The political response has been limited to hand-wringing stop-gap measures and to paying for a series of failed attempts to plug the spill and some apparently ineffective mopping-up operations.

Atlas West oil rig. Photograph: Chris Twomey, office of Ausralian Greens Senator Rachel Siewert

This is a disaster of not only local, but regional and international proportions. And, while the weather conditions in and around the Timor Sea are relatively stable at present, 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.

The Jakarta Post reports today that the slick is already in Indonesian waters and is causing illness and will have a substantial economic affect on traditional fishers and harvesters on Rote Island:

Four weeks after the oil spill, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) submitted an official report to the Indonesian government mentioning that volumes of crude oil had entered the Indonesian Exclusive Economic Zone, some 51 nautical miles from Rote Island.

Traditional fishermen operating off Pasir Island found an oil slick resembling a pool around 20 miles from Tablolong beach in Kupand, or around 30 nautical miles from Kolbano, South Central Timor regency.

Last week, fishermen on the coast of Rote Ndao regency started complaining of illnesses as a result of the oil spill that had reached land and damaged thousands of hectares of ready-to-harvest seaweed.

“Seaweed, which is one of the province’s prime commodities, has been polluted. If the farmers fail to harvest their seaweed, they would incur losses of up to billions of rupiah,” said the West Timor Care Foundation NGO director Ferdi Tanoni.

And the Timor Oil spill has been picked up by East Timorese bloggers here and here.

The West Atlas oil rig in the Timor Sea, operated by the Thai-owned PTTEP Australasia, blew on August 21 and has leaked over 400,000 litres of oil, gas and condensate into the Timor Sea at a rate of reported variously as being from 300 to 1,200 barrels a day.

The Fairfax Press reports that Greens Senator Bob Brown believes those figures underestimate the true position – though no material was provided in support of his claim that:

The Greens believe anywhere from 10 to 20 million litres of oil has spilled into the ocean since the leak began on August 21.

Three attempts to plug the hole – by means of intercepting the pipe more than 2.5 kilometres below the sea bed – have been unsuccessful.

A fourth attempt had earlier been abandoned but was apparently to take place sometime yesterday, Sunday October 25.

Photograph: Debra Glasgow/WWF

As Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett told the ABC he is:

…confident everything possible is being done to stop the oil leak.

“The fact of the matter is, it’s a fiendishly difficult exercise – a little bit like threading the needle – to try to get this oil spill stopped,” he said.

And a fiendishly expensive one – estimates by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority given to the Australian Senate are that it has cost more that $AU5.3 million to date.

What 25,000 square kilometres of oil slick looks like. Photograph: MODIS/Terra/NASAS

The most comprehensive report I’ve been able to find on this oil spill is this article published last Friday in The Guardian by Toni O’Loughlin.

O’Loughlin’s article relies extensively on a series of reports by the World Wildlife Fund Australia.

Sea snake swimming in sludge. Photograph: Chris Sanderson/WWF

WWF are the only external independent agency to conduct a survey of the area affected by the spill.

WWF says that:

Dolphins, migratory sea birds and sea snakes were found in abundance in the area, in addition to marine turtles, and many of these species were recorded swimming through the toxic oil affected area during WWF’s recent expedition to Timor Sea…”We recorded hundreds of dolphins and sea birds in the oil slick area, as well as sea snakes and threatened hawksbill and flatback turtles,” said WWF-Australia’s Director of Conservation Dr Gilly Llewellyn, who led the team of ecologists.

Overall the expedition recorded 17 species of seabird, four species of cetacean and five marine reptiles including two species of marine turtle. At least eleven of the species were listed migratory and two – hawksbill and flatback turtles – are listed as threatened with extinction under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

On Wednesday, PTTEP, the company responsible for the oil slick, reported high levels of mortality among oil- affected seabirds. “Clearly, wildlife is dying and hundreds if not thousands of dolphins, seabirds and sea-snakes are being exposed to toxic oil. The critical issue is the long term impact of this slick on a rich marine ecosystem, taking into consideration the magnitude, extent and duration of the event,” said Dr Llewellyn. “We know that oil can be a slow and silent killer…we can expect this environmental disaster will continue to unfold for years to come.”

The true impacts of this most serious regional marine disaster will start to be felt – and recorded – in the Timor Sea in the coming weeks and are already having severe impacts on some parts of the Indonesian archipelago.

Just what will happen when the monsoon season starts and most likely disperses the spill over a greater area in the region – including back onto the Australian north-western coastline, remains to be seen.

But by then it may be too late.

You can see more of the WWF reports and survey here.

And more of the photographs collected at The Guardian’s Environment site here.

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!

Rocky Bottom Creek at dawn

A bit of an experiment this.

