A NOISY TRANQUILITY

Mt. Osmond is a noisy place but not in the ways you might think. It is the wildlife, you see, that screeches, grunts, chirps and laughs from before sunrise to after sunset and sometimes all through the night too. In winter I wrote about the wood ducks and previously I have mentioned the parrots, that make so much noise for several months of the year, that it is almost impossible to talk on the phone outside and at times drive me inside for some peace and quiet.

This time of the year it is the koalas, that roam the gum trees, sounding like a sick bear, with their deep, throaty growls sounding out across the tree tops, that are the most distinctive. And there are the crows, whose call was made to carry across the dry, flat plains of Australia, but are deafening when only a few metres from you! Now, in late spring, the sky is often filled with flocks of cockatoos - sometimes the black ones whose call truly takes the cake for the most raucous Australian bird, and sometimes the sulphur-crested cockatoos and less frequently, the pink-crested ones, all vying for the prize for maximum volume at the same time!

The kookaburra season seems to be over, but they are the real comedians, laughing across miles of scrub-land, as though they are telling hilarious jokes to one another, at full volume, but sometimes stopping just short of the punchline and reducing their mirth to a giggle.....I don't know why.....maybe the joke wasn't that great after all...

I have seen and heard all those creatures while I have been out in the garden this morning.... and I took a photo of the latest koala to wedge himself between some branches for a feed of manna gum leaves, and a few hours' sleep. To get a good shot, I got out my biggest old lens, for the first time since I got my new camera, and couldn't help zooming in on anything I could see.....check here for more photos.