Magpie Nesting Season

Australia has magpies, but they're a different species to the UK bird of the same name. Ours are large and quite unafraid of humans ... and cats ... as this story shows.

Magpies are black and white currawongs, one of the birds to benefit greatly from 220 years of European settlement. Thye're everywhere and don't seem to have too many enemies. They also sing beautiful songs.

That's the good bit. One of their less endearing habits is to attack humans fearlessly during nesting season, which is in full swing now. And their preferred target is (drum roll) a cyclist. They're extremely territorial and a cyclist entering their territory is fair game. Now, there's a spot at the junction of Elm Avenue and Trevenna road at the entrance to the university where a family has taken up residence and I am attacked every day at the same spot. Usually, one of the pair of adult magpies dives me repeatedly, clawing my helmet and trying to knock me off. I can take this most of the time, but they raised their skills to new heights on Tuesday (yesterday).

The clever little balls of feathers decided to attack me simultaneously, coming in low instead of from a high tree branch. I can take one attacker, but it's much more difficult to fend off one from each side and both coming from behind. One of the birds didn't just claw at my helmet, but scratched my face. I arrived at work 5 minutes later dripping pools of blood! Some even ran down my clothes making a mess.

What would you do? I complained to the occupational safety office and got a quick response. Yes, the birds are an acknowleged hazard. Could they be captured and moved? No. Could they be eliminated? Yes, if I wanted that! It's now up to me. What would you do? Kill the parents and leave the youngsters or eggs in the nest? Or take a longer and hillier route?

AS

Do you like bees?

There was great alarm and interest just outside the building where I work when someone spotted this;



It seems that a queen bee decided to quit her existing hive and took her harem with her. En route, they decided to take up residence in some poor bloke's 4WD just outside my office. This picture was taken by our German student at midday and I rushed out to see the event ... but didn't go too close just in case they preferred me to the car.

I left my office an hour later and forgot to check out the scene. I suppose they were still there by late afternoon.

AS

Oh to be in Armidale

It has been a magnificent Spring in Armidale, with just the right combination of rain and warmth to make the garden looking its best .. with the added bonus of a little bit of TLC from Dot and me. The early introduction of daylight saving in a welcome experiment has given us opportunities to work late in the garden. The local birds are also having fun as we keep topping up Emily's thatched bird feeder hanging high in a tree. It brings flocks of finches into the garden and lots of parrots from the big King Parrots to eastern rosellas.

One bush in the front garden which has struggled to survive is a wonderful azalea, but this yet it has blossomed spectacularly as the picture shows.

AS

A trip to Narrabri

It's a little while since I made a posting, but not because of a dearth of things to say. I'm just so busy I don't know whether I am coming or going. Two weeks ago I was in Sydney. This week I, Bernice (my grant partner) and our project manager Ron Reavell headed off to Narrabri for a couple of days to attend an unusual conference. Narrabri is on the Namoi river, a major tributary of the Darling system, about 3.5 hours drive from here. That's roughly equal to 350 km and that takes you into another world. To the west, the landscape is as flat as a tack ... a world of large farms, research institutes and a very large (5 km long) array of telescopes. To the east is Mt Kaputar, a not so little pimple of 5200 feet (1600 m).

And what took us to Narrabri? It's home to the Cotton Catchment Communities Cooperative Research Centre (CCC CRC)who've just funded us to the tune of $200,000, and we were invited to a research showcase of project's they've selected. And it was my pleasure to talk about our proposal and what we've done already to profile economy and society in the 19 local government areas with a strong cotton presence. This isn't particularly strange, but our audience was. To start with, 98 out 100 projects are hard science and our attentive (?) audience consisted of plant geneticists, chemists, hydrologists (cotton is mostly an irrigated crop and plays havoc with drainage and stream flow), environmental scientists, climatologists and others. It's the first time that I've addressed such an audience, but I was able to lace the presentation with some heavy statistics that some of them might have appreciated. I gave the presentation and nothing fell over, which was good.

I dressed up for the occasion, which meant jeans and a shirt rather than shorts and t-shirt which is my normal academic gear. Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised when I got there to find that I was wearing club uniform. Just about all the scientists looked like me! As an aside, I'm reminded of a strange statistic. The location in Australia with the highest per capita concentration of PhD degrees is not Sydney's eastern suburbs or north shore, nor Armidale, but Narrabri. That's because of all the agriculture research stations and the telescope!

AS

Summer Time

Normally Australia moves on to summer time at the end of October, but this year the government is introducing it 4 weeks early as an experiment. That's fine with me because I prefer extra daylight in the evening.

I presume that the UK is still on summer time for a few more weeks, so the time difference is now 10 hours for a while until that becomes 11 in November.

AS

Taken for a Ride

Have you ever been really frustrated and infuriated? A colleague and I had just flown to Sydney for a day last Wednesday and we decided to hire a cab to get to Sydney University for our meeting. We got in and the vehicle itself was fine as we told the driver where we wanted to be.

Nothing odd about that, but the response was odd! "Where's that?", said the driver in somewhat halting English! Well, Neil and I glanced at each other in astonishment as SU is one of Sydney's landmarks and it's very close to the city centre. The traffic was heavy during the morning rush hour and what followed next was frightening. Our driver got out his street directory and proceeded to drive with it balanced on his knee and a finger flipped the pages and as he scanned them. The other hand was on the steering wheel much of the time, except for when he wanted to adjust the GPS.

