University classes have officially started, which means...
well actually it doesn't mean much for me at all, except homework and attending classes.
Haven't really been doing much of late, except studying. I have been waking up fairly early and I've been enjoying some really spectacular sunrises.
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| Sunrise in WA |
I've also been watching the birds who show up and looking for the birds that I used to see that haven't shown up again at all. I suspect this has to do with new 'improvements' to the park nearby. They want to make it easy to keep tidy, and in the process destroyed grazing areas for all the parrots that used to be here.
I USED to see these:
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| Ringneck or more commonly here, 28s |
And THESE:
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| Galah |
Used to see them ALL the time before they tore out all the grass that grew alongside the road. The parrots would come down in small flocks and delicately pluck the grass seeds off the grass. They'd spend hours doing it. Then the park people moved in, ripped up the entire area and replaced with it shredded bark(?) and cement. Since then I haven't seen one Galah or 28. No crazy bathing sessions by flocks of Galahs on top of the library. No 28s goofing around in the garbage bins.
And they wonder why their numbers are declining... Sure the area kept filling up with litter, but it wasn't difficult to clean up. The area is right next to a school, and I'm fairly sure they could've set up some volunteer group to keep it clean enough to run a lawn mower (which is probably the real reason they replaced the wild grasses).
The ducks are still here; I saw one in the pool yesterday with a couple of people who were swimming. And I still see the big black parrots like these:
They're huge, and I've never managed to catch them roosting except once, and took a really grainy photo of it clutching the tippy-top branches of a tree while a bunch of Willy-wag tails harassed the hell out of it.
I'm not sure what species this is so, I'm not giving a definite identification. It's either a Carnaby's Black Cockatoo (which I'd be very surprised at given how rare they are) or it's a Forest Red-Tailed Black Cockatoo, which is more likely. The photo was taken at the extreme range of my camera, so that I got it on camera at all was a minor miracle.
So... I've been doing nothing but classwork, taking pictures of sunrises .... and nostalgically looking at parrot pictures I took a year ago, because they're not around anymore...
Yes, I lead a boring life.
