THESE PICTURES WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!

Plastic cigarette lighters, bottle tops, fishing line, fishing lures, parts of shoes, plastic bags – just about anything we get rid of ends up here – in the guts of these baby albatrosses hatched and dead after a too-short life at Midway Atoll in the mid-Pacific.

And all this in a marine reserve, thousands of miles from any continental shore.

I came across these shots from a post by my very good friends at the Southern Ocean Seabirds Study Association (SOSSA) with whom I’ve had the rare pleasures on several occasions of sitting on a rusty boat thirty or so miles offshore from Wollongong with a half-dozen or so very large albatrosses sitting on laps on the wet-deck waiting to be measured, tagged, weighed and released – for the purposes of long-standing scientific research into these most magnificent seabirds.

I’ve written here before about why I take photographs of things that have been killed by human actions – in my case I mostly take photos of roadkill the victims of impacts with our cars that we drive too foolishly and too fast on our roads.

I take these photos because I want to bear witness and attest to the fact of their deaths and to maybe provoke at least one person to slow down when they see a group of large birds ripping into a kangaroo, wallaby or cattle carcass on the highway.

Or to stop and drag that carcass off the roadway and well into the bushes…

And these are the same sentiments that I suspect provide Chris Jordan with the motivation to do what he and his team do so well – documenting the monstrous impacts that the human animal has on this fragile planet.

These photos were taken in Midway Atoll, which the Midway Journey site tells me is:

…a collection of three small islands in the North Pacific, about halfway between the U.S. and Asia, and one of the remotest places on earth.

It is located near the apex of the Pacific Garbage Patch, a swirling soup of millions of tons of plastic pollution. The islands are covered with plastic garbage, illustrating on several levels the interconnectedness and interdependence of the systems on our finite planet.

Midway Atoll, one of the remotest islands on earth, is a kaleidoscope of geography, culture, human history, and natural wonder. It also serves as a lens into one of the most profound and symbolic environmental tragedies of our time: the deaths by starvation of thousands of albatrosses who mistake floating plastic trash for food.

You can find out more about this remarkable trip by a team led by renowned photographer Chris Jordan at his home page here and see a whole lot more photographs, documentation and videos at the Midway Journey site here.

And these are true documents of distant and lonely deaths.

As Chris says:

To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, 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.

Enough talk – look at these photos – and then tell me that you don’t care about the junk we pump into the ocean every day!

Now – it worked huh – feel like shit?

Want to do something about this – change your life?

Join the good people at SOSSA or go to Chris Jordan’s home page and donate to support the work they are doing.

Or stop buying plastic cigarette lighters, stupid plastic drink bottles and don’t ever throw your fishing lines overboard…

And please, if you have something to say – register and leave a comment here!

Weebill. Photo by M Seyfort © Australian Museum

This great shot is of a Weebill (Smicrornis brevirostris), bird of the week here at TNM, at one of their little woven dome-shaped nests with a neat side entry.

In many ways they are the archetypal “LBB” (little brown bird) that causes no end of frustration for no end of the birders that seek them in their natural habitat of the open woodland and forests that once dominated the Australian landscape.

Like many small birds, just about the best way to locate Weebills in the bush is to listen for their distinctive call then follow your ears. To hear the sweet call of the Weebill have a listen here to a great recording by Fred van Gessel.

You spend a lot of time fchasing the many similarly-sized and plumaged birds to Weebills around the scrub but you will also spend a lot of that time looking at Thornbills, Pardalotes, Silver-Eyes and small Honeyeaters with which they commonly form mixed-species feeding flocks.

And just maybe the occasional Weebill…

Weebills, at an average weight of a mere 6 grams in weight and a diminuitive average of 8 centimtres in length are reckoned by many to be the smallest of Australia’s birds.

Both their common and scientific names come from the primary morphological point of distinction from the other LBBs around the place – the stubby little beaks that are ideally suited to gleaning their favoured prey of small insects from and among the leaves and branches of forest trees.

Earlier today I was on what hopefully will become a semi-regular gig on the local ABC Radio Morning Show broadcast out of Alice Springs with my good pal Alice Brennan.

We’ve shared a few tips in her previous role as a news journalist and occasional radio producer and now she has stepped up a grade or two and is presenting on-air for a couple of hours a day, five days a week.

From what I’ve heard so far she’ll do a great job!

Anyway, we had a great yarn about Weebills for a few minutes – she played the call that I’ve linked in above and we did a quick “What Bird am I” Q & A.

One item we couldn’t squeeze into the allotted time today was the following story of the Weebill, the Emu, the Porcupine (Echidna) and some Meat Ants.

It tells of how the Echidna got it’s spines and was told by Arthur Dodd, one of the last speakers of the Yuwaalaraay language from the area in north-western New South Wales around Walgett.

For more information about the Yuwaalaraay (which is referred to as a dialect of Gamilaraay or Kamilaroi) language have a look here. There are also a number of school programs that use these languages in primary and secondary schools in Gamilaraay country.

There are a bunch of great stories at the Yuwaalaraay and Gamilaraay language home page, Guwaabal  here, which is where the following story comes from.

I’ve removed the interlinear translation for ease of reading.

Bigibila wiyayl – The Porcupine’s Quills

Bigibila yanaa-waa-nhi, biyaduul.

A porcupine was walking along by himself.

Bulaarr badjin mindjarru yanaa-waa-nhi.

Two little weebills were walking along. [Weebills are small birds about the size of a wren.]