A pesky, but nonetheless absolutely delightful Pied Butcherbird woke me at about 4 am the other morning while I was camped on the side of the aptly-named Rocky Bottom Creek about 450 kilometres into Arnhem Land along the Central Arnhem Road.

Me, being slack and nice and warm warm in my swag told the PBB to go away and rolled over to try for another hour or so of sleep.

Then, of course entranced by the PBB’s call – the first five notes of which reminded me very much of “La Cucaracha” – I thought I’d emulate my friend and colleague Hollis Taylor and get out of my warm fartsack and record their calls.

Hollis has spent large parts of the last few years getting up at ridiculous hours to record the many and varied dialects of the Pied Butcherbird’s calls from all over Australia and she has now put this all together in a PhD thesis and has apparently also just finished an ABC Radio documentary about her work.

I’m looking forward to reading more of her work and to hearing the doco.

But I digress.

By the time I got out of my swag, into my clothes and had a bushman’s breakfast of a piss and a look around, the PBB and its friends had flown away and left me with hordes of Orange-collared Lorikeets chattering like drunken schoolies in the trees overhead.

You can hear the edited version of a half hour or so of their calls HERE.

Note to self – next time – get ready the night before and get up earlier – before the PBBs fly away.

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/there-is-good-light-and-birds-in-broome/ http://blogs.crikey.com.au/northern/2009/09/16/there-is-good-light-and-birds-in-broome/#comments Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:54:30 +0000 Bob Gosford http://blogs.crikey.com.au/northern/?p=1793

I said “Don’t tell me, there’s good light in Broome”

Good light in Broome, well I’ll be there soon

I know exactly what I’m a gonna do

Sit on the beach, stare at the moon

Haven’t you heard? there’s good light in Broome

Good Light in Broome, Neil Murray.

As my old boss Neil Murray says, there is some bloody good light in Broome, as there is in Derby, a couple of hundred k’s to the north-west.

11.30 am - Broome

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 take some getting used to.

My armpits get a bit sweaty & crusty after a couple of days up here and my phone went on the fritz about two days after I got back to the humidity that hugs the coastal fringe up here like a warm blanket.

Just a little desperate, I went to the local phone store where a more than disinterested shop assistant told me that “Oh, those Nokia E51’s always go weird in the humidity.”

And so do I – and that is one of the reasons I moved away from Darwin and the NT’s north coast after living there for almost twenty years.

An hour and three shops later I sat down with a new phone and my old SIM card and worked my way through a few days of messages and missed calls.

Anyway, back to the light up here.

Last Saturday morning I was up before dawn to go to the wonderful Derby Wetlands – aka the Derby Waste Management facility aka the local shit-pits.

The local pits in Derby are great – they even have a 5 metre tower with a view over the pits and the adjacent wetland.

Not only do you get a good view from the tower but for flight photography that extra height makes life a lot easier – you see the birds a lot more easily than when you are at ground level, but it also gives a better background – sky, rather than trees and power lines.

Here are a couple of shots from the Derby shit-pits…

Torresian Crow, Derby

Crows are notoriously hard to photograph with any detail in the plumage – usually they just render as a black blob.

This one obligingly turned away from the sun at the right moment…and the sun being low in the sky helped as well.

Royal Spoonbill, Derby

And I do love a good spoonbill in the morning…they just look so…improbable.

Australian White Ibis, Derby

And this White Ibis, which in many southern cities has a bit of a reputation as a pest bird, gave me a good look at the bare patches of skin under it’s wings as it glided past.

1st year Brown Goshawk, Broome Bird Observatory

After Derby I drove down to the Broome Bird Observatory, on the shores of Roebuck Bay just south of Broome town.

This 1st year Brown Goshawk flew into the birdbath area near one of the bird hides not far from the camp and obligingly sat still for a few minutes so I could get a few portrait shots.

Not only is the Broome Bird Observatory a good place to stay if you want to avoid the tourist traps of Broome, but it is also a great place to catch some fantastic birds all up close and very personal.

And every evening just before the evening meal you can sit in on the “call of the birds” where twitchers and anyone else present gets to call out what birds they saw that day.

Peaceful Dove

Peaceful Doves are cute but extremely nervous little birds.

And, with their larger cousins the Bar-shouldered Doves, there were lots hanging around at the watering point at the Observatory.

Little Friarbird

This slightly bedraggled and soggy Little Friarbird was also there. Friarbirds are just about my favourite Honeyeaters – aggressive, noisy and with a face that could scare horses – at least the Little Friarbird doesn’t have the bald leathery head and nose-bump of some of its cousins

As I said – there WAS good light in Broome. Hopefully there will be more that I can catch tomorrow.

There is a lot more to the Broome Bird Observatory than the few landbirds that I’ve shown here – especially at this time of year when, as I’ve noted here before, several hundred thousand migratory shorebirds wend their way down from Siberia and beyond to spend a while on the beaches of Roebuck Bay.

