2 Texans Down Under

We are blessed with bird sounds every morning here in Brisbane’s inner suburbs, and some of the warblers start early, before we’re aware of any evidence of dawn.

Sleeping in a tree gives you a better perspective on changes in light, I guess. Certainly the fruit bats that occupy the papaya tree behind our house get fussy when I flip on the light in my study to do a little of middle-of-the-night writing.

My window is only about 15 feet from the roosts of two of these big bats known as flying foxes and from the tone of their screeching when my light comes on, I suspect it’s a good thing I don’t speak bat.

We don’t speak much bird, either and we’re only now beginning to know which birds are making some of the highly entertaining sounds we hear before, during, and after our rise-and-shine time.

I am not sure, for example, when I am hearing magpies, although I’m sure they are among our early morning singers. There are a lot of these black and white birds around here and Gisela Kaplan says we should be celebrating them.

Kaplan, a university professor in New South Wales, has published a book on magpies that I have not yet read, but I want to. I heard her interviewed on public radio recently and she made me understand what a remarkable bird this is. “The Australian magpie,” she said in a newspaper column this week, “is one of the foremost songbirds in the world.”

Maybe soon I’ll know one when I hear one. It’s a little embarrassing to live here and be able to identify with confidence only the sounds of doves, crows, flying foxes, and kookaburras. Oh, and rainbow loikeets, my favorite Aussie bird. — Bob