#thornbills

Comic Light Shapes channel the galactic sounds of Sun Ra, Parliament/Funkadelic, Alice Coltrane, Motorhead and Brian Eno. Founded by Eugene Strobe (the Witches, the Sights, Gore Gore Girls, the Pizazz, Factory Girls) in 2009 with drummer Zenas Jackson (Siddhartha, High-Speed Dubbing, Big Black Pink) and recently added bass guitarist Jennifer Pearson (the Rogue Satellites, Sunshine Rainbow).

THORNBILLS [a sort of Crosby and Nash dashed with exotic gypsy accents, Third Man Records]: Wiegand punches and strums his growling acoustic guitar while Finlay adds the mystic resonance of her autoharp. Violinist Daniel Winnick brings the perfect, gypsy-tinged, sinewy. Dark yet hopeful; tales of self confidence and being yourself.

Just up the road from my house is the watertower, a place where my brothers and I often used to play. I remember climbing the trees and looking for treasures in the grass. Once we had an easter egg hunt up there but we had to find the eggs fast before they melted in the warmth. The gate never used to be locked, but now you have to climb over it in order to reach the tower. Now there is also a fence around the water tower itself, to tall to easily climb and topped with barbed wire. Times have changed.

To the watertower

One afternoon last week I decided to wander up to the watertower to see if I could find any birds. The walk up the pine tree lined hill failed to produce any birds, neither did a walk around the tower. Standing on the top of the hill behind the watertower all I could see were Magpies, and a small mob of Eastern Grey Kangaroos, which bounced away soon after I spotted them. I had never seen kangaroos so close to town before, though my mother tells me that they have come down as far as the road before.

Eastern Grey Kangaroo (Macropus giganteus)

After wandering around the hill for a while without any luck I decided that it was time to head home and get in out of the cold. As I was walking back down the hill I saw a pale raptor of some sort, hovering and then flying low over the hill. I only saw it in my binoculars for a few seconds before it passed over the brow of the hill out of my sight. As I am not yet familiar with the raptors of the area I have no guess as to what it was.

On the way back down the road I noticed a large flock of small birds feeding in and around the pine trees. Upon closer inspection and a look at my field guide I saw that it was in fact a mixed flock of thornbills and a Scarlet Robin. The birds were highly active and did not stay in one place for more than a second or two, which made getting good photographs rather difficult. These are the best. Hopefully I'll get more chances to get photos at a later date.

Scarlet Robin (Petroica multicolor)

Yellow-rumped Thornbill (Acanthiza chrysorrhoa)

Yellow Thornbill (Acanthiza nana)