An early bird
No Comments »15th May, 2007; Category: General
It has been a long time since my last article about idioms. It is time to get back on track, to let the cat out of the bag and to turn over a new leaf before my readers think I’ve abandoned them with egg on their faces and that I’ve cooked my own goose.
This week’s idiom: An early bird.
Meaning:
If someone is “an early bird” they get up early in the morning, or they are very early for an appointment.
Origins:
I cannot find any references as to the exact origins of this phrase. It quite likely comes from the proverb “The early bird catcheth the worm” quoted in John Ray’s A Collection of English Proverbs published in 1670. This proverb seems a logical statement due to the habit of many birds to rise early, to be very active even well before dawn and thus anyone who is an early riser is said to be “an early bird.”
Example:
“In order to be the first in line, you will have to be an early bird.”
Links:
- Idioms – a series of articles about idioms from the archives on my writing blog.
Australian Magpie
Australian Magpies often begin their beautiful carolling well before sunrise. They certainly are one of “the early birds” in Australia.
Still more rain
Two days ago I wrote about the rain we were receiving. We have been in drought conditions here in South Australia for some time with little good rainfall for over eighteen months. Coupled with a long, hot summer the situation was getting serious. We were on quite severe water restrictions with the promise of further bans in coming weeks.
Since Thursday, however, it has hardly stopped raining. In the last 60 hours we have had about 85mm. Now this may seem not a great deal of rain compared to some parts of the world, but considering our annual average is only 344mm, this rain represents almost 25% of our annual precipitation. It was very steady rain meaning there was very little runoff; it was the long steady rainfall we had been praying for. More is forecast for the coming week.
More rain is needed:
We still have a long way to go before water restrictions can be lifted, however. It will take much more rain over a long period of time to replenish our depleted reservoirs. Even more rain is desperately needed in the Murray-Darling catchment basin in the eastern parts of Australia. This river system waters vast areas of food producing farmlands and orchards. Good rain over several years will be needed to bring the river system back into balance again.
Birds and the rain:
The rain was quite heavy for most of today. I didn’t hear any birds calling until the rain stopped at about 5pm. In fact, I didn’t even see any birds for most of the day. As soon as the rain stopped, the birds started calling again. The Little Ravens were the first to call, followed closely by the Magpie Larks, New Holland Honeyeaters and the Pardalotes. No birds came to visit the bird baths today. I wonder why?
How to watch birds
Some time ago I write a series of articles called How to be a birder – some hints. This series of 20 articles covered many aspects of being a birder, with hints for the beginner through to more experienced.
How to watch birds is an article on another website. It has some very useful information for beginners to this fascinating hobby, including what equipment is needed. Its information about binoculars is most detailed and useful. The sections on bird books, including field guides is for American birders only so readers from other countries need to seek out those resources relevant to their own region of interest.
Here in Australia we have many useful resources (go to the links section for relevant places to seek out books, field guides and equipment).
Dusky Woodswallow
The Birds of Shakespeare
Did you know that William Shakespeare included many different references to birds in his writing? In fact, according to one blog site, Shakespeare mentions at least 45 different species in his works. Now I’m going to trust this authority and not go and read every word that Shakespeare wrote in order to check out this fact.
Here is the full list. By clicking on the species name you will go to the article on that species with full references to where that species is mentioned in Shakespeare’s work.
The Birds of Shakespeare
by Sir Archibald GeikieBlackbird – Bunting – Buzzard – Chough – Cock (Rooster) – Cormorant – Crow – Cuckoo
Dive-dapper – Dove and Pigeon – Duck (Mallard) – Eagle – Falcon and Sparrowhawk – Finch
Goose – Hedge Sparrow (Dunnock) – House Martin – Jackdaw – Jay – Kite – Lapwing – Lark
Loon – Magpie – Nightingale – Osprey – Ostrich – Owl – Parrot – Partridge – Peacock – Pelican
Pheasant – Quail – Raven – Robin (Redbreast) – Snipe – Sparrow – Starling – Swallow – Swan
After looking at those references you may want to wander over to Trevor’s Writing, my blog about writing, books and blogging. You may even want to stay long enough to read some of my poetry and short fiction. Many of my haiku poems are about birds.
Links:
A bad birding day
No Comments »29th March, 2007; Category: General
Last Friday evening we had a meeting to attend in the South Australian country town of Coonalpyn, about an hour’s drive from home and two hours South East of Adelaide. We decided to take the day off from work. My wife works in her native plant nursery most days and I on my writing.
How Park
The weather forecast was not looking good, but the start of the day was quite pleasant. We travelled via Tailem Bend to the small mallee community of Peake, nearly an hour east of Murray Bridge. Here we turned north for a few kilometres to a picnic ground called How Park. This small community park is now very run down with a dilapidated toilet block and club rooms, a strip of concrete formerly used as a cricket pitch and an open area previously used as a football oval.
Uninvited lunch guests:
This park would have been much used in earlier times, say in the 1950s and 60s, but its condition is now quite derelict. Some of the beautiful pine trees planted by early settlers are magnificent still; others have either died through the drought or been ravaged by storms. Despite this we still had our picnic lunch there. The numerous uninvited bush flies decided to join us. I only recorded a few birds in the park and didn’t take any photos. One notable sighting was of several Peaceful Doves who serenaded us while we dined.
Peaceful Dove, Cleland Wildlife Park
Jabuk to Geranium:
After lunch we travelled to Jabuk and then on to Geranium. By now the hot north wind was increasing and the cloud cover intensifying. It was not a good day for birding and I saw very little of interest except for four Western Grey Kangaroos. On previous occasions I had seen many birds on this stretch of road. Today was a very poor birding day though I did see a family of White Winged Choughs.
Banksias
One Tree Hill:
A few kilometres south of Geranium there is a locality known as One Tree Hill. It has many trees there so I don’t know why it is called that. Nearby is a soak used by the Aborigines in earlier times; it would have been one of the few places where there was fresh water in the district. There is no surface water now; the local farmers and their bores have lowered the water table. One feature of this locality is many hundreds of trees planted by a local grower, especially many kinds of Banksias (see photo). I was only able to get several photos before beating a hasty retreat to the car for shelter. From that point on it rained steadily all the way to our friends’ place in Coonalpyn.
While the rain was very welcome, the birding was disappointing. Next time we will pick better weather.