Robin's Story

Robin told of witnessing the first flight of a young galah in her back yard. The galah was shepherded by its parents to a safe shelter in the fork of a tree for the night. There was much calling and ado to make sure things were alright. During the night there was a great commotion coming from the tree…a possum was calling out in distress and the young galah was matching its din. The distress calls persisted so Robin went out to investigate. The young galah had taken shelter in the possum’s haunt and the galah’s response to being confronted by the possum was to grab its nose in its beak. There was the possum shrieking in pain and the galah holding on for dear life …too young or scared to know when to let go. The noise continued into the night.

In the morning the young galah lay dead on the ground. Robin picked up the dead bird and buried it under some composting leaves and cuttings. The parents came to the tree shelter and called for their young offspring… with no reply they became distressed and called more frantically. After a while they flew off to a nearby tree, then back again and carried on with their calling with increasing distress. This behaviour went on for a couple of days.

Gradually Robin realised she had an empathy with the parents because she understood that they, like herself, were feeling distress, turning to grief, with no way of resolving the problem. Robin had carried a grief for her whole life. She had never known her father, her only contact being for a few weeks when she was three. Her father joined the Australian Air Force during world war 2 and was assigned to fly in England before Robin was born. He came back to Australia three years later for a few weeks before being assigned to fly in New Guinea where he was killed in action. There was no closure for Robin growing up and never knowing her father, and she carried this grief throughout her life. Seeing the birds’ distress she realised that she had to give them closure. She retrieved the body of the young galah from the compost and placed it nearby on the grass. The mother bird flew down and inspected the dead bird and tried to rouse it. When sherealised there was no life she called to her mate and they flew off together, not to return.

Robin was left feeling her own relief in that she had also found some deeper understanding of or resolution for her own lack of closure.

Recorded by David Kerr from a phone call with Robin from the south coast ( south of Adelaide)

Chicken Peace

About twenty years ago I had a small strawberry farm in Redland Bay, just outside Brisbane. It was two days after my father had passed away from cancer. I was driving my van to market using a road that was also used to transport chickens from farms to the abattoir. 

One of these poor souls had somehow escaped from it's mobile cage and landed in the short grass just off the bitumen. I spotted it with a large crow standing behind it. As I pulled up the crow quickly flew off. My thoughts were to take this lucky escapee home to live out its years with my free range ckooks at home.

As I approached I could  see that this shivering creature had had the complete back half of its flesh eaten away from its bones by the crow. My instinct was to take it home and try to nurse it back to health but its injuries were so horrific that it would probably died a slow painful death. After much deliberation I came to the conclusion that I had no choice but to put it out of its misery. I stoked its head softly a few times, shed a tear, said I was sorry and ended its miserable life with a snap of its neck.

It wasn't until a few days later, after Dad's funeral, that I realised that this decrepit bird had helped me to understand that my father whose body was being eaten away by this horrid disease was much better off in peace and out of his pain. 

To this day I still remember those small sad eyes staring at me and appreciate that rather than its planned fate of being someone's Sunday lunch it had provided me with a much greater gift which I truly value.

Colin Williams
Brisbane

Ancient fellow creatures

Peter and I have just returned from Troubridge Island.

It's just one of those magical places that demands your connection.

It's really just a tiny patch of scrub on an endlessly respiring body of sand, 

but it is home to thousands of birds.

Each night they fill the darkness with ass like braying, growls and screams

and I couldn't help but think of the Musicians of Brenham.

Every unoccupied hideaway is enthusiastically sourced and claimed,

so that to wander barefooted and silently, it was very easy to be privy to their most

intimate rituals.

Sitting very still at night, illuminated by a full moon and stripped of colour, the dances, shuffling, darting, strutting,

of penguins and rails in particular, is a joyful and humbling experience, to

come to the realisation that despite our presumed importance and superiority,

these ancient fellow creatures have just gone about their business successfully 

without the need to get bigger and better and advertise that fact to the world.

I love this line from Judith Wright in her poem BIRDS

"whatever the bird is, is perfect in the bird.''

Lyn Wood