bird on a wire
by Pippa ~ November 8th, 2007. Filed under: adelaide, environment, gardening.Over the last couple of years of drought, larger birds, more used to the Adelaide Hills and the outlying country areas have been moving into the leafy green/brown suburbs in search of water and food. Most importantly for this story, a beautiful kookaburra has moved into the trees surrounding my house.
A couple of times a day I’ll hear it laughing and lately it’s taken to perching on the mandarin tree or the main electricity wire coming from the street. I’ve finally had a chance to observe the brown and white patterns on its chest, the size of its massive beak, the helmet like crest on its head and the slight turquoise markings on the wing which mark it as a member of the kingfisher family of birds.
Today when I went outside for a break from style sheets and cms wrangling, I saw the most amazing thing. The kookaburra was surveying the yard from the wire and suddenly its entire stance changed, a ripple seemed to pass through its chest as it tensed up. A few more seconds passed and I followed the kookaburra’s line of sight down to the grass near the path - I couldn’t see anything…
And then, not as fast as I thought it would, the kookaburra gracefully drifted down to the path and picked something up in its beak. As the kookaburra whipped it’s head around, I saw the shine of a skink’s belly and heard the actual crunch of the little lizard being consumed.
“Wow”, I realised, “my kookaburra just caught its own food, and I got to watch!”
November 9th, 2007 at 10:41 am
Oh the trauma you bring back!
When I was a fresh faced you Aussie living in the Blue Mountains, we were having work done on our garden and the landscape guys found a blue tongue and though I might like it as a pet. I took it to school the next day and showed it to other classes and was soooo proud of this lizard. I got home that afternoon and with my friend from down the road built tunnels for it to run through in our half landscaped sandy backyard. In one day I had become very attached to this lizard, it absolutely fascinated me. Then in a blink of an eye a distant relative of your buddy ruined it all. Down it swooped, and virtually out of my hands was grabbed my new best friend. I remember crying and crying that afternoon but I think in the back of my mind I was also sharing in the awe that you had in your story. Wow! This is how life is.