As we alighted at our destination in one piece I was tempted to make a rude remark like the following: "I know you arrived in Australia last Sunday, but what time last Sunday?" But I stopped in my tracks. He probably wouldn't understand what I was saying and probably wouldn't follow local humour. Thankful to still be alive, we wandered off into the campus.

AS

Max Was Here

I'm in recovery mode after Max, Beck and Dot departed for Canberra earlier this morning. I'd forgotten how demanding and tiring a 4 yo can be especially when they're as energetic as he is. He constantly wanted to play in the park, build LEGO (we supplied 5 kits in a week and he, perhaps I should have said I, constructed everything from spacecraft to racing cars and a truck), water the cats (sorry garden), have books read to him, look for spiders and snails, hide from us, visit shopping centres and so on. We used to push about in a stroller at our speed, but that's been discarded in favour of running ahead of us as fast as he can go ... which is fast even by my standards.



The reason for the visit was Beck's residential school in connection with her Masters of Resource Management It was only a 4 day school, but they spent 6 full days with us and 7 nights. They flew up late on Sunday 14th September after Beck's team won their division in the Grand Final earlier that morning. I didn't know that her team was sponsored by the Croatian community ... she's an honorary Croatian! Max missed out on this triumph, preferring to go to a birthday party instead. Today, they departed by road on a 10.5 hour drive to Canberra as Dot wants to visit Floriade ... the city's Spring Festival. She'll be back here next Friday, just before Emily and Greg get back from the US. They're leaving Yellowstone today (Oz time) for the comforts of Hawaii.

Yesterday, we took Max to Armidale's SLEX (Sustainable Living Expo). You don't have ot be a genius to work out what this is all about and it was quite an interesting way to spend a morning, not that Max was interested in any of the exhibits except when they offered free balloons.

AS

Concert?

We were due to attend a Musica Viva concert in Armidale last night (Saturday 13th), but things didn't quite go to plan ... and it wasn't my fault! Two of Australia’s rising musical stars, Feng Ning & John Chen joined forces to perform the piano - violin works of Mozart, Beethoven, Debussy, Dvorak, and Wieniawski. Feng Ning’s first prizes in the Michael Hill (New Zealand) and Paganini (Italy) violin competitions have led to invitations to perform across the world. John Chen became the youngest-ever winner of the Sydney International Piano Competition in 2004 and competed in the 2007 International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition.

They performed magnificently ... what we heard of them because we arrived in time for the interval and missed the Mozart and Beethoven! Unfortunately, Judy, who bought the tickets, was convinced that the performance began at 8.00 and we were booked in then to a restaurant in town before heading out to UNE's Madgwick Hall. Alas, the concert began at 7.00 and we missed the first half.

The performances of the Dvorak, Debussy and Wieniawski showed excellent control and subtlty in works of considerable difficulty and we were shell-shocked that we had missed so much. Alas, there was no way to get half our money back!

AS

Added Pictures

I've beefed up some of my recent posts with appropriate (?) pictures of the places mentioned.

AS

Tara

On my last half day of freedom before returning home, I had a choice of a dozen different destinations, none too far from the airport lest something go wrong! I mean far in the Australian sense, not Irish!

My choice was inspired ... as was the weather. The destination was Tara, a location possibly recessed somewhere in your minds ... as it was in mine. I associated Tara with legends of Irish culture and a seat of power. And so it proved. The Hill of Tara is in Meath, towards Cavan in the north. And hill it is by Irish standards, with vast vistas from the top. To the northeast lay the River Boyne, site of the famous battle where William of Orange cemented his hold of Ireland at the expense of James II and, I might add, the Catholic congregation of Ireland. To the west lay the flat and boggy lowlands of the centre, and distant in the south were the Wicklow Mountains, all bathed in sunlight.

If those views and associations were beautiful and inspiring, the events at Tara were much more so. First, I should explain, there is no village or township at the site. Indeed, it is 'barren' save a church apparently associated with St Patrick's role in Ireland. Perhaps I'll qualify 'barren'. The area is a field covered in sheep, but not just any old field. The site has been occupied for 5000 years, and that passage of time has left it covered with processional trenches, barrows, monuments, and a mass of sometimes intersecting defensive positions: mounds and ditches.

This was a, possibly THE, cradle of Irish and Celtic civilisation, where kings were crowned, territories administered, rituals devised and enacted, and the dead honoured. And, the nearby church served as an interpretative centre. There, I saw a short 20 minute film which impressively recreated the life and culture of Tara over all those years ... the first church I have been in that had electrically operated blinds on the windows and an automatically unfolding screen! By the way, the blind at the end covered an exquisite stained glass window.

So, my trip to Ireland lasting just 7 days came to a superb end. Dot doesn't know this yet, but I'm taking her back there before long to share in the magical scenery and sometimes quaint culture. Certainly I learned a few words of Gaelic like Baile (town) which explains Bally this and Bally the other! I also leaned the words for slow down, caution, give way and stop ... necessary in a part of the world where English is relegated not just to second place but abolished from signage altogether.

AS