(Giirr yilaalu nhama mindjarru, bigibila dhayn gi-gi-la-nhi.)

(A long time ago the weebills and porcupines were people.)

Milan-du mindjarru-gu gayawi-y barran-du nhama, dhinawan nhama.

One weebill threw a boomerang at an emu.

Giirr bundaa-nhi nhama dhinawan.

The emu fell down.

Bamba ngaama bundaa-nhi

It fell with a crash.

Bigibila-gu-bala winanga-y, guwaa-y,

The porcupine heard it, and he said:

“Aa, minya ngaama bundaa-nhi?

“Aa, what fell there?”

Bamba nhama bundaa-nhi?

It fell with a crash.

Bulaa-yu-bala mindjarru-gu nhama guwaa-y, “Waal, waal baayamba. Waal, baayamba.”

But those two weebills said, “No, no mate. Nothing mate.”

(Giirr bulaa-yu nhama gayrrba-lda-nhi “baayamba”

(The two of them used call him “baayamba, friend”.)

Giirr-bala nguu gaga-y “Waa, waa, waa, waa maaynndjul dhingaa.”

But he called out, “Waa, waa, waa, waa, lovely meat.”

Guwaa-lda-nhi nguu dhinawan-di bigibila nhalay

He was saying this about the emu meat, the porcupine.

Giirr gaa-nhi nguu nhama dhinawan

Then he took the emu.

Yilaa nguu nhama yilama-y nguu nhama dhawuma-y

Then he cooked it, cooked it in the ground.

Giirr nguu guwaa-y mindjarru girran.girraa dhiyama-li-gu

He told the weebills to get some leaves

Giirr guwaa-lda-nhi nguu:

He kept on telling them:

“Ngarraagulay-nga yanaa-ya, girran.girraa-gu, dhawuma-li-gu ngiyani dhinawan.”

“Go over there for leaves, so that we can cook the emu.”

“Ngaayaybaay ngaan.gii.”

Okay! all right! mate? “Okay, mate!”

Bulaa-yu guwaa-lda-nhi.

The two of them were saying.

Giirr banaga-y-la-nhi yurrul-gu, nhalay badjin-duul.

Those little fellows were running around the bush.

“Nhalay-gaa baayamba? ngaan.gii?”

“What about these, friend, mate?”

“Ngaangaarran-gu yanaa-ya.”

“Go further on.”

Nguu guwaa-lda-nhi, “Yanaa-ya!”

He kept on saying, “Go!”

Nhama bulaarr dhurra-y ngayagay-a maalaabidi-dja.

Those two came to another tree.

“Nhalay-gaa ngaan.gii?”

“What about these, mate?”

“Waal, ngaangaarran, ngaangaarran-gu!”

“No, further, further on.”

Yilaa-bala giirr nguu barraay dhinawan dhawuma-lda-nhi

But then he was quickly cooking that emu in a hole.

Yilaa dhinawan dhawuma-nhi.

Then the emu was cooked.

Dhinawan-bala nhama-nga dhuwima-y nguu, dhinawan ngaarrma, nyiyarrma nguu-nga dha-lda-nhi

Then he took that emu out, and he was eating that emu there.

Mindjarru-bala nhama dhaay-nga yanaa-w-uwi-nyi.

Then the weebills came back there.

“Yaama-nga ngaan.gii!”

“Hey, mate,

Giirr ngali-nga maayrr dha-lda-nha.

We’ve got nothing to eat.

Ngaa, gana-badhaay ngay wuu-na.”

Yeah, give me the liver.”

Bigibila-gu-bala guwaa-y:

But the porcupine said:

“Waa, waa, waa, waa; maayndjul dhinggaa!”

“Waa, waa, waa, waa; lovely meat!”

Dhugay nguu ngaama guwaa-lda-nhi.

He kept on saying that.

Waal-bala nguu dhinggaa wuu-dha-nhi nhama bulaarr-gu nhama badjin-gaali-gu

He wouldn’t give any meat to those two, the two little fellows.

Giirr nhama ngiilay yanaa-nhi, nhama bulaarr, badjin-duul.

The two went away from there, the little fellows.

Dhurra-y bulaarr gadhuu-ga

The two of them came to an ant nest.

(Giirr ganunga-bula dhayn gi-gi-la-nhi, nhama buurrngan.)

(At that time the meat ants were people too.)

Bulaa-yu guwaa-y nhama buurrngan-da:

The two said to the meat ants:

“Waal ngaan.gii-dju minyagaa ngalingu wuu-rri.

“Old mate won’t give us anything.

Waal nguu minyagaa ngay wuu-dha-nhi.

He hasn’t given me anything at all to eat.

Waal ngay gana wuu-nhi, waal ngay gii wuu-nhi.”

He didn’t give me the heart, he didn’t give me the liver.

“Ngaayaybaay,” guwaa-y nhama buurrngan-du.

“Okay! All right!” said the meat ants.

Giirr nhama buurrngan yanaa-w-aaba-y, bilaarr-iyaay.

The meat ants all went, with their spears.

Ngaa, ngaama-dhaay-nga ganunga, buurrngan yanaa-nhi.

Yep, they went there, the meat ants.

Nyiyarrma-nga ganugu bilaa-yu dhu-nhi nhama.

There they speared that fellow.

Bilaa-yu dhu-nhi, bilaa-yu dhu-nhi, aawu, burrulaa-gu.

Speared him and speared him, with a lot spears.

