..six months or so we’ve managed
to run into and make the acquaintance offmost
of them, with the exception of the people Next Door.
But that was about to change. I was returning home from Lilydale a
couple of months ago and noticed an African–looking gentleman
with a whipper-snipper in hand having a crack at the grass growing
between our driveways as they emerge onto Spring St. (There’s
a certain droll humour in the way the streets nearby are named after
the political centre of Melbourne – i.e. Spring St,
Bourke St and Russell St).
On recognising him as our Next Door neighbour I resigned myself to
breaking the ice and stopped beside him and rolled down my window.
After half a minute the gentleman looked in my direction without too
much interest and without turning off his whipper-snipper.
Taking his cue I didn’t turn off my motor either and yelled
at him that I was the person living in the house up the drive and
my name was Mike.
He seemed lost for words so I yelled even louder that my name was
Mike and asked what his name was.
I thought he said ‘Aussie’ which I considered unlikely
for some reason, but by now I’d decided that further attempts
at a real conversation were doomed and after one more feeble pleasantry
said my goodbyes and disappeared up the drive.
As I was relating my experience to M I wildly surmised as to who this
‘Aussie’ might’ve been. One of my more outlandish
theories was that he might’ve fled to Australia after a dramatic
falling out with the Mafia and Mt Evelyn had seemed as far away from
la famiglia mafiosa as he could imagine. Maybe Bradley, the young
extraordinarily tall black American cop that I’d met at the
Lilydale police station, was his estranged son who, after searching
the far corners of the planet, was finally closing in on his itinerant
daddy.
A month or so later there was a knock on the door. It turned out to
be Sarah from Next Door, bearing gifts including a bag of home-grown
limes. She confirmed that her partner’s name was indeed Ossie,
although she didn’t tell us if that was short for Oscar or perhaps
Oswald, or if Ossie was indeed his actual name.
We really didn’t find out anything else about him either, apart
from the telling fact that his hearing isn’t too good. Anyway,
that‘s all for us to find out in due course. Sarah did suggest
knowingly as she left that the limes would be good with a gin and
tonic. I didn’t realise it showed.
Anyway, M and I have made good use of the second-hand binoculars already.
Despite their being in dire need of a clean they are as good a pair
magnification-wise as I’ve used and we’ve already managed
to see a number of our neighbours’ bird population up close
and personal for the first time. King parrots, rosella, kookaburra,
white cockatoo, lorikeet and wattle birds, all quite uninhibited and
‘underwear they’re being washed’ as Lennon would
say. We’ve even had three yellow-tailed black cockatoo, which
M has only seen once previously in Victoria, stealthily over-flying
our property like three horsemen of the apocalypse.
I nearly forgot the magpies and blackbirds. There are magpies in New
Zealand too, so I've grown up with their fabulous unreproducable Be-Bop
warble as a soundscape to all my frameable pastoral and countryside
Kiwi views, especially in Geraldine, a small tourist (now) village
in South Canterbury where our stepfather's parents lived.. We're blessed
with about three blackbird pairs closeby, desperately trying by example
to coaxe the local primitive squawking and sqeaking birds to be more
tuneful by singing their hearts out with their educated European melodies,
like Mozarts in a cultural desert.
But the prize native bird spotted so far - as recently as today and
much to our excitement - has been the hitherto elusive Butcher bird.
The vocalising of the Butcher bird has been a poignant counterpoint
in my life for decades with only a couple of sightings, and even then
the identification was uncertain.
They have their moments of random chatter, but the Butcher Bird devotes
a great deal of its broadcast time perfecting a solitary, studied
message,* as though it were a satellite in the outer reaches of the
Universe patiently looking for intelligent life.
The timing and the pitch sounds querulous at first, but on repeated
listens you discover that every nuanced note is carefully placed and
intoned and the timbre (my choirmaster’s favourite
word) of the piping is surprisingly rich for a comparatively small
bird. It appears to take a prodigious effort for the Butcher Bird
to produce its song and to witness it in the act of singing is extremely
moving.
I’ve got just one such Butcher Bird quote ready to be incorporated
in a song. The dearth of gigs at this time of the year means that
I’m finally finding the time to rediscover my studio and so
there’s a better than even chance something new will appear
soon and there’s also a good chance it might incorporate the
Butcher Bird’s heartfelt melody.
Is this the future now? Is this a taste of post rock’n’roll
life? I’m intrigued. Perhaps discoveries like these indicate
there is Life after Life after all.
* Listen to
a grainy recording of our local Grey
Butcher Bird's song |
|