in the door, I checked my horde of some 350 odd CDs, and yes ... I already had "Starless and Bible Black". So I rang "Discontinued" & they very kindly said that I could change it.

Today I saw the Koel chick next door, which seems to be fed less and less by its Pied Currawong foster parents. Earlier in Waverton, about 1pm, I saw two older Pied Currawong young in a nest being fed by a parent. The body language is different. The Pied Currawong chicks are standing when they beg for food, and they are beginning to look increasingly adult. The Koel chick, though the same size, has a more immature appearance & behaviour. In particular, it still sits with its beak vertically up, begging as it did as a a young nestling.

It seems to me, it is the behaviour of older Koel chicks which makes Pied Currawong parents suspicious. At a younger age, they are merely more aggressive beggers, which appears to be not enough cause for their foster parents to doubt their paternity.

If you could see the mass of cable tv guides
that even a small suburb demands,
you would well understand!

It rarely fails to amaze me! Such a plethora of PC programmes are available for free download on the internet. Some are more useful than others. While there are those that indicate a small but persistent irritation.

Once upon a time, PCs gave the date & time on the screen, at the bottom. Microsoft decreed that it should be only the date. Now there is a free programme which does but one thing. It puts the date back there, next to the time!

And just to make matters more curious, today was rather cold, with low grey storm clouds having blown in from the south-east. An ever-passing, but never ending, cover of cloud-mass persisted all day.

Not so blue the sky today; less intense, with a wash of brown increasing gradually but persistently through the hours. The air was warmer & very much more humid than yesterday, while the sunlight was lesser. At times in the afternoon, it changed from a deathly pale to an odd oily yellow.

The air - unusually cool for october,
with the sun's rays more like those of august.

Early this morning, when only half-awake, I smelt clearly smoke in the air. Even stronger it was, in the street. By mid-morning, a cloud of bushfire-smoke had gathered to the west & the sunlight had become quite pallid. By noon, the odour of the atmosphere was much altered; the sky itself was an odd greyish brown; the sun's rays were very feeble indeed; while any wind gusts brought a strange chillness. I looked up to see low white cumulus fluffs drifting in a dirty sky; while any higher clouds were surely buried in this alien decayed beige. Yet, by just after one post meridian, the apex of the sky was blue once more, while the beige cloud has been pushed far to the east, over the coastal suburbs & out to sea.

It is my sincere conclusion, that either of my knees should first request my consent, before making any complaints by way of their pain recaeptors.

The Koel chick in the Pied Currawong nest makes endless requests for food from its foster Mother. She, however, feeds it only when she wants to. At other times she ignores it; and the ultimate way to make a chick shut up, is to sit on it. The foster Father seems mostly absent now. One wonders whether history will repeat, despite this pair being much less experienced than the previous pair which nested in this tree.

I was at the Currawong's Nest Fair today, with the Willoughby Road completely closed to motorised mobile machines. Stalls, of a great many kinds, were sprawled far along the straggling bitumen ribbon.

I saw Wolfgang Razorbeak experimenting today. He was standing on a perch, on his very tippy talons, with his beak becoming quite vertical as this slight grey-blue Budgie pushed the swing as high up as he could. Then he let it go & very deliberately observed its motion. He repeated this experiment thrice more, that I saw.

More experiment in today's Cunningham By-Election. This nothern Wollongong electorate appears to have been lost by the Australian Labor Party, for the first time since the seat's creation in 1949. The Greens won it, and it was that party's first win of an electorate in the House of Representives. Yet, on monday, we will be back at work; and the world will seem disturbingly unaltered, with not even the Bali bombing changing that clear monotony.

For those who touch not the sausage, fearing for what kinds of offal may be ground within its innards, a barbecue can be reduced to fried onion & fresh tomato within a roll. Pleasant enough as far as it goes, albeit it may leave one's taste buds & digestion a mickle unsatistified.

Today's thursday seems to me,
quite unremarkable, when compared to
any other of life's inumerable thursdays.

Presumably, that is the one which reached higher & more persistently for "parental" feeding, as I observed in the brief interlude of two chicks. For certain the survivor is a Koel chick, laid as an egg by it cuckoo parent, after devouring egg one. Yet egg one had a kinder fate than egg two, which was suffered to hatch, only for the chick to be reduced to hunger, than pecked to death or pushed out of the nest by the intruder. Possibly one, then the other! So there is one fast growing, greedy chick left, which is rather much indistinguishable from a Pied Currawong chick, but for one fact.

At a size when it should be flapping its wings to strengthen them, it will be still in feather-down & unflappable. In 2000, in the last year that the previous Pied Currawong pair nested in this tree, that "one fact" cost the murderous cuckoo chick its life. One day, I saw the foster father watching the chick very carefully. Dad had his head cocked, and spent a long time observing the nestling with his left eye; the eye that birds use for intense scrutiny. After that, I did not see Dad feed it again; nor did I observe him anywhere near the nest at all. Mum, however, still fed the demanding ball of down.

Four days later, I saw the chick dead at the foot of the tree. It had clearly fallen. Unless, that is, it had been pushed. For the now empty nest had clearly suffered much damage. Within a few weeks, it had disintegrated.

Quite splendid it was! But the masses most will never get their gaze going its way, for the dross of Hollywood Blockbusters, replete with their trivial "Special Effects", will obscure, for the easily enslaved, any real search for creative originality.

