Big birds and battle cries

Just Bede and I in our ute today, Aiesha’s still sick, and now Shay too.

In his 1938 novel Nausea, Jean-Paul Sartre wrote, “A man is always a teller of tales, he lives surrounded by his stories and the stories of others, he sees everything that happens to him through them; and he tries to live his life as if he were recounting it.”

Chance settled our lunch time today. Popped out into a small clearing after a dense stand of cutting to find a watchful Morepork perched up in a dead Manuka, looking at us with heavy-lidded indifference. We’ve all set down our gear and are sat under its gaze.

Two Robins just started up a war cry and chased the Morepork away, I’d guess the latter eats their young. The power of the owl compared to the smaller birds as it took flight was awesome.

There’s a whole orchestra of Robins, Bell Birds and others I can’t identify, singing warnings to each other now that the owl has been spotted. The sense of urgency is palpable as they fly back and forth at full flap, lungs pumping.