Wildlife

[Nungali]

There was a thread about this somewhere  ?  Mhe .... I start another one .

 

 

Two days ago I saw a smaller black parrot fly up into one of the trees that surround the cabin , then it flew to another branch and I got a glimpse of orange /red.   Was that a 'glossy black ' !     So I observed for about 1/2 an hour during afternoon tea time ... yep , It all added up .   The size, the behaviour , the subtle markings, what they where eating .  Not only that I recognised the low and subtle call as a familiar one that I hear occasionally, so they have been secretly around longer than I realised .  One gang of 3 in the front 'mountain casurina' , mum dad and bubba , then I could hear more out of sight . Then they flew off and the others joined them .... 6 together slowly flapping   off lazily through the air .  So glad i planted some of those trees around here years back ! Its  nice to know  threatened and endangered animals can find some refuge here .

 

The glossy black cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus lathami),  C. l. lathami: (rare) The eastern subspecies . Like the related red-tailed black cockatoo, this species is sexually dimorphic. The male glossy black cockatoo is predominantly black with a chocolate-brown head and striking caudal red patches. The female is a duller dark brown, with flecks of yellow in the tail and collar. The female's tail is barred whereas the male's tail is patched. An adult will grow to be about 46–50 cm (18–19.5 in) in length. The birds are found in open forest and woodlands, and usually feed on seeds of the she-oak (Casuarina spp.)

 

The Glossy Black-Cockatoo feeds almost exclusively on Allocasuarinaseeds: in a particular area, birds may feed only on a single species. It may also sometimes eat wood-boring larvae. Feeds in threes, less commonly in pairs or small groups . Tame and easily approached when feeding, they can be detected by the clicking of their bills and the falling debris of casuarina cones and twigs.

 

      

 

 

 

and now we have reports of chicks hatching in burnt out bushfire areas  

 

 

 

[silent thunder]

THAT'S FANTASTIC!

 

Wow... those feathers.  I've amassed a decent collection over the years, out camping and hiking.

Those are utterly incredible!  Nice work mate!

 

Trees for the win!

[Taomeow]

What a beautiful and smart bird.

 

We don't have red-tailed cockatoos here but we have red-tailed hawks.  I have a bit of a relationship with them too.  They often like to circle overhead to supervise my taiji.  They occasionally scream when there's things I ought to be aware of.  Four days in a row before the local wildfire started, e.g., one of them woke me up every morning, screaming right outside my window.  I'm, like, what?  What is it this time?  Oh... a bird's eye view over the landscape, gathering information, alertness, awareness ahead of time.  Thank you.

 

  

 

 

 

 

[Nungali]

21 hours ago, silent thunder said:

THAT'S FANTASTIC!

 

Wow... those feathers.  I've amassed a decent collection over the years, out camping and hiking.

Those are utterly incredible!  Nice work mate!

 

Trees for the win!

 

 

The feeding off that tree is still happening , been on for days .   Its raining today but later I will check under the tree to see if any feather presents have been dropped for me .

[silent thunder]

I'm so not surprised to hear you share a love of Red Tails @Taomeow  The connections keep racking up...

 

I've had an affinity and driving fascination for Red Tails as long as I can recall.  They resonate like no other bird for me.  They used to come in and circle over me just above the treeline when I'd practice Shao Lin forms in Prospect Park back in the 90's.

 

This gal flew overhead every morning on location for Star Trek.  Every morning for three months.  I was in heaven because for much of that time I was in a Boom Lift 12 hours a day, sculpting elements along the top edges of a scenic element that was five stories high.

We'd have full on conversations.  The crew thought I was nuts (and I likely am). 

 

I know a few Lakotah songs and I'd sing them and she'd come hang around.  It's always been this way with the few songs I know.  Many animals would investigate but the Red Tails more than all others combined.

 

They'd cruise low and slow in tight circles to investigate (ancestor memory?) the pale man singing the old songs.  They'd almost always come check out who was singing whenever I was out camping, but even in the middle of Brooklyn's Prospect and Central Park (home of Pale Male) back in the 90's they'd come to hear the songs.  I haven't sang in years now.

 

On Star Trek, I'd drop my partner off and then extend the basket back up to full height (85ft in that lift) to eat my lunches and sing her songs and she'd sweep in so low and slow I could almost count her feathers.

 

I have one wing feather in my collection from a Red Tail that dropped right at my feet on the lot at Paramount.  I was walking back to our Mill from Stage 21 to get some supplies, when a wing feather dropped at my feet just outside our Mill door.  I laughed like a giddy kid and sang in thanks and brought it home.