However, if you thin out all you wish to eat,
you will surely never see a full grown leek.

For some people, these two words
are so difficult to pronounce,
they are quite impossible to say.

[This responds to a documentary on ABC TV last night:
on Dinosaurs, in the Mid-Jurassic.]

Tonight at 6.03pm, Wolfgang Razorbeak, after his customary few pushes on the swing, actually climbed on to it, and happily swayed back & forth, whilst testing its mettle with his beak [as Budgies are wont to do!].

But Amadeus Bat-Budgie still eyes it suspiciously from a respectable distance.

Last night and early this morning, I heard a Koel calling for the first time this season. These large black Cuckoos are prone to lay their eggs in Pied Currawong nests; & so my inexperienced Pied Currawong mother, in the tree next door, may have been fortunate that the Koels arrived later this season.

I feel so slow. And strangely patient of my own slowness.
If patience is a virtue, I am indeed virtuous today.

This morning, at 8am, I stood atop a small concrete block on my side balcony, from which vantage point, I could just see the head of a chick in the Pied Currawong nest. Shortly later, from inside my unit, I saw the Pied Currawong mother feeding the now unseen chick.

I had guessed there was at least one chick hatched, as the mother's behaviour had changed in recent days, but this was first I actually saw any offspring.

However, in the days of the Vietnam War, when he young & able to personally bear arms for his country; he assiduously avoided such activity.

From today's copy of the Mosman Daily [which is a weekly newspaper] I now know the story of last thursday's pedestrian death. An 89 year old woman was crossing Military Road at the main pedestrian crossing. A truck was stopped between the two crossings, which are on either side of the T-junction with Wycombe Road. The light turned green. The driver drove. The woman was hit & died ten minutes later.

I think I may well have seen this woman
before at this crossing.
But I will not see her again.

[Perhaps I have written this before in a previous "thought",
but it is worth saying once more. It is so true.]

Every time I cross Military Road in Neutral Bay at the main crossing, which is almost every day & often more than once, I see the long stain. This is from the blood of the woman who died there under the wheels of a truck last thursday. The exact circumstances of the fatality are not known to me, but the stain suggests heavy bleeding as she was dragged along, perhaps under the wheels.

It bothers me - must be this decadent Western weakness of mine. And in each crossing I am careful not to step on her stain, out of respect.

Nesting is testing the nerves of John Howard - the female Pied Currawong, that is. After I gave Big-Foot [another Pied Currawong] his one Bird's Own Biscuit for the day, John Howard lined up for hers. I went to the kitchen for it, but when I returned, frustration & hunger had clearly got the better of her, for she was brawling with Mickle & Muckle [the local Indian Miner pair] over the crumbs from Big-Foot's biscuit! And her temper was unusually mean for this normally shy & nervous bird; even to the point of chasing Muckle through the air.

Optimistically, Big-Foot turned up twice again later in the morning, each time hoping for an extra feed. Both times I shooed him away.

[John Howard was so named by me, before I knew she was a she.
But if the name fits! - I will not go into reasons here.]

It was hard work, forcing myself to play skittles for an hour & a half against my Chess-Playing Computer Programme. At the end of this ordeal, the chess-tactical unit in my head was humming over enough for me to tackle five correspondence games. Fortunately, I was able to isolate what I think are the best moves, in some rather complex and difficult games!

[In these skittle games, I deliberately used different opening lines from those in my correspondence chess games. It is against the rules of the Correspondence Chess League of Australia (CCLA) to use Chess-Playing Computers/Programmes to help with your analysis, and I would not use these machines anyway. A kind of luddite pride perhaps! However, it is permitted to use computerised chess databases.]

The Malaya Restaurant closed tonight in North Sydney, after being run at the same venue for nearly three decades. I was there with a friend for the last night and the food was excellent!

On the way there at dusk, I was amazed at the massed calls of Pied Currawongs in the air, just prior to their roosting. Amazed, because during the day these birds are all but completely absent from this particular locality!

Rumour has it that George Bush Junior is in a Panic!
[With a Capital C!]

The CIA have told him, that Iraq's Saddam Hussein
has developed Pretzels of Mass Destruction.

I would have liked to have gone to Live Poets tonight, at the Don Bank Museum in North Sydney. But after work I had a session at the dentist, followed by browsing at Willoughby Library, and when I came home I was so exhausted, that I just lay down and rested for two hours.

My Dentist, Andre Harriman is an Australian Correspondence Chess Master. And today he gave me three chess books & four chess magazines!

The Leaden Flycatchers are at the zenith of their pre-dawn calling; both in variety and persistency. The numbers have also increased, presumably with migrants arriving from the north to join those who wintered in Sydney.

Shortly there will be a flurry of nest building. The males do this unaided, mixing mud & saliva to create a "cup". The favoured place is in natural or man-made caves, with preference given to a high placed knob within the cave. Electrical boxes in car-parks, or even railway station waiting rooms, are a favourite!

For some reason, repeats on ABC TV of the 1990's BBC series, "Pie In The Sky" have become quite an obsession with me. This quirky programme is partly a police detectives series, partly a cooking show, and a satire as well.

Any blows of a long Monday can be washed away by lying down with my feet raised, and watching the day's episode, which the VCR recorded earlier. Forgetting to set the video? ... Well, that would be a heavy cut indeed!