Dawn Chorus

I remember reading somewhere - or seeing a documentary - probably narrated by David Attenborough - a claim that the dawn chorus, far from the harmonious communion with nature it sounds like, is merely a cacophony of territorial war cries.  Difficult to believe when listening to the tuneful warbling of a mistle-thrush perhaps, but here in Queensland, the ‘Dawn Chorus’ sounds at times like a snarling, squawking, wall of threatening and disturbing noise.  I can therefore far more easily believe that claim.

Due to the heat, the windows are all open in the hope that some breeze might waft through and cool the room, but I’ve been up since 4.30 am after being unable to cope with the cockatoos any longer.  I mean, sure, they LOOK cute, but they sound like a bunch of neds drinking Buckie in a bus shelter on a friday night.

I just heard that the number of guns licensed to Australians has surpassed the number recorded just after the amnesty following Port Arthur massacre (an event which took place in the mid nineties and changed Australian gun law dramatically and which, following the primary school massacre in the US, has been getting mentioned regularly in the news here).  Well, I’m all for gun control under normal circumstances but I can understand the need to bear arms if it’s a case of shutting up the dratted wildlife.  Nature Schmature!  Hand me my shot gun!

This isn’t the first time The Birds have Disturbed My Slumber.  A couple of weeks back when we were house-sitting for Matt’s sister, I awoke with a start on hearing what sounded distinctly like someone tunefully whistling the first bars of the Peter theme from Peter and the Wolf.  This was quickly followed by a buzzing sound like a door bell.  I’d never heard the door bell at Pam’s house, but in my sleep addled state I convinced myself that unbeknownst to us, Pam must have arranged for a workman to come and fix something on the property and this was him trying to get access to whatever it was to do whatever he did to fix it.  We were still in bed and in a state of considerable disarray which added to my panic that there was someone at the door.  The whistling of odd bars of Peter and the Wolf or something similar continued meanwhile, as did a further insistent buzzing noise, so I did the only thing I could do in the circumstances.  I prodded Matt in the ribs until he woke up and then implored him to throw on some shorts and find out who was at the door.  This he did without complaint, while making the gnom gnom noises of one not quite awake and rubbing his eyes ...

Only to discover that there was no-one at the door at all - the whistling came from a magpie (which isn’t at all like the European magpie in terms of its call) and the buzzing came from our mobile phones which had been charging on the wooden floor over night to tell us that we’d agreed to attend an event that evening via Facebook.  

Oops.  My bad!  

In my defence - some of the noises these birds make confuse the hell out of me.

• Budgies often sound like fast forwarded dictaphones; 
• The Kookaburras snigger like Beavis and Butthead;
• The Eastern whip birds call to each other, the female call has a long drawn-out, high-pitched noise and the male responds with a sound which people compare to the stockman’s whip crack but which to me sounds like a cartoon noise of a gooey liquid dropping from a height into a pool of more gooey liquid.  Admittedly that would be a bit of a longwinded name for a bird: the gooey liquid dropping into more gooey liquid cartoon noise bird ... 
• There is a bird that I have not identified yet which sounds like a washing machine bleeping at the end of its cycle.  
• And then there are the geckos which sit in the roof and sound like birds ...
• But they don’t even come close to the cackling racket of those accursed cockatoos!

These, and other as yet unidentified noises, are all conspiring to turn me into a reluctant morning person... with avian murder on my mind...