 

It sits atop my Eagle Head Chanunpa Pipe and is one of my most beloved treasures.  I use it to smudge and smoke the house.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 11, 2020 by silent thunder

[Taomeow]

@silent thunder  Thanks for the fascinating stories!  Verily you're my spirit brother from the Great Mother!    The same thing happened to me -- a red-tailed hawk dropped a feather at my feet, at a very significant point in my life.  It was in 1996.  I still have it.  I keep it in my bedroom by the window, just standing in a little cloisonne vase.  For some reason, which I no longer remember, I decided it's a deflector of bad dreams, like a dream catcher.  I never had a bad dream in all these years.  Wish it was also as efficient for my waking life, where shit does happen, no doubt about it.   

[Nungali]

18 hours ago, silent thunder said:

I'm so not surprised to hear you share a love of Red Tails @Taomeow  The connections keep racking up...

 

I've had an affinity and driving fascination for Red Tails as long as I can recall.  They resonate like no other bird for me.  They used to come in and circle over me just above the treeline when I'd practice Shao Lin forms in Prospect Park back in the 90's.

 

This gal flew overhead every morning on location for Star Trek.  Every morning for three months.  I was in heaven because for much of that time I was in a Boom Lift 12 hours a day, sculpting elements along the top edges of a scenic element that was five stories high.

We'd have full on conversations.  The crew thought I was nuts (and I likely am). 

 

I know a few Lakotah songs and I'd sing them and she'd come hang around.  It's always been this way with the few songs I know.  Many animals would investigate but the Red Tails more than all others combined.

 

They'd cruise low and slow in tight circles to investigate (ancestor memory?) the pale man singing the old songs.  They'd almost always come check out who was singing whenever I was out camping, but even in the middle of Brooklyn's Prospect and Central Park (home of Pale Male) back in the 90's they'd come to hear the songs.  I haven't sang in years now.

 

On Star Trek, I'd drop my partner off and then extend the basket back up to full height (85ft in that lift) to eat my lunches and sing her songs and she'd sweep in so low and slow I could almost count her feathers.

 

I have one wing feather in my collection from a Red Tail that dropped right at my feet on the lot at Paramount.  I was walking back to our Mill from Stage 21 to get some supplies, when a wing feather dropped at my feet just outside our Mill door.  I laughed like a giddy kid and sang in thanks and brought it home.

 

It sits atop my Eagle Head Chanunpa Pipe and is one of my most beloved treasures.  I use it to smudge and smoke the house.

 

 

 

 

 

When I was building the temple in the back yard , every day ravens would come and watch .  Not just sit in a tree and watch but get in all different positions and move around to get a good view of the different processes I was involved in .

 

Then at the end of the day they would fly off  ( to report my activities to Apollo  ) 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_depictions_of_ravens#Greco-Roman_antiquity

 

[silent thunder]

Ravens are amazing.   

 

We make food offerings twice a day on the rooftops of the building next to us, for the Crows, Pigeons, Squirrels, Possums, Raccoons and Seagulls that live in our neighborhood.  For a couple months, a family of Ravens was coming by and I about came unglued.  Odin's Eyes! I would cry out and scramble to make them an offering.  

 

The Ravens did not stay, but I've made a long term relationship with the Crows now for about 12 years.  Lately our daily group has grown from 4-5 to 11-19.  They know me well now, and my truck and when I'm walking back after work in the evening, they'll all announce and call out that I'm home, then they'll perch on our eaves and wait for me to open up and spread some good vittles.

 

Simple joys are becoming so much more crucial for me, particulary in the challenges in my inner life of the last seven years...  their presence is amazing for my heart health.

[Taomeow]

I had some raven buddies too.  Sometimes they allowed me to take a picture (I always ask permission)

 

 

[silent thunder]

18 hours ago, Taomeow said:

@silent thunder  Thanks for the fascinating stories!  Verily you're my spirit brother from the Great Mother!    The same thing happened to me -- a red-tailed hawk dropped a feather at my feet, at a very significant point in my life.  It was in 1996.  I still have it.  I keep it in my bedroom by the window, just standing in a little cloisonne vase.  For some reason, which I no longer remember, I decided it's a deflector of bad dreams, like a dream catcher.  I never had a bad dream in all these years.  Wish it was also as efficient for my waking life, where shit does happen, no doubt about it.   

*deep bow*

 

You are so welcome Sister! 

Red Tails, Big Horns and Wolves in particular have always circled my life and heart as Spirit Guides.

I'm so blessed by their attentions.

 

Lots of animal energy emerging here of late.

 

This spring I finally realized my long held desire to start fostering Monarchs and have again then when that season passed, we've begun hosting Hummingbird feeders.

