Field Notes: Week 1

Frankly, I do not think my field notes have to be this sparse. Had I not been jetlagged for a good part of the week and then, suddenly struck by a very random Hay fever, I think I would have had a lot more to say each day. I am sitting inside my quiet apartment, away from a smoke-covered everything and am now trying to assemble many impressions of the week. A lot of them, as you must have rightly guessed by now, involves birds. But this one time, I have willingly gone looking for my species and have failed to find any. For instance, today, I was on the road, walking about for nearly 30 minutes. Didn’t spot any human being. Nothing at all. Just a bunch of noisy miners going about being noisy. And then, at the end of what seemed like a long prelude, a car zipped past. I don’t believe there was a human being inside it. In Canberra, cars just zip past on their own. 

I arrived last Sunday. I felt stranded once I got off the cab for there was not a sign of life around. I was on Liversidge Street, allegedly the heart of the Campus. It could very well be a ghost town with abandoned buildings. Not to mention, the wind was chilly and nothing better than what I had left behind. The next day turned out to be worse with the temperatures falling 12 degrees below the average. The wind kept howling and elsewhere Australia was burning. Sydney folks were breathing hell and I was contemplating rebuilding a winter wardrobe here. If you nicely shook a dystopian, dark humour novel, whatever fell out of it resembled what I was living through. In the meantime, everyone at ANU, when they were not shuttling me from one place to another for my ID, was busy apologising for the weather. They had taken a personal affront to the fact that I had wrapped myself in a sweater and a shawl (well, they were all wrapped up for that matter!). It was almost as if they felt obliged to fully redeem the Aussie weather before a foreigner. My sleepy head only registered the attendant amusement. 

Having Sophie in town was a blessing. I have seen very few who are capable of such care and warmth. So, ‘settling down’ seemed easy and effortless. NCIS too has some of the loveliest folks – everyone telling me to brace myself to the fact that Canberra is not like Sydney and can be disappointing (spoiler alert: it is not! Absolutely not!). For the next two days, I kept wondering why everyone I met wanted to catch up over coffee. Mate, if anyone drinks coffee in that industrial quantity, they are sure to die. But then, it dawned on me that it is an English equivalent of a ‘drink’. In the absence of pubs and the nearest restaurant a kilometre and a half away, the most reasonable option was to pop-by the next-door café.  

I was welcomed by a Superb Fairy Wren. It caught me unawares – I didn’t have my camera with me. And that was the last time I saw one near the campus. Spotted a female in the botanical gardens on Friday. But that was it. My apartment has a casuarina tree behind and a couple of native species to the side. So, I don’t have to go far for the birds. One day, a cheeky King Parrot was feeding. Birds in Australia are a delight. They just stare at you or swoop on you, if annoyed. Both yield fantastic photo options. The following day, two crimson rosellas were hiding in the bush, alternating between feeding and keeping an eye out for me. Finally, they lost interest in me and continued to feed with devotion. A galah showed up on my way to work on the third day. In a country like this, it must take extra effort to be indifferent to birds. Most people do it with ease. I do not envy them – I only wonder how. And why. With some effort, you can bring refinement to our species. Get them to notice who they live with and how variegated those lives are. My life would have been a tad too dull had I never seen a galah up close, pulling apart strands of dry grass spiritedly. 

Finally, one morning, I managed to land up in the botanical garden at 8.30 AM. I wanted to beat the heat but ended up exhausting myself even before mid-day. At first, I ventured out on my own towards the Black Hill Mountain summit. Plenty of Redwattle birds. Initial curiosity died down as their numbers increased. Bloody territorial, these were. They were driving away smaller, more interesting birds. As I moved further away from the centre of the gardens, it grew quite desolate. And then, out of the blue, there was a raucous. A raptor of some sort had landed on the gum trees. The rosellas doubled-down on the noise. A currawong that was quietly watching fled the scene. It was a situation befitting ‘all hell broke loose’. I had taken some great shots of the angry Sparrow hawk (was confused between a Goshawk and a Collared Sparrow hawk – checked later) and just as I was watching, it flew close-by at a low altitude. I was confused about why it insisted on calling out, declaring its presence, and kicking-off this melee. In spite of all my love for birds and nature, I am not accustomed to deciphering the messages that the nonhuman world sends out it seems. Even when it is loud and clear. Moments later, the hawk swooped again. And that’s when it occurred to me that the screeches and swooping were for me!! I was trespassing and clearly, the bird must have been nesting. It was annoyed by my persistent presence. On top of it, I was happily aiming my camera at it. Now the battle ensued, with me taking more time to figure out a retreat and the hawk growing restless and increasing the swooping. Finally, I hastily traced back where I came from, guessing the tentative nesting site was in the other direction. The hawk retreated too. I must have been the dumbest intruder it had ever met.

Well, after some time on my own, I went back and joined the guided tour of the gardens. This is where it becomes fun. I may have turned a bunch of Melburnians and Perth-ians (not Parthians, nope) into bird-watching. Clearly, I was not interested in which tree was discovered by whom – some genealogy would be good. Not too much. But I kept an eye out for the birds in the rainforest gully (which is now officially, my favourite part of the gardens). Below the bridge was a thick undergrowth of rainforest ferns. They reflected a green light into otherwise, fairly dark surroundings. And out of the blue, there appeared an Eastern Yellow Robin. Until then, our guide was passionately talking about a Queensland variant of creepers. The bird was unveiled on the branch with a yellow-green light around it complementing its plumage. After that quite illustrious moment, I took over the talking and literally converted it into a bird-tour with no one in particular begrudging it.

This morning, I woke up in a Canberra that was covered in smoke. At first, I thought it to be a cloudy day. At least, until I smelled the air. It was dreadful and felt as if it carried embers. But the temptation to revisit and hide in the rainforest gully was too much. It felt special to have the moments within that cocoon on my terms. Also, breathing a cooler and cleaner air was an added advantage. Thankfully, I didn’t annoy any more raptors. I had plenty of good pictures. And then, the best for the last. I was standing in the lower pier amongst the ferns when I saw something heavy fly overhead. At first, I thought it must have been a pigeon of some sort. But as I climbed the stairs, it turned out to be a female Satin Bower bird!! Ahead of me were a couple of noisy, chatty businessmen discussing their real-estate woes about to ruin my shot. Thankfully, the bird stayed on and after a tense minute, I had an open stage. That briefest moment of recognition, contemplation, and capturing of the bird is what will remain unparalleled. I probably could not have recalled where and why I am here at that fraction of time. The bird’s deep blue eyes, a distant gaze, the stillness of the ferns and the tall trees – all of them had set a stage away from the Anthropocene. That is how I would like to remember my life – as the moment when I gazed into the eyes of a species that was only until then imagined but at this moment lived. And forever cherished.  

Meanwhile, what’s happening with my work? Dunno mate. There are still eight weeks to go. Ciao.