Nature Call

Because of the Australian propensity to interchange 'er' sounds and 'ah' sounds, it took me quite some time to distinguish the names of two ubiquitous bird species. The Common Myna and the very appropriately named Noisy Miner. The latter is a native Australian species, while the former is yet another example of a species introduced with the high hopes of affecting bio control that has instead run amok and decimated the existing ecological balance (note: this is a recurring theme throughout this island continent.)

But this is not meant to be a biology lesson, merely an introduction to this really amusing, if not cinematographically lacking, video I shot last weekend in the Hunter Valley:




I have yet to learn how to distinguish kangaroos from wallabies, and indeed, the difference may be entirely arbitrary. Therefore, ignore the babbling speculation in the soundtrack of this next clip, (apparently there is no such species as a 'black-footed kangaroo' and these are almost certainly not 'black-footed rock wallabies', but it would not be the first time I have elected to assign my own nomenclature to my personal field observations) and instead focus on the goofy gracefulness of the largest of Australian marsupials: