mark lawrence: North of Capricorn

Monday, November 03, 2008

I am in Cairns all this week for a work conference. There wont be much time to play, but I do hope to post that I see here when I can.

At November 04, 2008 11:16 am, Kirsty said...: Hey, I've been following your comments on Twitter. I don't know if I've told you, but I mostly grew up in Cairns. I enjoyed your descriptions of the birds and flying foxes/bats.

The noise those starlings make! My dad once lived in a house where, as night fell, you could watch the flying foxes drop and flow from a gap under the eaves. It was an extraordinary sight.
At November 06, 2008 8:49 am, Mark Lawrence said...: Hi Kirsty, no, I didn't know you grew up in Cairns.

I've been enjoying it here, and am getting used to the heat and humidity - again.

The bats were magnificent last night, as I walked to the hotel where the Conference Dinner was being held. Actually, I realise they are flying foxes, as a local at my table at dinner last night corrected me...

I haven't seen where the flying foxes are coming from, but I can imagine them dropping from anywhere and everywhere come nightfall.

I have some video footage of a mass of birds - parrots I think - make a terrible din as they settled to roost in a tree in the city that I took on my phone. So when I work out how to get it online and embed it on the blog, you'll get an aural reminder of how deafening they are.

With my poor internet access here (extortion doesn't quite cut it) I'll have to email Twitter updates more often from my phone - now I know there are people following my exploits, little as they are, up here.