Giirr-nga nguu guwaa-y:

And then he said:

“Nginaalingu dhinggaa, nginu dhinggaa, nginu dhinggaa.”

“This meat is for you two, meat for you, your meat.”

Giirr nguu dhugay gaga-lda-nhi, “Waal, waal.”

He kept on calling out, “No, no.”

Yilaa-bala burrulaa bilaarr nguungunda wa-y-la-nha.

[Too late] But now lots of spears were sticking into him.

Nhama wiyayl nguungu, giirr nhama bilaarr gi-gi-la-nhi.

Those quills of his, they were those spears.

Yalagiyu bigibila yanaay-la-nha wiyayl-bil, bilaarr-bil.

And now the porcupine is covered with quills, covered with spears.

]]> http://blogs.crikey.com.au/northern/2009/10/06/bird-of-the-week-mindjarru-bigibila-a-yuwaalaraay-story-by-arthur-dodd/feed/ 1 http://blogs.crikey.com.au/northern/2009/09/16/roadkill-of-the-week-yinkardakurdaku-spotted-nightjar/ http://blogs.crikey.com.au/northern/2009/09/16/roadkill-of-the-week-yinkardakurdaku-spotted-nightjar/#comments Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:15:08 +0000 Bob Gosford http://blogs.crikey.com.au/northern/?p=1782

Spotted Nightjar Eurostopodus argus

I came across this road-killed Spotted Nightjar (Eurostopodus argus) a hundred or so kilometres up the Tanami Track from my home at Yuendumu just after setting off on my current trip that will take me through the east and western Kimberleys, to Broome (where I am now) and down to the Pilbara, where I’ll be heading tomorrow.

There are Aboriginal stories about the Spotted Nightjar right across Australia – but because I found this one in Warlpiri country I’ll include a couple of references from paintings made by several of the Warlpiri painters that work at the Warlukurlangu Artists centre at Yuendumu.

To the Warlpiri the Spotted Nightjar is known as Yinkardakurdaku.

In common with many naming systems across Australia, many birds in the Warlpiri world-view are named onomatopoeically – thus the name for the Spotted Nightjar in Warlpiri sounds, if you bend your ear and imagination just a little, very much like the main breeding season call used by the bird about this time of year.

I heard my first for the year a few weeks back while walking our dogs a few kilometres outside of town one evening.

To me the call sounds like water flowing out of a narrow-necked bottle, a beautiful succession of fluid sounds ending in an almost joyous climax, though I can imagine that for some unfamiliar with their call that it could be quite a surprise on a dark night – it is a remarkable thing.

You can hear the call of the Spotted Nightjar for yourself here as a QuickTime file: the Yinkardakurdaku’s call.

Courtesy of Warlukurlangu Artists at Yuendumu here are two representative stories for the Yinkardakurdaku from two different locations in Warlpiri country, firstly from Mawurriji:

Yinkardakurdaku Jukurrpa (Spotted Nightjar dreaming) (Mawurriji)

The Yinkardakurdaku (Spotted Nightjar, Eurostopodus argus) ancestor was sitting down and making spears (Jarljarri) at Mawurrji, west of Yuendumu.

When Yinkardakurdaku had finished it stood up and threw the spears to the north (Yatija-rra), south (Kurla-rni), east (Kakarra) and to the west (Karla-rra).

During their flight and upon landing the spears created many important Mulju (soakages) and Warnirri (rockholes) that are still evident in the landscape today.

The water from these Mulju and Warnirri later spread underground to form the river and creek-beds found throughout Warlpiri country.

And also here from Yampirri:

Yinkardakurdaku Jukurrpa (Spotted Nightjar dreaming) (Yampirri)

This print represents the travels of Yinkardakurdaku (Spotted Nightjar, Eurostopodus argus), a large bird (Jurlpu) with a brown breast that was living near to Yampirri, near Kunajarrayi, to the west of Yuendumu and Nyirrpi.

Yinkardakurdaku was an heroic ancestor who was both a bird and man. He flew back and forth – east (Kakarra) to the west (Karla-rra) and back again. He always returned to Yampirri where there is a cave [Pirnki].

He travelled far, visiting a big bloodwood tree near the present site of Yuendumu. He even flew to Kulpurlu, to the east in Alyawarr country.

Yampirri is an important men’s ceremonial site; a place to teach Kajirri (’high school’) to young men. The circle in the centre of the painting represent Yampirri. The other circles refer to places he visited on his travels. Japaljarri men are also represented. The footprints (Wirliya) of Yinkardakurdaku have also been represented.

Pilbara languages map from Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre

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 Balgo.

When I got here and asked after him they told me he’d gone to Yuendumu earlier that day and was expected back here tonight.

So I’ll try to catch up with him early tomorrow.

Meanwhile I’m going through my notes on Aboriginal bird knowledge from around here and the other regions of the north west of western Australia that I’ll be travelling through over the next few weeks.

As I was sorting I came across some excerpts that I’d found in Taruru: Aboriginal Song Poetry From the Pilbara by C.G. Brandenstein and A.P. Thomas and published by Rigby of Adelaide in 1974.

At 92 pages Taruru is a modest work but it is packed with song poems in a number of languages of the Pilbara – which appears, and have a look at the map above, to be one of the most linguistically diverse parts of the country.

To find out more about the language and cultures in this fascinating and far-flung corner of the country the website of the Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre is a great place to start.

