Pishing
An early start always helps with the dominating. Alex was nice enough to take me up to the Northern Beaches today and put me onto some birds. The main target was the mangrove robin, with it’s wailing, sorrowful whistle, but we weren’t able to get onto it. Instead, we managed to pish (literally making a repeated “pishhhh” noise to attract birds) heaps of other species - a veritable menagarie, in fact - including most of the flycatchers in one spot.
Other highlights included: a pair of osprey’s at their nest with two chicks, the parents later engaging in some mid-air talon-grappling; about 20-odd bush turkeys making low grunting noises while moving through the mangroves (wtf?); 5 nakeen night-herons in one tree; and, in the same tree, the barking owl pictured above (man, I got some rad shots!). At the end of today’s efforts, combined with a bike ride out to Ross River Dam yesterday, I have a much better chance of making my 500:50 goals, which now stand at 260:13.
August 14th, 2006 at 9:32 am
That owl certainly is dominant, especially the photo of it in the domination gallery wearing the livery of champions!
August 14th, 2006 at 9:36 am
BTW - I forgot to say that one of the teams we competed against last weekend was called ‘Thuringowa’. I never found out who they were but we definitely thrashed them.
August 14th, 2006 at 10:36 am
What good timing for my paper to be published.
August 14th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
260:13:1 now Tom. Looks like you are well on your way. Hey I almost bought a bike yesterday from the dump for $5. still might do it next weekend. I’m scoping out cost as I’m broke at the moment.
August 14th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
Nice timing on the paper Tomo, I read the abstract and it sounds interesting so I tried to download it but that’s going to cost me money! Financial support for scientific research? Not me! I also figured that the abstract is probably the only section I’ll understand but, again, that’s just me being a philistine.
$5 for a bike though Lewis? Bargain. If you ride it about 5km that will easily have paid for itself in petrol, rego, insurance, depreciation, CO2 emmissions and embodied energy costs to you and the world. As they say, cyclists are the CO2 filters of the urban world. I think we should all be given carbon credits to trade.
August 15th, 2006 at 12:10 pm
I thought a piscicide was what happened when somone got pissed and behaved obnoxiously at the end of a card game and received a mortal head butt. Is a piscicide anything to do with pissshhhhhhing? Sounds like Tom has been spending a lot of time pissshhhing around. The owl looks stunned to see Tom but perhaps it was the post-beer drinking aroma emanating from behnd the camera. “What is that smell?”
August 15th, 2006 at 9:01 pm
And what, pray-tell are your IMD2 goals UncleGeoffie?
August 16th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
Well I’m not sure whether I should attempt the twin peaks of Kilimanjaro or go across the Andes by frog. I am being the dominant tourist guide in Sydney this month.