 

I knew I had to put out a feeder again when a Rufous Hummer came into our house and hung out for about 3 hours one afternoon.  Flitting from the ceiling fan, to our hanging fruit basket, then surveying the whole lay of our place.  Now we've got daily visits from a half dozen or so...

 

their presence and chirps are magick to me.

[silent thunder]

2 hours ago, Taomeow said:

I had some raven buddies too.  Sometimes they allowed me to take a picture (I always ask permission)

 

 

Wow!  Those images just shine!

 

 

I recall some vague details about a story you shared here some time ago that really impacted me greatly... and I believe were a direct precursor, or pointer, or conveyer to one of my more intense realizations of late.

 

It was regarding a circle of Ravens who approached you and gave you permission... I think it was when you were on a beach seeking a certain talisman (perhaps a replacement of a lost one?) kind of object in the form of a stone from that beach?...

 

I don't recall specifics, but that you spoke and asked for permission and then listened for an answer... struck such a harmonic in me... the feeling of your sharing still elicits strong emanations to this day.  Not long after I had a strong message from The Great Mother.

 

The saying that came into my mind some time after encountering your message rang with truth and intimate familiarity, yet was unmistakably not my thought, it was spoken into me, or from within me by The Mother.  It unfolded in awareness like a shining pearl, unsought, unanticipated and utterly gobsmacking in subtle intensity.

 

"It is a poor person indeed, who, while not listening, stomps about claiming Nature to be mute."

 

I speak to bushes, shrubs as I walk... I high five tree branches I can reach while thanking them for cleaning my air and providing shade.  I talk and listen to every aspect of life these days, insects, stones... it's all alive, all aware on some level and I'm just so humbled and grateful for being even a smidgen aware of being part of it and able to participate in it.

 

All of Nature is always talking, singing, communicating I find.  It's only me, who at times can't hear.

Edited September 11, 2020 by silent thunder

[Nungali]

4 hours ago, Taomeow said:

I had some raven buddies too.  Sometimes they allowed me to take a picture (I always ask permission)

 

 

 

Nice .   A special bird .

 

Did you see my story here 'The Raven's Tale' ?

 

They where very friendly when I was staying at the lodge up on the mountain,   Out in the paddock I attached a pole to a fence post with a perch,  water and food dish on it  and tied a bit of old steel tractor part hanging from it that I wound dong with a metal bar when I put food out . It wasnt long  after that a dong would bring them in from all directions .  I used to watch them amused from the front porch hiding their morsels in various places about the garden . One time one hid some under a  line of mulch , flew off and got a look at it from a distance , saw some thing unfavourable , came back adjusted it, bought more mulch over and covered it and pattered it down  

 

My fraternity name was Corvus . I  got a raven tatted on my left upper arm .

 

Anyway, here is another of our parrots , I live to far south for them though ; the Palm Cockatoo  -   they have an interesting  habit  ;

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 11, 2020 by Nungali

[Taomeow]

13 hours ago, silent thunder said:

Wow!  Those images just shine!

 

 

I recall some vague details about a story you shared here some time ago that really impacted me greatly... and I believe were a direct precursor, or pointer, or conveyer to one of my more intense realizations of late.

 

It was regarding a circle of Ravens who approached you and gave you permission... I think it was when you were on a beach seeking a certain talisman (perhaps a replacement of a lost one?) kind of object in the form of a stone from that beach?...

 

I don't recall specifics, but that you spoke and asked for permission and then listened for an answer... struck such a harmonic in me... the feeling of your sharing still elicits strong emanations to this day.  Not long after I had a strong message from The Great Mother.

 

The saying that came into my mind some time after encountering your message rang with truth and intimate familiarity, yet was unmistakably not my thought, it was spoken into me, or from within me by The Mother.  It unfolded in awareness like a shining pearl, unsought, unanticipated and utterly gobsmacking in subtle intensity.

 

"It is a poor person indeed, who, while not listening, stomps about claiming Nature to be mute."

 

I speak to bushes, shrubs as I walk... I high five tree branches I can reach while thanking them for cleaning my air and providing shade.  I talk and listen to every aspect of life these days, insects, stones... it's all alive, all aware on some level and I'm just so humbled and grateful for being even a smidgen aware of being part of it and able to participate in it.

 

All of Nature is always talking, singing, communicating I find.  It's only me, who at times can't hear.

 

Deep bow.   Your perceptiveness never ceases to amaze me.  

