the time difference between here and home has one rather cool side effect. my birthday is at least 40 hours long, effectively giving me a two day party zone. the local greetings began with pernille singing ‘happy birthday’ to me a few minutes after — some would say before — midnight. actually, singing might be an exaggeration; it was more like a gleeful cackle. she seems to take delight in rubbing in my birthdays, and the rehearsals for the song performance begin days in advance. then i’m usually treated to encore performances at intervals throughout the day. this time, however, the celebrations have carried on until late in the evening of the second day, all the way to the US west coast, which is 17 hours behind canberra, or seven hours ahead on the day before if that helps. so the greetings have just wrapped up as the clock struck midnight in california. long day, and boy do i feel older after all that.
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becoming a nuisance
ok, the magpies seemed pretty cool at first. but by day four of our stay in canberra they’re becoming a pest. this guy in particular (above). he’s sitting on my windowsill, practically nose to nose with me, and he wants attention. i took this picture from about 10 inches away from his beak, though separated by a pane of glass. he’s obviously used to being fed, and i’m resisting with all my might because once you give in, they’ll never leave you alone. he’s already gotten me into a whistling contest, and i can’t possibly win. and he seems to think he should be an indoor bird. i’m going to have to consult the locals to figure out how canberrans avoid being held captive by these rascals. i don’t know how long i can go on with this character constantly hectoring me.
a throwaway magazine left on our front step yesterday had a cover story about the magpies. swooping magpies have injured a few bikers and pedestrians. no serious injuries, but the strafing is frightening. the birds themselves seem mostly harmless. (though now that i think about the concept of ‘mostly harmless’, the news media in the US are portraying the looting and burning in portland and other american cities as ‘mostly peaceful’. one wag commented that, by that standard, ‘world war two was mostly peaceful, too.’
for the most part, bird life here is spectacular. some really colorful fellows, and quite a variety considering we haven’t been out of the compound since we got here. most of them keep to themselves. only these silly magpies seem to be our dependents.
and i need a bit of education on magpie family life. twice in these first four days i’ve seen what appears to be a young magpie lying on its back while an adult stands over it, screaming and pecking. in both instances i’ve thought i was doing a good deed by rescuing the youngster, but i’m not sure about protocol in such situations. are the little guys in danger, or is this standard parenting and i’m interfering with normal disciplinary practice?
this wasn’t intended to be a blog about magpies. but in these early days of quarantine, these encounters are close to being the daily highlights. life’s bound to get more exciting when the quarantine lifts. isn’t it?
quarantine -day 3 – invasion of magpies
also jet lag – day 3.
the long flight from san francisco has definitely taken its toll on this old body. melatonin again last night. woke to a fresh morning reminiscent of my first days in delhi more than 30 years ago. an end-of-winter crispness in the air.
there is an abundance of birds in the neighborhood, but none more welcoming than the magpies. these melodious black and white characters have made it known that they wouldn’t mind being fed. the two teenaged boys next door have shown me how the magpies fly onto the lowest branches of a nearby tree so they can receive morsels offered to them in a little clip, so they can snap up the tasties without wounding the hand that feeds them.
the magpies search our lawn for edibles, and when i’ve gone out to meet them, they’ve shown not the least shyness in walking right up to me as if to say, “what do you have for me today?” they understand the fine art of bending humans to their will. i anticipate adding “bird feed” to the regular shopping list.
the birder in the family, pernille, is already out on the back deck every morning with her binoculars and her “birds of australia” book by her side. she’s already identified a handful of species. wikipedia reports 898 bird species in australia, fully one in ten of the world’s unique bird species, making this land the most diverse in the world for avian life.
it seems a gross understatement to say birding is going to be exciting here.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/01/birds-australia-world-greatest-diversity
introduction
we arrived canberra past midnight september 6th, 2020, had a bite to eat, a celebratory beer, then slept. woke to a brilliant late winter morning. wandered around the house and out into the garden of our divine prison where we’re being detained for two weeks of COVID quarantine. it’s going to be an exciting four years here once the virus is tamed.
pernille is the new danish ambassador in australia. for the first time in my life, i’m a diplomatic spouse, nothing more.
since we started doing this thing called life together in india 27 years ago, we’ve been a two-career family with kids. now i’m retired and the kids, 26 and 23, are on their own in the US.
the past eight years has been a time of separation. i’ve kept a residence in the northern virginia suburbs so the kids could have an answer to the question, “what is your home address?” it also allowed me to finish out my career with the voice of america at headquarters in washington. pernille has done diplomacy in places in exciting but out of the way capitals from cairo to kabul to beirut. now we’re reunited in a dream (though also slightly out of the way) spot, the australian capital region.
in many ways this is an auspicious moment to start a blog. so here goes.
a personal note
not that heinlein, the acclaimed sci-fi writer. that lane’s already taken.
i’m an old school journalist. disgusted with the opinion-driven, hit-piece drivel that passes for news writing these days. hankering for the time when objectivity was not just prized, but required. sadly, those days are gone.
this blog is personal, occasioned by our (my wife pernille and my) move to australia. this is day one. september 6, 2020
not that heinlein 