July 14, 2009

Jim & Sharon,
John Broz tells me you just returned from a trip to Scandinavia! Here's hoping you saw some good birds. We hope to hear all about it. We're due home on August 12. I'll have to re-learn the birds of Iowa; I'm totally out of that mode at the moment, and am better at pointing out the difference between a magpie and a magpie-lark. My Australia list has been crawling up slowly; next weekend we're going to do a pelagic trip south of Sydney where, I think, we're going to band albatrosses. It's winter here now, which means Melbourne is getting some drizzle, and finally the grass is bright green (temps in the fifties). I biked along the ocean on Sunday to see the exciting bird of the week: a Hudsonian Godwit hanging out with some of the local Black-tailed Godwits. Birds that live along this stretch of salt ponds are Australian White Ibis (black head and tail), Pacific Gull (giant bills), Hoary-headed Grebe, Whistling Kite, European (red-faced) Goldfinch, Superb Fairy Wren (blue head and wings) and Chestnut Teal.
We'll stop for a week in New Zealand, and a few days to see our sons in California. Looking forward to seeing you guys and hearing about your adventures!
Linda & John

Message March 4, 2009 in response to questions about the fires:

Jim,
Your message arrived while we were on a birding trip to southwest Australia. We birded south of Perth--Australia's equivalent of San Diego. We skirted the ocean for part of the trip and visited some inland forests. The trip was a departure from the normal for us, because John and I did the trip alone with a single guide--Phil Gregory, an Englishman who runs a birding business out of eastern Australia. We had a great time. Some photos are at this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/donelsonje/SomeSouthwesternAustraliaBirds?authkey=Gv1sRgCLGS5rqmifi0Uw#

The fires of Black Saturday started the day before we left on the trip. It was a wild day, with dark skies and wind seeming to come from all directions. It was 100 degrees in Melbourne at 8 AM, and the temperature rose to 115 degrees by noon. We could smell smoke in Melbourne from a fire forty miles north. Grandmothers sensed that something terrible was about to happen. At 4:30 in the afternoon the wind changed from north to south, and the fires went out of control.
Australians expect bush fires every summer when temperatures rise. Local fire departments prepare in a resigned fashion, and television news announce dire warnings. But people only die in fires once a generation, so the next generation is oblivious. The prevailing advice is, "Have a fire plan. If you decide to go, go early. If you decide to stay, stay safe inside." The strong belief is that you are more likely to save your house if you stay, so people delay, hosing everything down.
Four fires are still burning not far from Melbourne. People have learned to evacuate when wind is forecast--but only for this year. Victoria State (Melbourne) is in the midst of an 8-year drought, with water levels in reservoirs down to 30 per cent.
This week the temperature switched to fall, and there is a smell of fall in the air. Winter coats fill shop windows, and we've put on our sweaters again. Because Melbourne lies beside the southern ocean, the weather changes from hour to hour, so the record hot weather was not a burden.
My sister is coming to visit from Clinton, Iowa, for 3 weeks. I'm looking forward to showing her around Australia. But I'm dreaming about spring warblers in Iowa and your change of seasons.
Linda

Fall message:

We have been bouncing around a little, in housing-short Melbourne, but
we'll move into a 2-bedroom flat on December 8, for the rest of our
stay--until August 2009. We live at International House, a residential
college on the edge of the University of Melbourne, with John's lab a
few blocks away. He has a malaria project underway and is awkwardly
re-learning how to do experiments at the lab bench after 10 years as an
administrator. He enjoys the lab and the people he works with.
I'm still learning a range of new skills for living in the big
city--including a different banking system, traveling by trolley,
telephoning my kids via Skype, and using the university gym--which has a
lovely heated indoor pool that looks out on the chapel spire of Trinity
College. It takes an hour to drive from here to the countryside. We've
rented a car on weekends and explored in several directions. Our flat is
surrounded by a giant (Central-like) park, but the number of bird
species is limited. We did have a Tawny Frogmouth (giant nightjar) on a
nest with a huge baby until it fledged about 2 weeks ago.

I was gone for the month of October on a trip to Madagascar with
Ventures Birding. (This was an impetuous trip, done mainly because I
knew some of the people who were going.) We saw 170 species of birds as well as 20 species of lemur. (Tourists go to Madagascar to see lemurs
like others go to Uganda for gorillas.) (John and I were in Kazakhstan
in May with Simon Thompson, who owns Ventures, which is located in
Ashville, NC.) On this trip I was stranded for a few days, waiting for a
flight back to Melbourne, on the French island of Reunion, where there
were lots of White-tailed Tropicbirds (although not many other birds).
We also stopped in Fiji on our way to Australia and saw the Orange Dove
and the Giant Forest Honey-eater. But the number of new birds tallied
here has not been huge--only 64 in a couple of months. However, last
week we traveled to O'Reillys, near Brisbane on the central east coast,
for Bird Week, which is held in the high rain forest. Have you and
Sharon been there? The 50 or so birders were incredibly welcoming to a
couple of Americans. So we picked up another 65 species, including
Albert's Lyrebird, Channel-billed Cuckoo, and Regent Bowerbird.

We tune in to the Iowa Bird list frequently and miss the seasons. Here it
is still cool. The temperature varies from 60 to 85; I've never been in
a place where the weather changes so often in 10 minutes. The trees are
just leafing out in Melbourne.
I'll be thinking of you guys out having fun on the Christmas Count.
Send us news of your adventures! Linda