Here are some of the bird song poems from Taruru:

BIRD’S CALL

Tjalurra in Jindiparndi, by Robert Churnside

Ku?urru murlawarnjgaa juurumarna karnalilila

ku?urru murlawarnjgaa juurumarna tarritogula

The Kurrugu bird-call finds his melody in the morning

Kurrugu bird-call finds his melody in the treehole.

THE CROWS

Tabi in Karierra, by Tjarndai

njalataianna pannina kudii nagunjuru

pilanmannaba takanna.

palakuru pala kardi?iriba pannigu

tinatingala juurra-manjulaba mirrunjgu

palakuru pala waarnarraba warnjga “kaa”

warnda murrumurru tanbatirriiba wurdanjga

They lurk and sit till they see a bone

What they can get, they grab

They hang around, eyeing something off.

Hopping about in the sun,

Conversing: “Kaa, kaa, kaa.”

Then its up to the back of a branch

One after another – what a crowd.

EMU SHOT

Tabi in Ngarluma, by Tjinapirrgarri

maguranagu tundunjarranpiru

maguranagu njali kangaragu

warnjgatinara karruluu padanna

warnjgatinara poolkarrinagu

ilinpinnuru karruluu padanna

ilinpinnuru poolkarrinagu

wibururuba marnjgula jirrgagu

karlinjkarlinjbala

At the bobbing head he aims,

At the bobbing head, at the upper neck.

The shots whistle, hitting the river stones.

The shots whistle, as it lies there riddled.

Feathers leap, hitting the river stones.

Feathers leap, as it lies there riddled.

The emu chicks run to and fro

Coming back again and again.

THE BULBUL BIRD

Tabi in Ngarluma, by Waljbira

Bulbul pannii nurdu,

Bulbul pannii nurdu

murii tinamanma, jabulkurruu karadilipanjuru

Bulbul pannii nurdu,

Bulbul pannii nurdu

murii tinamanma, jabalkurruu karadilipaia

jinda nuru pannii Pabamudunjgana

njaiin wirlimanma, kururdkakanma njuu

jinda nuru pannii Pabamudunjgana

njaiin wirlimanma, kururdaga.

Bulbul is here

Follow the stony creek, your track to northern shores!

Bulbul is here

This pool is “water throughout the year”

Stir my heart and also give it a rest

(rest is missing)

PELICAN AND HERON

Pundut in Jindiparndi

(traditional)

kandanjarrima pilarra!

tamanjgajini padarmarrijanju-peerl!  peerl!  peerl!

hou!

Leave your old leg-spear alone!

Let’s hurl fire-sticks at each other!

Kill!  Kill!  Kill!

THE PEEWIT AND THE WHITE COCKATOO CHICK

Pundut in Jindjiparndi

(traditional)

njaiimbaa karparna mungamunganina

wiluurumarna kardanpadimarna

pirdiranalu tida wadinjani

hou!

I then took it away and improved on it:

White and the neck striped,

Better than the white cockatoo’s chick

Which turned out rather badly.

I don’t have the right keyboard settings to enter some of the linguistic notations (there are several couplings of “n” & “j” (I’ve forgotten the technical term!) above that are usually represented by an “n” with the downstroke of the “j” incorporated into it. There are also several graves, acutes and umlauts that I’ve not been able to enter.

I’ve come across a fair bit of poetry and song-texts in the course of my research and I’ll post a few more of them as I work my way though my notes and research.

The poems from Taruru provide me with some interesting perspectives on how people imagine and record their knowledge of birds.

I struggle to understand the meaning of Pundut’s The Peewit and the White Cockatoo Chick, but a little research may provide some clarity.

Both The Crows and Emu Shot are beautiful and fine-grained descriptions of two common birds – one often seen as an intelligent and engaging pest, the other an important element in local economic and religious life.

And I’m looking for more in other material that von Brandenstein recorded in the north-west. If you know of any other Aboriginal poetry about birds please don’t hesitate to pass it on.

Alice Springs Waste Stabilisation Ponds - aka the "Shit-pits"

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 the average daily household use of water is about 1,500 litres a day.

As this graph below shows that’s over 500,000 litres a year – for each house!

And while much of that goes onto household gardens a lot of it ends up as “waste water” in what locals know as the shit-pits but that the NT Government’s Power and Water Authority more politely calls the Alice Springs Waste Stabilisation Ponds.

These large ponds are just to the south the town through The Gap and can be seen clearly from the air when flying into town – just look for the large ponds that some in the past have mistakenly identified as a local trout farm.

But then some people will believe anything.

Over the years I’ve spent many a happy hour at various sewage ponds around the NT and beyond and for good reasons – often they are the only large body of surface water for hundreds of kilometres around and they provide a valuable resource for local and and migratory birds.

And while I don’t have any empirical evidence (I’m sure someone will do the research one day soon – if they have not already) I’m pretty confident that that in arid Australia the local sewage ponds are a valuable stop-over, foraging and resting resource for the hundreds of thousands of shorebirds that cross the Australian continent as part of their annual migratory route – the East Asian – Australasian Flyway – from the far corners of a northern hemisphere winter to enjoy an Austraian summer.

Right now many of those birds are en-route and are already starting to make their first land-fall on the north of the country – in the next couple of weeks I’ll catch up with more than a few of them at the wonderful Broome Bird Observatory – one of a network of similar observatories dotted around the country and operated by Australia’s peak ornithological body, Birds Australia.

And more than a few of those birds will fly overhead here at Yuendumu – I’ll be keeping an eye (and ears – many cross the country by night) out for migrating waterbirds at our local shit pits over the coming months.

