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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I'm currently on Bunurong Bunurong country in southeast Melbourne. How about you, Sean?
I am sharing the same country with you. The fabulous country it is too.
Amazing. And how about you, Jonah?
I'm up a little bit further north than you guys on Gimoy Wallaburra Yadindji country up in far north Queensland.
We pay our respects to elders past and present and to any First Nations person from around the world listening to this podcast. Welcome to Weekend Birder. I'm Kirsty Costa and in this podcast, we notice birds together. And welcome to the final episode of season four. We started way back in episode 119 and now we've reached episode 151.
And along that journey, we've chatted with an amazing group of humans. Everyday bird lovers, scientists, conservationists, nature guides, artists, authors, comedians, and much more. In this special end to the season, Weekend Better listeners have submitted their bird-related questions, and we've got two great guests who are going to answer as many as they can.
Jonah Lafferty is a bird enthusiast and photographer living in Cairns. Originally from Canberra, Jonah moved to Northern Australia after university for work and has been loving the birds of the north ever since. You might know Jonah from episode 136 and maybe also from social media as he's on a quest to see every kingfisher and owl in Australia. Hello, Jonah.
Hi, Kirsty. Oh, it's lovely to be here. I've had the weekend birder theme song stuck in my head all day in anticipation of this.
Oh dear, I'm so sorry about that. Also joining us is Sean Dooley. Sean is a former holder of the Australian Big Year Twitching Record. He's also an author of some fantastic books, and he's the National Public Affairs Manager for BirdLife Australia. You might know Sean from previous Weekend Birder episodes and pretty much anywhere where people are talking about birds.
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Chapter 2: What questions do listeners have about ravens and crows?
getting, knowing that impression. I think you know you've crossed the threshold when you are bird, birding without realising, when you're noticing without noticing. And it's when you suddenly, you'll be walking along and someone will say, what's that bird calling? And you realise that you've already identified it as a grey butcher bird calling without even having it at the forefront of your mind.
It's, it's like, I think once you, when you learn a language, It's repetition makes you proficient at the language. You can do a weekly class or you can do your Duolingo or something. But if you're not doing it all the time, it just drops out of your mind.
But when you're immersed in that language, say if you go to the country you've learnt it, you'll find that moment where you realise that you're, I guess, thinking in that language. And I think there is a point in birding where you're thinking in birding language.
Yeah, I'd agree with that. And I'd also add that when I organize weekend bird meetups and I ask people to tell me a little bit about their experience level, they always underrate themselves. Yeah. And then when I meet them, I think, holy moly, you know heaps about birds. You're not a beginner at all.
So I think that some of the birdwatchers out there are actually very modest about their expertise too.
Yeah. And I'd just add to that, Kirsty, that the best birders I know, the ones that I bow down to as experts, they are the people that are still curious and still questioning. And they're the ones that when you're out with a bunch of gun birders, you will get the ones that they just want to be the first to identify it to kind of prove something. Oh, yeah, you know, I got that first.
And they sometimes scoff at people who know vastly more than them because they'll actually say, oh, what's this? It could be this or it could be that. And it's because they're truth seekers. They actually really want to know. And it's not about the ego of saying I'm the best. And that's always been in my experience.
The birders that I've admired the most are the ones that every time you're out there, they're totally open to being wrong and totally open to learning something new.
Yeah, I totally agree. And I want to thank all the experienced birdwatchers out there who take the time to explain and help everyone to learn. It's so appreciated. Okay, our next question is from Hugh Possingham. Hugh is a longtime friend of the show and he's been on multiple episodes, including one about Australia's robins and another about the Oxford Common in Brisbane.
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Chapter 3: How do birds relate to dinosaurs according to the guests?
So, as we know, you can stand under a flowering eucalypt and see and hear fight after fight, different species of honey eater, and then jabbing by lunging, lunging by lorikeets as well. You don't see anything like that in Europe or North America. The flowers are just pollinated by insects or by wind.
So in my book, I also wrote about Australia having the most intelligent birds because it was the first home of songbirds and parrots. Now songbirds and parrots are closely related, so we can suppose that intelligence evolved once in their common ancestor, but we don't know why that happened in Australia. And it might've actually happened in Antarctica or some other part of Gondwana.
Thank you so much for such a comprehensive answer, Tim. And many thanks to you, John, for asking that question. It's really fascinating to think about the way that birds continue to evolve and how that affects the way that they go about their daily life.
And that actually leads us really nicely into this question by Leanne W. Leanne is wondering, watching bird behaviour to predict the future has been used by many cultures. How might modern augury become part of Australian birdwatching? Leanne, I didn't know what augury was. Thank you for teaching me this new word. Clearly, I don't digest enough Roman history.
Augury refers to an omen, a token or a sign that predicts what will happen in the future. Jonah, do you think that modern augury might become more part of Australian birdwatching?
Yeah, definitely. And the first thing that came to mind on the omen question was how some of my traditional owner colleagues that I work with always remind me that they're totem birds. Like when I see them, that they're watching me and they've got their eyes on me. I thought straight away to my good friend, Joshy, who I work with, whose totem's a seagull.
And he says, you know, whenever there's a seagull around, that's me watching you. Look at us.
yeah so i love that i love when um you know indigenous people and non-indigenous people as well like when um birds really become part of like our our psyche our like um you know we have omens about birds i've had a lot of people tell me that they've got special birds that they see and when they see that bird it means they're gonna have a really good day or they're gonna like um have something really good happen when they see people have said that to me about crimson rosellas a few times a few friends from canberra
and so i think like i love when birds they fall they fall into our mind and our hearts so much that so many people have very special connections and feel like they tell us nice things earlier today i was doing a talkback session a squawk back session on um abc sydney and somebody from the high country uh threadbow was talking about that they had seen gang gang cockatoos
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