Wednesday 18 February 2015

Jottings from the Tropics: 18 February 2015



I thought I heard red-tailed black cockatoos today, but by the time I'd put on my outdoor shoes and headed into the garden the birds had gone. RTBC's have a distinctive call. It's like a sulphur-crested cockatoo playing a bugle. Or what I imagine that would sound like, if only they could manage the embouchure. 

— o O o 

We're between cyclones and it's stopped raining. When I say between cyclones, I mean it in the geographical, not temporal sense. As I write this, Severe Tropical Cyclone Lam is in the Gulf of Carpentaria, heading SW towards Groote Eylandt and Arnhem Land, and the low that will probably be Tropical Cyclone Marcia is in the Coral Sea, on its way to drop rain on the SE Queensland coast. And when I say it's stopped raining, I mean that it is still raining, but not as much as it was. I'm glad I've cleared that up.

— o O o 

I opened a new notebook yesterday and wrote down all the places I wanted to visit before I get too decrepit to travel. I hope someone invents a time machine soon.