But anyway, I digress. Back to the Alice Springs facility – just this week the Power and Water Corporation and the very active and helpful Alice Springs Field Naturalists group have worked together to produce a birder-friendly guide that provides a map (see above) of the Alice Springs shit-pits and some guidance as to what birds you might see when you go there.

You can have a closer look at the Birdwatcher’s Map and Guide here.

Enjoy – and just keep a good nose out for where the wind is blowing from!

For me this couple of hours before dawn is the best time of day – the stars are at their brightest, the air is cool and clear, the Pied Butcherbirds get an early start on the morning chorus with their mellifluous calls and all the pleasures of the day wait ahead.

In two previous posts here I have explored the work of the Warlpiri artist Alma Nungarrayi Granites and the wonderful work in the exhibition of paintings by people of the Wajarri Yamatji language group from Western Australia’s Murchison region and their exhibition entitled “Ilgarijiri – things belonging to the sky“. Both of those posts illustrate the importance of the Seven Sisters – the Pleiades – in Aboriginal cosmology.

I want to wander through a few further links that I’ve found that reveal what I suspect is just small part of the enormous body of knowledge that Australian Aboriginal people have of our night skies and the wonderful things that live there.

As I’ve said previously – and this may arise from 2009 being the International Year of Astronomy – there seems to be a greater willingness to engage with, or a broader interest in, Indigenous Astronomical Knowledge among the mainstream astronomical science community than there is in many other scientific disciplines – and this could include my own area of interest of ornithology.

But back to the stars!

Questacon provides a popular entry point for the general public to a variety of areas of Australian scientific enquiry and research and has a page dedicated to Aboriginal Astronomy, from which this story of Barnimbir (Venus) the Morning Star from the Yolngu language group of north-east Arnhem land comes:

One day a yam leaf was blown across the warm waters of the sea, north of Australia. It floated from the east, from where the Sun and Morning Star came. A man named Yaolngur found the leaf. The yam plant was very special to him and he decided to travel to the country where it came from – the land of the Morning Star.

He made a very large canoe and told his wives to collect great numbers of water lily bulbs for food and fill many coconut shells with water for drink during his long journey. He rested that night in his home camp and early next morning he set out. He paddled for seven days, sometimes sleeping on small islands, sometimes sleeping at sea. On the last night of his journey he paddled and paddled – he could hear waves crashing on the rocks. Then the sky lit up, the Morning Star rose in the sky and Yaolngur saw land.

He had arrived at the home of the Morning Star. The island was the home of the spirits, home of the Mokois. He had arrived at the island of the dead. Because he was in a strange land, he wanted to make himself strong. By rubbing the sweat from his armpits onto his arms, legs and chest, he made himself powerful. He also rubbed his sweat in his spear thrower.

Carrying his weapons, he went to seek the Morning Star. He had only walked a short way when he saw the ghosts – so many in number that they stood shoulder to shoulder so many that there didn’t seem room for any more. The spirits looked at the decoration of sea gull feathers on his spear thrower and recognised him as a friend. He sang and danced and then said, “I want to see Barnimbir, the Morning Star.”

He walked and found the old woman Marlumbu, who kept the star. At first she didn’t want to it to him, but he sang magic songs and he assured her that he only wanted to see if it was the same as the one his group used in their Morning Star ceremony. Marlumbu took it out and showed him the parts made from seagull feathers and jungle yams. Yaolngur was pleased the Morning Star was the same as his people used.

He handed the Morning Star back to Marlumbu, who released it into the sky. She controlled the flight of Barumbu by holding the string and allowing the Star to travel all over the islands. She cried out directions to the Star to tell it where to travel. Suddenly the string started to hum. It was the sign that the Sun was coming up.

You can find more of the stories if the rich heritage of Aboriginal astronomical observation and story telling at the Questacon Aboriginal Astronomy site.

These stories can also be found in Questacon’s book The Emu in the Sky, a collection of Aboriginal astronomy stories from all around Australia that is available from Questacon for the bargain price of $AU4.30.

The Emu in the sky

Another widespread story is the popular and widespread story of the “Emu in the Sky“.

As this page at Wikipedia notes, the Emu in the Sky story is a:

…tradition that is widespread in Australia…a ‘constellation’ that is defined by dark nebulas (opaque clouds of dust and gas in outer space) that are visible against the milky way background, rather than by stars. The Emu’s head is the very dark Coalsack nebula, next to the Southern Cross; the body and legs are other dark clouds trailing out along the Milky Way to Scorpius.

Just north of Sydney, in the Kuringai National Park, are extensive rock engravings of the Guringai people who live there, including representations of the creator-hero Daramulan and his emu-wife. An engraving at Elvina Track shows an emu in the same pose and orientation as the Emu in the Sky. constellation. On autumn evenings, the emu in the sky stands directly over her portrait, just at the time when it’s time to gather emu eggs. To the Wardaman [people], however, the Coalsack is the head of a lawman.

Macquarie University Adjunct Professor Ray Norris runs a website dedicated to Aboriginal Astronomy.

In the overview to the comprehensive site he says:

The southern sky is striking compared to that of the Northern hemisphere, often dominated by the magnificent river of the Milky Way weaving across the zenith, crossed by numerous dust lanes. For those living in Australia before the advent of streetlights, the night sky would be an important and integral part of their understanding of the world. Naturally, they would notice that particular stars or patterns are seen only at certain times of the year. Furthermore, since many chose to travel in the cool of the night, they would quickly find that stars are useful for navigation.

