Australia's Bird-Life and City Savvy

Cape Barron Geese

The cormorant

The non-breeding Royal Spoonbill
The breeding spoonbill has a large tuft of feathers
on the back of its head

White Ibis

 I love my students from everywhere working to grasp English. They are so determined. Here is a silly story that may make you smile, although it is perhaps an "I guess you had to of been there” to enjoy story. Here goes anyways. A little girl from the Philippines had one of the stuffed animals that a US teacher left for me. It was an armadillo. She put it on its tail, studied it over and over, and finally said, "different kangaroo."  She was so unsure, but had to give it a name. She did not like my suggestion that it was called armadillo.  Different kangaroo was within her grasp.

Here is what recess duty is like here. It’s “the old cat herding theory” at its best. Imagine getting 150 kids to cross a busy street without holding up too much traffic. The kids don’t seem concerned with crossing quickly like the teachers. For some recess times we cross the road to the parklands. We have a key to use on the signal. The light won’t turn green until the teacher at the end of the line removes it. On the first day of duty at the park we walked off without retrieving the key. There are always a few assumptions made about what other teachers are knowledgeable of! Some teachers claim they get mild anxiety attacks crossing the children. I quite like the idea of herding cats, except when there is a puddle just before crossing and not one child likes to go around it. 

We are still working on going across in groups of four.

Arriving at the park

On Friday my class went off to a park about .5 of a kilometer away. We crossed the main street: King William’s Highway. One little guy thought it would be okay to tie his shoe in the middle of the crossing. It seems as if we have a ways to go with city safety.

At the community garden we dug potatoes and carrots. Then most of the kids nibbled the naturism flowers and leaves. I have only put the flowers on cakes or in salads, not eaten the leaves. They are really peppery, and I think delightful. I ate about 3 leaves before some of the students would try a nibble. We laughed a lot.

All of my mother-like friends at school will be relieved that I have gone to a fire preparation town-hall meeting. The threat of brush fires in the hills is taken extremely seriously. The organization,action plan, flow charts ,and levels of how to act on different rated days are quite precise. Part of it must be because there are so few ways to evacuate this area. I live on a dead-end road in a highly wooded area. Also, the city never wants to have to repeat an “Ash Wednesday” the local fire that killed several people trying to escape in cars. benefits of going to the meeting included Smoky stickers for my students. 

Heather, a group of new friends, and I took the windy roads up to Cleland Wildlife Park where we were able to pet a supervised, quiet, non-stinky koala and several kangaroos. They were lounging around and I was quite timid to pet a kangaroo at first, but as time went by it was like giving Lady a good scratch. I was giving one new friend a good pat and scratch and she was very happy. Then I happened to feel her pouch, and without really thinking, I stuck my hand in. She did not seem to notice. It was warm, moist and Joey-free. My friends were a little grossed out, but really how many people can claim to have put their hand in a kangaroo’s pouch? Earlier Heather told me that she ate a kebob of kangaroo, crocodile, mutton, emu. . So what is stranger?

really, really soft
This is a female. The male is about twice her size.

Enlarge to see the Joey's head and tail

Wishing everyone a happy Chinese New Year: 

the year of the serpent!