Click this link to play Bird Watching By Numbers
[Excerpt from my novel, The Greener]
You don’t know? Don’t worry, I never did either, not for a long time. I’m the girl who could never feel air in NEoN, not even with the clarity colour pallette and sensoramic upgrade. I HATED bird-watching too, the very thought of it dropped me into a coma, but as it turns out some of those Greener, like the Warblers for example, are a lot like birds and watching them is like watching sparks flick across the sky. They remind me of the silvery light between day and night that leaves nuthin, nill, nulla, nitz of a trace when it’s gone. That’s probably why they stir the air into ripples. Did you know that birds had hollow bones? It was to help them float high up, out of reach. Some flew over half way around the world with those floating bones. Others, like the teeny-weeny ones called Hummingbirds could even fly backwards. I’ve always loved the sound of their wings whisking the air like it was cream in the old-world NEoN packs. Sweet. That’s such a light, wide feel that you can only get (you guessed it) when you stop looking.
These illustrations are by John Gould (1804-1881) who visited Australia in 1838 and was known principally for his seven volume works Birds of Australia. These images come from his compilation The Birds of New Guinea and the Adjacent Papuan Islands that was unfinished at the time of his death, so this work was also completed by Dr R. B. Sharpe.