Across Australia are many different rich and vibrant Aboriginal cultures, each with its own astronomy. But there are common threads. Many have stories of a female Sun who warmed the land, and a male Moon who was once a young slim man (the waxing crescent Moon), but grew fat and lazy (the full Moon). But then he broke the law, and was attacked by his people, resulting in his death (the new Moon). After remaining dead for 3 days, he rose again to repeat the cycle, and continues doing so till this day. The Kuwema people in the Northern Territory say that he grows fat at each full moon by devouring the spirits of those who disobey the tribal laws.

Some Aboriginal people use the sky as a calendar to tell them when it’s time to move to a new place and a new food supply. The Boorong people in Victoria know that when the “Mallee-fowl” constellation (Lyra) disappears in October, to “sit with the Sun”, it’s time to start gathering her eggs on Earth. Other groups know that when Orion first appears in the sky, the Dingo puppies are about to be born.

And you can find an interesting introduction to many aspects of Aboriginal astronomy, links to other articles,  audio programs and events at the ABC’s Big Aussie Starhunt page.

Further north in the Northern Territory, the fascinating accounts of the Astronomical knowledge of the Wardaman language group, who have country to the west and south of Katherine in the Northern Territory, are revealed in the book “Dark Sparklers“, written by Hugh Cairns and Bill Harney, with whom I’m doing some work on my project on Aboriginal bird knowledge.

I don’t agree with many of the statements that Hugh Cairns makes about some aspects of the traditional knowledge of the Wardaman people but notwithstanding those and other reservations the book represents the most comprehensive account of the astronomical beliefs of a single Australian Aboriginal language group that I have been able to find. Dark Sparklers also contains many wonderful stories of other aspects of Wardaman knowledge and belief systems.

A Wardaman rock painting

I’ll leave each of you to make up your own mind about Dark Sparklers but encourage you to forward any further information you might have on projects and research being undertaken elsewhere.

And finally, while it is mainly directed at teachers wanting to use Aboriginal astronomical knowledge in the classrooom there is a great educational resource entitled “Astronomy and Australian Indigenous People” prepared by Adele Pring and produced by the South Australian Education Department that is available as a PDF document here.

Don’t let the educational content put you off – it contains a wealth of information about Aboriginal astronomical knowledge from all over the country.

There is a lot more that I haven’t been able to cover here but I’d be happy to extend the discussion and would welcome your suggestions or links to further information.

This is a not-so-short update on the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Island bird knowledge project I’ve been working on for – well, years now.

My initial interest in this topic was prompted by spending time with Aboriginal people soon after I moved to the Top End of the NT in the mid-eighties – it was soon apparent to me that Aboriginal people had a wealth of knowledge about the birds that they hunted and ate and celebrated in dance, song and art and that forms a rich thread running through their mythology, traditions and culture.

Fifteen years, a law degree and a temporary move to the south coast of NSW later I finally got to attend the post-grad certificate course at Charles Sturt University at the Thurgoona campus at Albury. There I asked lecturer, course coordinator and general all-round great guy Dr Dave Watson if he might have some thoughts about what to do about the apparent lack of appreciation of the knowledge and appreciation of Aboriginal birdknowledge by ‘mainstream’ (for want of a better term) birdwatchers and ornithologists.

Dave’s answer was short and sweet – “Well Bob, if no-one else has done it you’d better do it yourself!”. Little did I know what lay in store by my simple response that I’d do my best!

A telling fact that drove my interest in the early nineties was that 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.

Anyway, eight years on from Dave’s wise words I’m getting closer to producing my attempt at an overview of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander bird knowledge in a single volume. CSIRO Publishing will publish the book (with a tentaive and somewhat boring working title of “Australian Aboriginal Bird Knowledge”) in mid to late 2010 – dependent upon when I get the finished work to them.

One thing I do note is that it will not, indeed cannot, be a complete compendium of such knowledge – that would take more time and many more volumes than I have time for. But what I do hope is that it will start a broader interest and enquiry about local bird knowledge among the many distinct language groups and cultural blocs around the country – particularly in light of the growing importance of Aboriginal land management in many part of Australia.

I’ve spent a large part of the last five years (at least) collecting the literature – mainly from many hours in dusty (and not so dusty) libraries across Australia and across the globe (I’ve found some great works in libraries in Cambridge, Cape Town, Arkansas and New Orleans, to name a few), and have a stack – literally – of secondary research material.

What has occupied a large part of my time this year is organising and doing what I think will be the most important part of the book – travelling around the country talking to any Aboriginal person or group with an interest in taking part in my project. So far I’ve done a few trips up and down the NT – into the southern fringes of Arnhem Land – where I lived for a while in the eighties and nineties, around and to the west of Katherine and up and down the Stuart Highway.

I’ve also been into the east Kimberleys, South Australia (twice) and have just returned home here to Yuendumu (300 kilometres n-w of Alice Springs) from my latest trip that took me through eastern South Australia, coastal Victoria, southern and north-western NSW and central and western Queensland – a total of about 10,000 km.

In a week or so I’ll take off up the Tanami Track via Balgo and surrounds, then back into the eastern Kimberley, across to Broome and then down to the Pilbara – then back along that same route – that should take me the best part of a month.