 

It was in my PPD notes, that story, I found it in the "hidden" part -- wow, that was written in 2010!  How Time flies, on the wings of, in this case, a different kind of birds...  Here's an excerpt (it was about downsizing my altar): 

 

Of course I miss all the space I had on the altar table, so I had to get rid of some of my favorite magical toys -- quartz crystals and Peruvian rattles and the large incense burner and the sword, the sword! -- I'm not getting rid of the main tool, obviously, but I can't keep it across the altar table anymore, for lack of the latter, so I had to go back to my notes and find an alternative procedure to protect the space. I came up with the Stone Warriors. You go somewhere natural, the mountains (no such thing close by) or the ocean beach (well, that's easy enough) and look for four identical stones of the shape and size that appeals to you. You explain to them why you want to take them and what for. You take them, you write talismans on them, you consecrate them, and then you release their Stone Warrior spirits to guard your work. You place them at the four directions and then activate them for the ritual.

 

So off to the beach I went. Parked the car, mentally announced my intent to the resident stones, got out -- and magic started as soon as I stepped onto a little hill with a flat top strewn with pebbles. Two dozen or so seagulls and pigeons alighted from somewhere nearby and immediately landed, arranging themselves in a perfect circle around me, about 15 feet in diameter. Shoulder to shoulder, wing to folded wing, they sat, all turned toward me, all looking at me, all motionless. I turned around this way and that way... a perfect circle of birds, half of them seagulls, half of them pigeons. So in stillness they sat, and in stillness I stood for a few minutes. Then I said to them, thank you for showing me the right place to look for my stones. Much obliged. They shouted something back and took off -- all at once -- and were gone.

 

Encouraged, I started looking for the stones to recruit within the circle the birds had marked for me. It was sunny and bright and breezy, the ocean was a deep, dark winter blue, and the place was mundane and not, I went swimming there in summer and I ate my Mexican fast food there for lunch and I also saw a UFO there and had a date with a Native American chief there (we remained friends) and was given the gift of a large beautiful abalone shell by the ocean and also something mystical that may or may not be a Pearl, a Pill, something mystical... and I got my Stone Warriors from that place which is ordinary and extraordinary at once, so that they know how to handle both. I am very happy with my choice. Now I need to practice the talismanic writing before actually transferring it to the stones. And that's what I'm going to do.

 

 

[dwai]

Whenever I'm meditating/taiji'ing outside, 3 robins come to visit. Invariably...everytime. Two will sit, one each on the two corners of my backyard and one in the middle. Figured they might be some old souls coming to check on me  (or maybe I just look like batman) 

Edited September 11, 2020 by dwai

[silent thunder]

7 hours ago, Taomeow said:

 

Deep bow.   Your perceptiveness never ceases to amaze me.  

 

It was in my PPD notes, that story, I found it in the "hidden" part -- wow, that was written in 2010!  How Time flies, on the wings of, in this case, a different kind of birds...  Here's an excerpt (it was about downsizing my altar): 

 

Of course I miss all the space I had on the altar table, so I had to get rid of some of my favorite magical toys -- quartz crystals and Peruvian rattles and the large incense burner and the sword, the sword! -- I'm not getting rid of the main tool, obviously, but I can't keep it across the altar table anymore, for lack of the latter, so I had to go back to my notes and find an alternative procedure to protect the space. I came up with the Stone Warriors. You go somewhere natural, the mountains (no such thing close by) or the ocean beach (well, that's easy enough) and look for four identical stones of the shape and size that appeals to you. You explain to them why you want to take them and what for. You take them, you write talismans on them, you consecrate them, and then you release their Stone Warrior spirits to guard your work. You place them at the four directions and then activate them for the ritual.

 

So off to the beach I went. Parked the car, mentally announced my intent to the resident stones, got out -- and magic started as soon as I stepped onto a little hill with a flat top strewn with pebbles. Two dozen or so seagulls and pigeons alighted from somewhere nearby and immediately landed, arranging themselves in a perfect circle around me, about 15 feet in diameter. Shoulder to shoulder, wing to folded wing, they sat, all turned toward me, all looking at me, all motionless. I turned around this way and that way... a perfect circle of birds, half of them seagulls, half of them pigeons. So in stillness they sat, and in stillness I stood for a few minutes. Then I said to them, thank you for showing me the right place to look for my stones. Much obliged. They shouted something back and took off -- all at once -- and were gone.

 

Encouraged, I started looking for the stones to recruit within the circle the birds had marked for me. It was sunny and bright and breezy, the ocean was a deep, dark winter blue, and the place was mundane and not, I went swimming there in summer and I ate my Mexican fast food there for lunch and I also saw a UFO there and had a date with a Native American chief there (we remained friends) and was given the gift of a large beautiful abalone shell by the ocean and also something mystical that may or may not be a Pearl, a Pill, something mystical... and I got my Stone Warriors from that place which is ordinary and extraordinary at once, so that they know how to handle both. I am very happy with my choice. Now I need to practice the talismanic writing before actually transferring it to the stones. And that's what I'm going to do.

 

 

wow... just wow.

 

thank you.