But while I was at the Broome Bird Observatory the neap tides were on, so, with only a small variation in the rise and fall of the tide, most of the birds were well offshore on the vast expase of mudflats that line the bay.

But – if you can get there on one of the king or high tides you will see things that will make your time and efforts well worthwhile – not only the great variety of land birds but a bewildering array of migratory waders.

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!

Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa, Alma Nungarrayi Granites

This small image gives but a very limited impression of the power and majesty of the original of Alma Nungarrayi Granites’ painting of her Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa (Seven Sisters dreaming).

It is one of a series of large paintings by the Warlpiri artist Alma Nungarrayi Granites, who paints for Warlukurlangu Artists, the locally-owned and operated arts centre here at Yuendumu 300 kilometres or so north-west of Alice Springs in Warlpiri/Anmatyerre country on the southern fringes of the magnificent Tanami Desert.

Nungarrayi comes from a long and proud tradition of Warlpiri artists.

Her father and mother, Paddy Japaljarri Sims and Bessie Nakamarra Sims, are two of the artists that founded Warlukurlangu in the mid-eighties. Artistic talent in the Sims family runs deep and spans the generations – Nungarrayi’s parents Japaljarri and Nakamarra, as well as Nungarrayi and her brothers and sisters all paint with and sell through Warlukurlangu.

Earlier this year Nungarrayi and her daughter Sabrina joined her mother and grandmother in a unique show, entitled “Mother, daughter, granddaughter; Three generations of Yuendumu artists” at Perth’s Kingfisher Gallery . Brother Otto Sims is the chairman of Warlukurlangu.

The rights to paint and the knowledge linked to the Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa story have been handed down to Nungarrayi from her father, the last Japaljarri who knows all of the songs and ceremony for the Yiwarra – Milky Way Dreaming.

Nungarrayi’s paintings are powerful multi-level images that draw you in and each raise a hundred or more questions – many of which, for various reasons, will remain unanswered.

I want to take one of Nungarrayi’s Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa – or her other Yanjirlpirri Jukurrpa (Star dreaming) paintings out bush on one of those clear starlight-bright nights that we are so often blessed with out here and lay on my back with the painting at arms length above me and read the painting and the skies beyond together.

And Nungarrayi’s story for this particular painting – well, maybe just one of the many stories embedded in them – is that:

The Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa (Seven sisters Dreaming) depicts the story of the seven ancestral Napaljarri
sisters who are found in the night sky today in the cluster of seven stars in the constellation Taurus, more
commonly known as the Pleiades.

The Pleiades are seven women of the Napaljarri skin group and are often depicted in paintings of this Jukurrpa carrying the Jampijinpa man ‘Wardilyka‘ (the Bustard [Ardeotis australis]) who is in love with the Napaljarri-warnu and who represents the Orion’s Belt cluster of stars.

Jukurra- jukurra, the morning star, is a Jakamarra man who is also in love with the seven Napaljarri sisters and is often shown chasing them across the night sky. In a final attempt to escape from the Jakamarra the
Napaljarri-warnu turned themselves into fire and ascended to the heavens to become stars.

The custodians of the Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa are Japaljarri/Jungarrayi men and Napaljarri/Nungarrayi
women. Some parts of the Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa are closely associated with men’s sacred ceremonies.

I’m not quite sure if Nungarrayi will be holding any further solo exhibitions in Australia this year but her work is well represented in any number of galleries in Australia and internationally that specialise in quality Aboriginal art.

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.

My old mate Paul Kelly will be playing a sold-out show in the Araluen Theatre on Saturday night and on Saturday afternoon many of the locally-owned arts centres scattered throughout central Australia will be selling their wares at the Desert Mob marketplace.

This market is a great way to get hold of a range of modestly-priced works of a great variety from some of the 43 art centres that make up DesArt. I don’t know if you’ll be able to pick up any of Nungarrayi’s painting at the Warlukurlangu booth but you could certainly find out more from the Warlukurlangu staff.

The exhibition is described on the Desart website as a:

…showcase[s of] the latest works from each of the participating Art Centres and includes paintings by some of the leading artists in Australia, together with traditional artefacts, weavings, ceramics and other crafts. Each Art Centre exhibits works by some of its senior artists, together with works by emerging younger artists.

And the the marketplace is:

… a large indoor/outdoor market with stalls selling small and low-priced Aboriginal arts and crafts and related products, such as T shirts, bags, books and calendars from Desart member Art Centres. Popular with both locals and tourists, the market offers a chance of some excellent bargains to early browsers.

Me, I’ll be at home watching the football and looking after the dogs while my partner, who works at Warlukurlangu, will working hard in Alice Springs.

Then on Sunday I’m off through the Tanami Track up to the east and west Kimberleys and then on to the Pilbara to talk to people about birds.

It is really tough out here sometimes…

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.