After a week or so at home I’m planning a route that will take me up the Stuart Highway to just south of Katherine, where I’ll take the Central Arnhem Road via Wugularr, Bulman, Gapuwiyak to the heartlands of Yolngu culture around n-e Arnhem land. Then I hope to travel across through to Raminging and Maningrida in central Arnhem Land then back through Kakadu to Oenpelli and Jabiru. Depending on time and inclination I’ll either swing towards Darwin or south via katherine and the Barkly, eventually ending up here at Yuendumu for a few days.

By then it should be sometime in early November and I’ll turn my wheels eastward – if I’m lucky with time and weather I’d like to travel back into Queensland via the Plenty Highway – so much shorter, but rougher – than travelling via Tennant Creek and the Barkly) to Boulia – then back through s-w Queensland towards n-w NSW – eventually ending up in Walgett where I hope to spend some time again with the Dhariwaa Elders Group.

Then to the Australasian Ornithological Conference in Armidale in late November and early December. Then back through coastal northern NSW, up the coast to (about) Townsville then back across the NT and home.

That will be just about all of the field trips for this year – I have a couple of trips – by air – to Tasmania via Melbourne (to catch up on the excellent resources in the several libraries there) and then in mid- January hopefully to be in the Torres Strait islands about the same time that Dr Rohan Clarke from Monash Uni will be doing some field work there. And I may have a short road trip down to western South Australia and another up to the Gulf country.

And then – sitting down for a couple of months and putting it all together into some sort of shape that people – will want to read – and hopefully and more importantly – buy.

Finally, I’ve learned a lot about methodology for ethnobiology over the past that I hope to apply in a more specific PhD project looking at the application of local bird knowledge to local conservation and land management efforts here in the Tanami. And I’ll be talking about methodology at AOC 2009 in Armidale and at the back-to-back conferences of the International Society of Ethnobiology and Society for Ethnobiology which will be held on the magnificent Vancouver island in British Columbia in May next year.

And by the way – if you are interested in having a look at a great set of posters (that I’ve written about earlier here) in for central Australian languages have a look at the set of posters that my friend and colleague Myfany Turpin, of the University of Queensland and the Charles Darwin University School for Policy and Social Research, has produced. The series of posters are of bird knowledge in the Arrernte, Anmatyerr, Alyawarr and Kaytetye languages spoken throughout central Australia.

Individually they portray 25 or so birds found in the areas in which each language is spoken. As a set they reveal the depth of knowledge that Aboriginal people have of the birds that they hunt, share campsites and townships with and which are spiritually important or are involved in or related to traditional ceremonies and beliefs.
If you want any further information about my project please send an email to birdknowledge@gmail.com and I’ll be happy to send an Information Sheet or answer – as best I can – your queries. And please feel free to pass this email on to anyone you think might be interested in this project.

Cheers and I may see you on the road over the next few months.

I came across this very happy looking Pelican (Pelecanus cinspicillatus) while I was having lunch along the shore at Merimbula on the NSW far south coast a few weeks ago.

I was passing through the area as part of one of my several long trips around the country to talk to Aboriginal people and groups about what they know about birds, culture and people – for a book to be published by CSIRO Publishing in 2010.

This bird is one of a number of similar sculptures dotted every few hundred metres along the shore of a park that winds along the shores of Merimbula Lake around which the town is built.

These Pelicans 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.

In this Pelican I can recognise a couple of car drive shafts, a shovel flange, assorted exhaust pipes and parts, concrete-reinforcing bar and at least one – or a part of – shovel blade.

And here more of the same – mower blades, a toothed gear and parts thereof, car suspension springs…the list goes on.

And this pair is my favourite of the group. Here – for me at least – the sculptor has captured the essential Pelican – the interaction between a pair or the group, the shapes they make, there is a lyrical quality that only comes from long and close observation of these birds in the wild and an almost jealous appreciation of their beauty that presents the challenge to transform that beauty into something beyond a Pelican.

And that is one of the great things about this set of birds on heavy poles driven into the sand and water along the park edge – you can admire the shapes and forms of the birds on their poles – static but at once mobile – and then turn and see the living birds right next to them – flying in like a squadron of heavy seaplanes, skidding to a stop and immediately ploughing the water for food with their massive bills.

A great conjunction of art and nature.

And this White-bellied Sea eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster) and fish keep vigilant watch over Merimbula Beach a bit further along the coast.

I couldn’t find anything along the shoreline or elsewhere that told me anything about who made the birds or who commissioned them. A few days later I was in the Purple Possum cafe (best coffee on the coast, great views, a good gallery, bookshop etc) a few kilometres up the coast at Narooma and saw a smaller version of these scupltures in the window.

I asked Karsten John, the proprietor of the Purple Possum about the sculpture and who made it. He told me that the birds were the work of Richard Moffat, a sculptor based at the small town of Cobargo, 40 kilometres or so south back down the Princes Highway towards Bega. I had to head back down that way to catch up with some people at Bega that I’d missed a couple of days earlier so I called into Cobargo on thw way through. Richard Moffat’s shop was shut when I went through Cobargo later that day – as it was when I passed through again a few days later.

Anyway, now I’m back home at Yuendumu and came across these shots in my camera so I thought I’d try to track down a little more about Richard Moffat and his works. It was more than a pleasant surprise to see that Moffat has a long history as a practitioner and has made some fantastic work over the years.

A you can see from the variety and scale of Richard’s work at his website here, not all of his work is bird-related or on the relatively modest scale of his Pelicans and eagles – but this work ‘Nest‘, installed on Dairy Farmers Hill at the Canberra International Arboretum looks like a wonderful arrangement of work, space and location.

Maybe next time Richard can do an installation 6 metres up in a dead tree? – and have it taken over by real birds.

