Enjoy the journey.

Tag: nsw

Spring has Sprung (Away!)

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Things are looking very summery this morning. The cat is melting, the grass is turning crunchy and the cicadas are already tuning up for what looks like it’s going to be a long, hot day. Our extended game of musical couches has made us pretty late to the party this year; now that we’re finally feeling like fresh starts and spring cleaning, the season for it is almost over!

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But …. The jacarandas are still in bloom, our coastal evenings are still gentle and cool… the time for new beginnings is not yet completely gone. And that’s just as well, since there’s one very important new beginning happening on the median strip in the middle of a nine-way intersection near our house.

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That’s a plover (Vanellus milus) also known as a Masked Lapwing, a mad, idiotic, insomniac bird found all over northern, eastern and central Australia. Plovers walk around and feed all day, then fly around and scream all night. I have no idea if or when they sleep, but it’s clearly only when no-one is watching.

You get the idea; plovers are very active birds. However that particular plover, spotted on the median strip a little over a week ago was, on first sighting, doing something that a plover simply does not do.

It was sitting.

As soon as our eyes met, the plover leapt up and hurried away as nonchalantly as it could. And I thought “Hmmmm……”

The next day, there it was again. Same place, same bird, same nonchalant trot from its seat. And I thought “Aha!”

With a quick look for traffic, I zipped across the road, up onto the median strip and there it was:

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Now if that doesn’t say springtime, what does?

I have a certain amount of experience when it comes to spotting plover nests, but it isn’t as though they’re very good at hiding them. A plover couple will find or scrape a very slight depression into a patch of short grass or dirt, then the female lays her eggs in it. Kin and I spent much of September annoying the Clarence Town plovers by hunting down and inspecting their efforts.

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The owners of those three eggs had carefully constructed their nest in a wheel rut in a parking area… in exactly the same place where they’d recently lost their first clutch to the back wheel of a ute!  They were most indignant when my mother built a fence around it to prevent the same thing from happening again.

(Indignant or not, that fence did the trick. All three of those babies hatched safely and were last seen trekking about near the creek, with both of their parents in attendance.)

My intersection plover might not have actually built on the road, but she was still very close to it, so I didn’t stay and look at her nest for very long. She’d developed two broken wings and a terrible stagger and I was afraid she’d flap her way under a car if I upset her too much. I took one last shot, assured Mama Plover that her eggs were lovely and walked away quickly to let the poor thing calm down.

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Her husband remained in the air and followed me the length of the block, then sent a sharp gargle back to his partner to give her the all clear. By the time I was back at my gate, Mama Plover’s broken wings had miraculously healed and she was sitting again.

Kin and I checked on them every day for the next week, and that watchful husband delivered a heads-up and an all-clear every time. On Tuesday evening, we were finally rewarded by this sight:

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And then the next day….

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And there were no more broken wings for Mama and Papa Plover! Both of them, swooped us, determined to defend their babies from the paparazzi. Plovers are known for aggressively defending their nests; male plovers even have spurs on their wings, all the better to drive off photographers. Kin and I both grew up blonde in magpie country, though, so dive-bombing birds are not a new experience and we managed to get our shots without anyone (us or the plover parents) becoming too upset.

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The day after that, we decided to stay well away from the family, as the last eggs would be hatching. We knew that once they were all safely out of their shells, the family would no longer remain in the nest. Until they were clear of that busy intersection, we were not going to risk chasing anyone under a bus!

The family has decamped to a stretch of land near the railway line, so we’ve since been able to sneak up on them and check on the babies. I’m happy to report that all eggs hatched, all babies made it across the road and there are now four fluffy little pompoms running around behind their mother who, by the way, still views us with extreme suspicion. As soon as either one of us is sighted, she or Papa Plover give a sharp chiack! and all four of the babies drop to the ground, where they become invisible.

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Well, almost invisible. He’s doing his best.

Our plover family might have brought springtime back to us, but my goodness they’ve made this last week anxious! Building a nest on the ground in the middle of an incredibly busy intersection and then leading your fluffy little stilt-walkers across those roads to another stretch of bare ground where their only defence is to pretend to be invisible at extreme risk of being stepped on… it just doesn’t seem like the best survival strategy. Especially since plover couples generally nest at the same site each year, so every batch of babies will have to face the same hazards!

Still, I guess it’s worked out for them so far; plovers are extremely numerous in Australia, and they seem to adapt quite well to an urban lifestyle. And our plover family is still trekking around with all of its members, so maybe Newcastle railway lines are a better place than they seem for a new beginning.

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Happy springtime! And, if you’re walking to Broadmeadow Station, please be careful where you put your feet!

Treading lightly….

Gem

XX

Welcome Home!

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And we are back!

The last month’s radio silence has covered a frantic period of packing, posting and rushing around, but we’re finally here (albeit homeless) enjoying a sunny Australian winter. At the moment we’re staying with my family in the country, which is nice when it comes to birds and fireplaces, but not so easy for Kin to get to university. So, last week, on a bright sunny day when Kin had classes, we ventured to Newcastle to visit friends, have a proper coffee and take care of a few things like library visits and collecting a few possessions.

