Category Archives: Birds

Australia’s shame – the Timor Sea oil spill disaster in pictures

October 26, 2009 – 7:23 am

This is a disaster of not only local, but regional and international proportions. The impending arrival of the seasonal monsoonal cycle in the coming months will substantially change the nature and location of the impact of this massive spill.

By Bob Gosford | Also posted in Animals, Northern development, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (17)

Roadkill of the week: life & death in the Pacific Garbage Patch

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.

By Bob Gosford | Also posted in Animals, Birds and people, Roadkill, Stupidity | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (9)

Morning chorus at Rocky Bottom Creek

October 13, 2009 – 3:27 pm

The first five notes of the Pied Butchebird’s call reminded me very much of “La Cucaracha”…

By Bob Gosford | Also posted in Bird of the Week, Ethnoornithology | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Bird of the week: Mindjarru & Bigibila, a Yuwaalaraay story by Arthur Dodd

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 | Also posted in Animals, Birds and people, Ethnoornithology, Some places I've been | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (1)

Good light, and birds, in Broome…

September 16, 2009 – 9:24 pm

After spending a long time in the desert’s too-harsh-between-10am-and-3pm light it is a relief on the eyes to get into some comparatively soft northern lights, though of course the heat and humidity of a September build-up does always take some getting used to.

By Bob Gosford | Also posted in Fun stuff, Photography, Some places I've been | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (1)

Roadkill of the week – Yinkardakurdaku, Spotted Nightjar

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.

By Bob Gosford | Also posted in Aboriginal & Islander Art, Birds and people, Roadkill, Some places I've been | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (1)

Song poetry about birds from the Pilbara

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 | Also posted in Animals, Birds and people, The Arts, Writing and writers | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (2)

Sniffing around at the shit-pits: watching birds at the Alice Springs Waste Stabilisation Ponds

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.

By Bob Gosford | Also posted in Animals, Birds and people | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (4)

Life and art in the sky, Part 1 – the Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa of Alma Nungarrayi Granites

September 4, 2009 – 6:29 pm

If you are in Alice Springs this weekend you can do a lot worse than go along to the Aralauen Arts Centre and catch the Desert Mob show that will be opening there Sunday – you might be lucky and see one of Nungarrayi’s paintings in the exhibition.

By Bob Gosford | Also posted in Aboriginal & Islander Art, Art, The Arts, Yuendumu | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Why birds, culture and language are relevant…and interesting

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 | Also posted in Birds and people, Ethnoornithology, Indigenous land management, Northern development | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (2)