Hello from western sydney

24 posts / 0 new
Last post
cooee
cooee's picture
Hello from western sydney

Hello every body! I have been fasinated by birds since I saw 2 Kookaburas on my anteena eating a lizard and what seemed like having a good time. I started talking to my dad about birds and he said that I should hear the channel billed cuckoo. He gave me a field guide and I looked through it whenever I could and it is amazing! Thats not the good part, this summer for the first time the channel billed cuckoo came to my area! I hope to learn about more amazing birds and Hopefully share some of my ameturish obbservations.

Please forgive me if I make any mistackes, I am just an ameture.

Wanda
Wanda's picture

Hi and welcome James to the site. I think you will really enjoy this site lots of amazing stories and photos to enjoy.

Araminta
Araminta's picture

Cooee James, welcome to the forum. Never mind the mistakes, there will be two of us now, because I often make them !! I'm looking forward to hear more from you.

M-L

Windhover
Windhover's picture

Welcome James.
Lots of great places with fantastic birds in western Sydney. Which part are you in?

sherro
sherro's picture

Hi James, I'm a newbie too. I've always been fascinated by birds and love spotting them and identifying a new species with the field guids.

Welcome to a forum with a lot of very clever and helpful members :)

cooee
cooee's picture

Hello Whindhover,
I live in a small creek resorvoir called Edensor Park in a suburb somewhere between Paramatta and Liverpool. Its also about a 30 min drive from Fairfield if that helps. Its mostly just grass, gum trees and she-oaks but it is a good place for all sorts of birds. I sure hope the floods dont come down to were we live because the creek already overflowed once and that caused a mini flood. Maybe the rain has something to do with the channel billed cuckoo coming here? The other day I also saw a sacred kingfisher which is also a first for this area. I also saw a large flock of corellas biger than any I ever saw. Could these be a sign?

Anonymous

Cooee James, I'm new too & found BIBY by while trying to identify the Channel Billed Cuckoo.

We've had a large number of them here over the past few months (Sunshine Coast Qld) & they truly are a fascinating & noisy bird. They are also known as 'storm bird, rain bird and flood bird, because they arrive at the beginning of the wet season. Through further research I have found they have come to be regarded as 'portents of rain'...grab the dictionary...portent means 'significant sign of something to come.

With the extreme rain we've had in Qld, NSW & Vic, I'm now convinced the presence of the channel bills was a warning of the bad weather that followed.

Happy birding, Rene.

Araminta
Araminta's picture

Hi cooee, Hi Rene,I find those ideas very interesting. Down here in Victoria, the cuckoos and the magpies have increased in numbers, never had that many in my backyard.I think, there is something about "old wisdom". I was also wondering, if there could be a connection between the locusts and the rain? It would be good, if we could ask Aboriginal People, if there is a story about that in their dreaming? I'm convinced there is some environmental connection! I will try to do a bit more digging in histort.(...like the 7 plagues in Egypt..etc)

M-L

Anonymous

Hi Araminta, it is indeed very interesting...we also have more maggies & crows than usual. There's a group of about 5 young magpies that have been feeding on all the worms that came to the surface when our property became rain drenched.

Another observation is the abscence of the currawong which would also be related to the coming of the channel bills, as they are also victim to the parasitic breeding habit of the CB's. For the last few years I have been sharing fruit with a pair of currawong, then they brought their 2 young ones early last year. They were here on a daily basis until just before the channel bills arrived.

I too think there is an environmental connection & would love to hear of anything you find out if the Aboriginal People have a dreamtime story. I find myself thinking about natures' incredible perfection on a regular basis, we could learn so much from observing our nature kingdom.
Kind regards, Rene (prounounced like green:)

Araminta
Araminta's picture

Hi Rene, (pronounced ....) est-ce que vous parlez le Francais?Je demande parce que Birdie, Windhover et moi parlent aussi le Francais.( je sais bien comment dire Rene!!) Anyway, I will try to find out about the history, I used to have aboriginal friends, but the moved back to the land.Windhover might know more?