It was a lovely day. The breeze was light and scented with eucalypt and Hamilton was sunny and wintry warm. Mid-morning, Kin trekked off to class and I sat in the sun in a friend’s backyard, with a purring cat on my lap and an occasional avocado rocketing down onto the shed from a nearby tree. After lunch, I ran our errands, then headed out to the university to meet Kin. On this carless day, that meant catching a bus. Luckily, the 226 runs straight to the uni, so I flagged one down, hopped aboard and looked around for a seat.

I had a lot of bags, so I decided for a change to sit toward the front, in one of the four person bays. The lopsided gentleman facing toward the back of the bus appeared to be a little too drunk for that time of the afternoon (but who’s judging?) and I didn’t feel like having someone fall on me every time we took a sharp turn, so instead I sat in the opposite seat, next to a pretty lady in a hijab and her two curly-headed baby boys, one toddling, the other perched on his mother’s foot, using her to support wobbly knees that weren’t really ready for standing. I smiled, she smiled, I settled my bags, took out my knitting and felt that it was truly a beautiful world. Knit two, purl two, keep on to the end… and then a sudden gush of warm fluid drenched me from the knees down and splashed the pretty lady (the older child was in the aisle and the younger had
swung to the side, so both were thus far dry).

It took a second to work out what had happened… We looked down at our dripping legs, looked across at the now suspiciously owl-eyed and wet-chinned man sitting opposite, looked at each other… had a simultaneous realisation and both frantically swooped to retrieve bags, bundles and babies from the spreading pool of vomit, not caring which belonged to whom. And then we were trapped, our burdens safely off the ground with only minimal drippage, but so awkwardly gathered and gripped that we were completely unable to relax our clutch on any one item in case another landed in the soup.

Then, while the two of us watched in horror, completely unable to move, the vile, intoxicated beast leaned forward, right over my legs… and vomited again! And again! With each gush, as my stockings soaked, my shoes filled up and the end of my red skirt turned maroon, the pretty lady’s eyes filled with equal parts sympathy and nausea and I began praying to any gods of public transport that she wouldn’t start throwing up as well. I was having enough trouble containing my own stomach. For several minutes, this awful minion of beery darkness threw up on me, my shoes and my ball of wool, then, having wreaked sufficient havoc for one day, blinked a few more times, stood, and as the bus stopped (sending a frothy wave rushing past again and seriously testing my control over my turbulent stomach) he staggered to the door and was gone.

The elderly gentlemen who boarded the bus en route to the RSL were very helpful. The hijab lady and I each passed them a child, then began rearranging our other burdens sorting out what belonged to whom. Both she and they got away from me as quickly as possible, though, and I couldn’t blame them. I smelled awful. My shoes were full of horror. My skirt and stockings dripped. A nightmare-ridden, beery tsunami had washed away my beautiful day and all I wanted to do was cry. And shower. And throw up. Probably while crying some more. While I threw up. In the shower.

Since I could do none of these things, I just sat in silent misery until the bus reached the university, then stood up to disembark…. And it was horrible. My shoes squelched. Trying to hold my bags as far from me as possible, I splashed off the bus, and dripped my way over the crossing then saw Kin, who, expecting the warm, cheerful, bakery-scented wife he’d left in Hamilton, was surprised to open his arms and have a miserable, vomit-sodden wreck fly into them, wailing bitterly about the awful man on the bus.

Kin is a good husband. He just hugged me and didn’t even say “Yuck”.

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I’m laughing (a bit) now that I’m back in the country and my stockings, shoes and wool are soaking in separate buckets by the clothesline. But the experience was surprisingly distressing. I’m no stranger to wearing the odd bodily fluid or two in the line of duty (hospital work is good for that) but to be repeatedly assaulted with the noxious expulsions of a total stranger, in what I had expected to be a fairly hygienic setting, actually resulted in a bit of mild trauma, only slightly dissipated by repeated doses of white vinegar and eucalyptus oil. I don’t mean that my spirit has been blighted and my life is now a ruin. But I feel as though I’ve been doused with a hefty dose of reality, as well as second-hand Toohey’s.

For months now, Kin and I have looked forward to coming home and we’ve been so focused on the wonderful things about Newcastle (our parks, our beaches, the wonderful food and interesting shops) that we’ve been ignoring the fact of our beloved city’s dark side. In particular, we’ve been forgetting that Newcastle definitely has a drinking problem, with all of the social nasties that implies. I’ll admit that actually being vomited on is a new one for me, but any health and hospitality workers, or other denizens of late-night Newcastle have at some point experienced side effects of the city’s struggles with alcohol.

Experiencing them again so soon, and so forcefully, has rubbed a certain amount of bloom off our triumphant return.

There’s good and there’s bad everywhere in the world I suppose, and it’s not as though vomiting drunks are unknown on Japanese public transport either. But I’m already feeling less open and more cautious about moving around my city, even before I’ve officially made it back there. On the other hand, my generally solitary nature is now fired with community-building ambitions; I don’t want anyone to be vomited on again, and the best way to prevent it is to make our neighbourhoods as safe and friendly as possible. Even if that does mean interacting with people more often than my semisocial character would normally choose!

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So, all of you community-minded Australians, I raise my glass to you (cup of tea, actually) and swear to join your ranks in the coming months. I will be active, I will be supportive, I will work until our community is green, helpful and free of antisocial behaviours. And, until that day, I will always wear gumboots on the bus!

In the meantime, soak it all away….

 

Gem

XX

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