During the 1970's my Dad assiduosly collected two weekly news-
paper columns on native species by Qld naturalists David Fleay
and Ian Gall, and he pasted these into 5 or 6 old accounting books.
Though Dad passed away late in that decade, we are just now
disposing of the last of his things. I'm wondering whether there
would be someone with a keen amateur interest in native birds and
animals who would be interested in this little collection of natural
science notes? The clippings come from The Courier Mail and are
an easy read, dealing mainly with native flora and fauna that their
respective readers have observed in their own backyard or park and
asked about. I won't even hazard a guess at how many clippings
there might be. There are a lot, I know that.

Unfortunately, each book is hardcover and weighs about 950 grams,
and there are 5 or 6 such books all together. If interested, contact
me directly by email: wattle
---------------- @
---------------- cyberspace.org
and we can discuss a way to get them to you. I'll just ask that
you pay any postage.

As a typical example, here's one from "Going Bush" with Ian Gall:

Title: Raising Cuckoos is hard work

When you, housewife, find yourself in one of those moods in which
you consider you are bearing more than your share of the work
around the place, just thank providence that you are not a mother
Peewee, or even a father Peewee, for that matter.

Peewees are still reasonably plentiful in most suburbs, and even
in the city, and we are all happy to notice their continued survival
-- and so are the Koels, it would seem.

The Koels appear to have had much success in their annual egg-
laying sweep through city and suburbs, as evidenced by the calls
and letters I have had from readers complaining that a "pair of
over-worked Peewees have been feeding a great big lazy bird in
their garden for weeks."

It is possible that in some cases the foster-child could be one of
the cuckoo breed other than the Koel, but in most cases "a bird
much bigger than the Peewees" is accused.

Further descriptions specify a long tail and brownish speckled
plumage, so it would be a safe guess to say that another crop
of handsome Koels are being pains-takingly nurtured to adult-
hood.

Apparently the diet of insects and worms brought in by the
Peewees is acceptable to the foster-child, which later will
widen the scope of its feeding to fruits and berries in liberal
proportions.

The Koel is migratory, moving southward in the spring and
returning northward in autumn.

To a great extent, it is a scrub and brush bird, but its egglaying
sweeps frequently take it into parks and suburban gardens.

In south-east Queensland its chief victim foster-parents are the
Friar birds which, though they roundly hate the Koels and will
chase them madly, become attentive model parents once the
cuckoo's egg is deposited in their nest.

The male Koel is a blue-black beau, frequently called the
Storm-bird or Rainbird.

The lady bird, too, is an eye catcher, with grey-brown spotted
and flecked plumage, a "pheasant-barred" tail, and a dark-
capped head.

--
John Savage (newsgroup email address is invalid)

In article ,
John Savage wrote:

During the 1970's my Dad assiduosly collected two weekly news-
paper columns on native species by Qld naturalists David Fleay
and Ian Gall, and he pasted these into 5 or 6 old accounting books.
Though Dad passed away late in that decade, we are just now
disposing of the last of his things. I'm wondering whether there
would be someone with a keen amateur interest in native birds and
animals who would be interested in this little collection of natural
science notes?

Your local library might know of groups that would be interested in archiving
them. Even the Courier-Mail, or the families of Fleay and Gall, might be
interested.

With names like Fleay and Gall, they must have gone around pestering people a
lot!

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Life is like a cigarette -- smoke it to the butt." -- Harvie Krumpet