M-L

cooee
cooee's picture

WOW, I didn't know my pathetic observation would turn into a philishophical-historical-scientific-aboriginal-exploration-research-project-subject-thingy.

Araminta
Araminta's picture

Yes cooee, we are all incredibly intelligent people! How about you help us , what's your opinion on all this?? LOL :-) You started it!?!

M-L

cooee
cooee's picture

My opinion? Well, I would have to say even though I probably know about 0.00000001% of what youse know I think I would have to say that rene's point is very interesting and that it may be some kind of omen, herald, harbinger, message, sign etc.

Windhover
Windhover's picture

James, there is no youse word in the English (Australian) dictionary. The word is you in both singular and plural. :)

al
al's picture

yous or youse pron dialect or not standard
refers to more than one person including the
person or persons addressed but not including the speaker:
yous have all had it now; I'm fed up with yous.
Collins Australian Dictionary

Windhover
Windhover's picture

Thanks Al for that I never even knew or thought that would be a world and youse annoyed me ever since Jeff Fenech! And I never read any Aussie literature either hence why I've never read that word. You learn something new everyday. Still for me you is more appropriate.

Araminta
Araminta's picture

There is something else that gets up my nose every time I hear, or read it: there "IS" four birds in a tree, when one should say: there "ARE" four birds in a tree !! ( even on the ABC, some News Readers say it!) And that is NOT SLANG!!

M-L

cooee
cooee's picture

Sorry, it was a typo more than anything. Besides, I did say I would make alot of errors and that just proves I know o.ooooooo1% of what youse know :P.

Oh, by the way, if you say for example that a magpie-lark is called a peewee or peewit is it still correct because magpie larks are not magpies or larks so it is also incorrect to call them that. I preffer to call them peewee because its foolish to call them something there not and its more unique for them.

Windhover
Windhover's picture

Don't worry about James. I really did not have a clue that the word "youse" is accepted? Not when I went to school at the end of the 1980s..... LOL!
---
But read my note below about common grammatical mistakes (they're is not the same as there!!!!) :)
***
***
***

What annoys me are the following very common mistakes:

Instead of could have, should have, would have they write could of, should of, would of
***
***
***
Instead of saying they're (short for they are) people write there or their. What's there/their? Your brain/their brains? LOL!
***
***
***
Instead of saying you're (short for they are) people write your or ur. God! That is pathetic. What kind of education do kids have now?
---
---
---
---
As for common bird names, don't even get me started! :)
Our magpie is a butcherbird, our Eastern Yellow Robin is a flycatcher, not a true robin. The Sea Eagle is not a true eagle but more closely related to kites. I guess White-bellied Sea Kite has not quite got the aura about it as Sea Eagle. I don't want to keep going.......

Windhover
Windhover's picture

You're is short for you are not they are, in case someone works out my mistake that is the result of the good old copy/paste methodology. OOOOOPS!

Anonymous

Cooee youse all, Araminta, my Francais is very limited, much to my dismay....Al & Windover, nice English lessons, ta for that, & James, you are a treasure for inspiring so many responses...who'd have thunk your wonderful observation would turn into a philishophical-historical-scientific-aboriginal-exploration-research-project-subject-thingy, with English lessons to boot.
By the way, we had a family of yellow tailed black cockatoo in our Banksia trees this morning, if anyone is interested in birds! (sneaky giggle ;)

Rene

cooee
cooee's picture

May I ask,copy and paste from were?
Psssst, notice the were,you left that out. :)

Windhover
Windhover's picture

LOL!
I wrote one of the sentences out for

""""Instead of saying they're (short for they are) people write there or their"""""

But because you have to put coding in the change font to bold or italics, it's easier to copy and paste the sentence then just replace the words where necessary. I missed some. :(

Araminta
Araminta's picture

Hi Rene, have you looked at the "Rainbow Lorrikets" thread ? More interesting discussions going on.(I'm having a go at solving ethical problems of the world)!:-)

M-L

 and   @birdsinbackyards
                 Subscribe to me on YouTube