The Birds of Summer

"Uamby" has a range of seasonal visitors during spring and summer. The fruit ad blossoms on the trees bring them. The loudest and most unruly are the Friar Birds who squabble and fight with each other and other birds to get the sweet nectar from blossoms on the Silky Oak tree that towers over the house in the back yard. We weren't surprised to find it s a subspecies of the Friar Bird, called the "Noisy" Friar Bird.

These visitors are much further south than they should be. They are Little Wood Swallows, normally coming down only as far as northern NSW. This pair (they travel in pairs or groups) perched high in a river gum. It is their breeding season, and they must have wanted some privacy from their fellow, so they came this far south.Or could it be CLimate Change?

Birds are one of the key indicators of biodiversity because they thrive on insects and insects have a direct line of impact from soil biology. There are also direct lines of impact from our pear and crab apple trees. Hence the annual pilgrimage of a family of king parrots. This year we have eight of them, led by this male.

Another annual visitor is the Dollar Bird, who comes to fly his monotonous pattern - like a swooping triangle - always returning to the same high perch on a dead branch. This year the Dollar Bird, who comes down from New Guinea, has changed his routine, perching not outside the house but down by the river. He seems to be training an understudy. It could be his son (or daughter). The Dollar Birds have a white spot underneath their wing (shaped like a silver dollar which is a clue about when it was named.) The Dollar Bird is classified as a 'bee eater'.
Another bee eater that travels north to New Guinea during the colder months is the beautiful Rainbow Bird. It has two distinctive spine-like tail feathers, longer in the male than the female. It's splendid colours aren't shown in this photo (taken from the ground, with the birds on the top of a river gum). It is bright green, golden crown, bright blue cheek, blck and gold throat, bright sky-blue rump, black stripe through the eye. Sounds like a great costume for the Gay Mardi Gras.

This little fellow is also out of his patch. The Forest Kingfisher is not normally this far south. But he has been here for as long as we can remember. SO tiny and blue. He lives down along he river, but he came up to the house area on the day this photo was taken, when a wild storm was brewing.


The Blue-Faced Honeyeater is a permanent resident, regularly taking on the Noisy Miners for access to the blossoms on the native shrubs. In this photo the Honeyeater is feeding in the blossoms of the Silky Oak in the backyard, where it competes with visiting Friar Birds.
The hardest birds to capture on camera as the small wrens and silver eyes, etc. that flit from bush to bush, never standing still for long enough to focus on them. This is the Superb Fairy Wren male, in his mating finery. He had a gaggle of females buzzing around him on the day this photo was taken.The wrens are around all year.

These are called Apostle Birds. They travel in packs of around 12, though plus or minus 2 or 3. The swagger around, sqwarking to each other and sticking their beaks into everything.

The same can be said for the White-winged Chough, which have also invaded the gardens, ignoring the Apostles and digging up the leaf litter and mulch. They have a white patch under the wing which you can see in flight like the Dollar Bird.

There are many more birds: cockatoos, galahs, pidgeons, eastern and crimson rosellas, swallows, ducks, cormorants, etc... They are just the tip of the iceberg.

The colour of Climate Change

In the wake of a major thunderstorm that hit Port Stephens while I was there to help some friends with a marketing challenge.

The rain was still belting down, but the thunder and lightening had abated when we arrived at Salamander Bay. For a few moments there was this eerie light washing over this picture post card scene.


The talented "kids" who own, run and are employed by MercerBell have worked out a way to run successful direct response campaigns while building brand values (traditionally something that direct marketers could not do.) They are fine tuning their messages and I am a message fine tuner.

David, The Bell of MercerBell, was the first art director when I started in the ad business at Ogilvy & Mather. He says nice things about me when introducing me to audiences.

"Animals taste good" is a wonderful T-shirt slogan. I also believe it. I wrote a song called "Eating Animals Is Cool". The last verse goes:

'Vegetarians are insane if they think plants don't feel pain.
They enjoy being killed as much as ducks and pigs and such.
Don't look down your noses at the carnivores.
At least they're honest about all the death they cause."

Vegetarians should read The Secret Life of Plants.

Fred and Jessica (and other people with email addresses) go to Bondi for a Party

Jessica and Fred, to be married in March. It is a beautiful thing... and Fred has my book on how to be a perfect husband. Unfortunately it doesn't teach readers how to cook. Louisa and I had dinner with the happy couple to celebrate their engagement. We ate at the "Excellent Chinese Seafood Restaurant" in Carlingford Court. Not a very auspicious name, but the food is above average to good.



THis is our prospective son-in-law Fred (Rico to his underworld mates, shhhh). He is demonstrating the rhumba with a football. His friends are awe-struck. Fred is an overactive young man. He insists on punctuating his week with bouts of frenzied physical activity, with no fear of the damage he can do himself. Tennis is one of his compulsive activities.


These over-active people refused to heed my warning about too much sport. Why only this morning the radio announced a young sportsman from Bathurst collapsed and died after going for a ride on Sunday.




Fred is in love with life. Here he invites the whole world around for a group hug. He doesn't care if you got body odour or bad breath, either. That's the kind of guy he is.



Fred is an active young man - here he receives the ball on Bondi Beach - a mecca for young AUssies and a death trap for unsuspecting tourists who cannot swim. ("We lose a couple a week," he says. "Dunno where they get to. Must be sharks...)



No, not a mermaid frolicking in the shallows on Bondi Beach, but Louisa who cannot resist immersion in salty water, even though it makes your skin crawl as it dries on you. (It could be the salt, it could be the urine.)



Fred about to test his betrothed's love for him by challenging her to endure a hug from a sea-salty-urine/water encrusted fiance. (Think about it. No one I know gets out to urinate. That's why the sea is green up close. It starts out blue, but all the urine turns it green. True.)



More hugs for the world. Fred is open to the infinite.



The merry band of pranksters... I can say all their names, but I can't type them because it's the sabbath. Only kidding. I can't remember them except Louisa, and Jessica and Fred and Frank. The other guys are my new buddies.