"Nest" - photo from Richard Moffat

Got any comments about Richard’s work elsewhere – or the sculptures here? Register and leave a comment!

Of the hundreds of highway death scenes I’ve stopped at over the years this latest would qualify as one of the worst and most distressing.

Ten days or so ago I was driving homewards up the single-lane strip of bitumen that passes for a highway in this part of the world and had pulled off onto the red dirt verge to allow a roadtrain to pass.

That truck was just one of the many 140-tonne, four-trailer behemoths that do the 1100 kilometre round trip up the Tanami Track from Alice Springs carting diesel fuel, cyanide and other essentials to The Granites mine.

You always get off the road for those guys.

One hundred metres up the road I noticed a common indicator of a recent bird killing zone – for 100 metres or so the ground and short grass alongside the road was littered with downy feathers,with a scatter of larger feathers blowing around in the stiff breeze.

I stopped, got out of the car and looked about me.

In the middle of the road was a large, slowly congealing pool of blood, with large splatters indicating that whatever – most likely a large kangaroo – had died here and had been hit by an inbound vehicle.

There was no sign of any kangaroo carcass close handy – maybe some caring driver or a hungry Dingo had dragged it off the road and well into the scrub, thus saving a few more birds from an untimely death.

As I looked at this scene more closely the true horror  of what had happened emerged. All about me lay  the scattered, shattered remains – here the severed head shown above, there a leg – stripped of flesh, next to the road another head, ten feet away a razor-taloned foot, wing and tail – this time of a younger bird.

An open-air slaughter house – whatever had happened here had been brief and incredibly brutal – two  Wedgetailed Eagles had been hit and torn – literally – limb from feathered limb, ground into paste on the road and left for the carrion-eaters.

The horror, the horror.

I can say no more – let my pictures bear witness and tell their own story.

Through town, aross the creek, and follow the signs past the old car and the Boab tree to...

I was in Katherine earlier last week with a few days to spare – I thought about going out south-west of Katherine to Yarralin and some other small towns in the Victoria River district to catch up with some old people to talk about birds but decided to head further west and pushed on to Kununurra and points south-west…

Kununurra holds little interest for me – it is all a bit too new and expensive. There is a nice man-made lake near the town and it attracts hordes of the increasing numbers of grey nomads that spend their winter months in the north dragging around enormous caravans behind near-new four wheel drives at a constant speed of about 80 km/h.

They clog up the roads, caravan parks and roadside stops where they spend their time talking to other grey nomads talking about the high price of fuel, the many and various techniques for fettling a caravan and the many variations on bumper stickers that trumpet “Don’t tell the kids, Mum and Pop on the run with their inheritance” and similar.

Enough of them.

Anyway, I camped outside of Kununurra near to one of the afore-mentioned roadside stops where that other scourge of the dry-season roads of the north – the backpackers cruising around in “Wicked” campervans – did their best to have a rave party a hundred metres or so away from my camp while the moon rose through the trees and the cattle road trains thundered westwards in search of a load.

The next day and a couple of hundred of kilometres later I found myself in Warmun – previously known as Turkey Creek – which flows through the town.

Warmun is a on small excision (as we would know it in the NT) cut out from the surrounding cattle station.

Most people in the community are from the Gija language group that owns (at Aboriginal law at least) a large area surrounding the township.

With a fluctuating population of about 500 in Warmun and another few hundred people living at homeland communities serviced by the town, is one of the largest Aboriginal communities in Western Australia.

Gija people appear to have taken a refreshingly strategic approach to economic development in their region .

Driving the 200-plus kilomreres down from Kununurra the only services along the route is the Aboriginal-owned Doon Doon Roadhouse and the local caravan park and roadhouse in Warmun – only place to stay in town – is also owned and operated by Gija people.

Both are dry – so if you want a drink you have a long way to north to Kununurra or south to Halls Creek to quench a thirst.

Warmun Art centre gallery

And the Warmun Arts Centre is also locally owned, operated and easy to find – drive through town, across Turkey Creek and past the old rusty car and the ancient Boab tree, follow the signs and there you are at a new(-ish), large and light-filled gallery of local art.

I’ve not had a lot to do with art from the east Kimberley and was unaware that most (all but the prints) of the material produced at Warmun is based on locally-sourced and coursely-ground ochres.

This gives a wonderful rough texture to each of the paintings and some beautiful tones – particularly the variations from the red and yellow ochres of the area, which provide a wide range of colours – from soft pastel washes to a wide range of hard browns and reds that are particularly effective on the landscape paintings.

Warmun has been running as an Art Centre since 1998 but local people have been painting publicly since the late nineteen seventies and the walls of the public buildings, particularly the local school, are covered in a wide and vibrant range of images.

Apparently a lot of this earlier work has been collected for a local museum with support from the Australian National Gallery in Canberra. I’ll try to catch up with that collection when I pass through Warmun again later in the year.

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.

Thanks to the staff at the Arts Centre I was able to get a better idea of who paints bird stories at Warmun and a better idea of the number of species that locals paint the stories of. I’ll be in touch with the artists through the local Council and the Arts Centre to arrange my next trip.

And if you want to find out more about the extraordinary artists – both past and present – and their art go to the Warmun Arts Centre site here – and if you contact the Arts Centre they’ll tell you where the several exhibitions planned for later this year.

You need a permit to enter the Warmun community living area and the Arts Centre – but if you call (08) 9168 7496 it is easy enough to arrange over the phone.