October 20, 2009 – 5:37 pm
Not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world’s most remote marine sanctuaries.
October 6, 2009 – 10:10 pm
This is a story of the Weebill, the Emu, the Porcupine (Echidna) and some Meat Ants and how the Echidna got it’s spines. The story was told by Arthur Dodd, a Yuwaalaraay speaker from the central north-west of New South wales around Walgett.
By Bob Gosford
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Also posted in Animals, Birds, Ethnoornithology, Some places I've been
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Tagged ABC Radio Morning Show, Alice Brennan, Alice Springs, Bird of the Week, Echidna, Emu, Gamilaraay, Guwaabal, Kamilaroi, Meat Ants, Mindjarru & Bigibila, Pardalotes, Silver-Eyes, small Honeyeaters, Smicrornis brevirostris, Thornbills, Weebills, What Bird am I, Yuwaalaraay
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September 16, 2009 – 8:45 am
To me the call of the Yinkardakurdaku sounds like water flowing out of a narrow-necked bottle, a beautiful succession of fluid sounds ending in an almost joyous, crazy climax.
September 8, 2009 – 10:22 pm
I’m sitting here in the “Balgo Hilton” waiting for someone to come back from where I’ve just been.
We most likely passed each other on the road sometime yesterday as I struggled up the 530 kilometres of the torture that is known as the Tanami Track from Yuendumu up here to Wirrimanu – formerly known as [...]
By Bob Gosford
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Also posted in Animals, Birds, The Arts, Writing and writers
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Tagged A. P. Thomas, Balgo, C. G. Brandenstein, Tanami Track, Taruru : Aboriginal Song Poetry From the Pilbara, the Balgo Hilton, Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre, Wirrimanu, Yuendumu
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September 6, 2009 – 6:22 am
Birds, and birders, love shit. Or more particularly in Alice Springs, they both love the fact that in the driest part of the driest continent that the average daily household use of water is a profligate 1,500 litres a day.
September 5, 2009 – 4:59 pm
It may just be because 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy, but to me there seems to be a greater willingness to engage or a broader interest in Indigenous Astronomical Knowledge among the mainstream astronomical science community than there is in many other scientific disciplines.
By Bob Gosford
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Also posted in Aboriginal & Islander Art, Animals, Religion, The Arts
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Tagged Aboriginal Astronomy, Adele Pring, Alma Nungarrayi Granites, Astronomy and Australian Indigenous People, Barnimbir (Venus) the Morning Star, Bill Harney, Dark Sparklers, Elvina Track, Guringai people, Ilgarijiri - things belonging to the sky, International Year of Astronomy, Kuringai National Park, Macquarie University Adjunct Professor Ray Norris, Questacon, South Australian Education Department, the ABC's Big Aussie Starhunt, The Emu in the Sky, Wajarri Yamatji language group, Wardaman language group
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August 23, 2009 – 6:00 pm
The most substantial single source of Aboriginal bird knowledge in the mainstream ornithological literature was John Gould’s “Handbook to The Birds of Australia”, published in 1865. I’ve not been able to find a replacement candidate as the primary source – and much of the information contained therein was collected by one of Gould’s collectors, John Gilbert, who was taken from us too soon in 1845 while on a cross-country expedition with Ludwig Leichhardt.
By Bob Gosford
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Also posted in Birds, Ethnoornithology, Indigenous land management, Northern development
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Tagged Australian Ornithological Conference 2009, Birds that tell us things, Charles Darwin University, Charles Sturt University, Dhariwaa Elders Group, Dr Dave Watson, Dr Rohan Clarke, John Gilbert, John Gould, Ludwig Leichhardt, Monash University, Myfany Turpin, School for Policy and Social Research
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August 22, 2009 – 11:50 am
These bird sculptures are just about the best bird sculptures I have seen. Made out of the scattered bits of metal that we discard in tips, along the road or just leave to rust where they die, they become a whole lot more than the sum of their parts.
All about me lay the scattered, shattered remains – here the severed head, there a leg, stripped of flesh, next to the road another head, ten feet away a razor-taloned foot, wing and tail. Whatever had happened here had been brief and incredibly brutal.
The main reason for my travel to Warmun was to get a better look at the work of, and make contact with several of the local artists who paint bird stories grounded in the local landscape and culture.
