Another Bird Painting

I painted this Australian magpie as a Christmas present for my uncle. There are four of these birds living near his home.

The Beginning of 2015

I did a DJ gig at a Christchurch pub not too long ago and with the exception of being hit on by two clueless guys, it went pretty well.

One of them kept complaining about the music I was playing but strangely enough, he stayed until closing time and danced to it.

His friend said I must have been hired for my looks and later, while staring at my chest, said my boobs looked very "poke-able."

I'm sure when you're several beers in that sort of comment seems awesome.

It isn't.

Nick was furious when I told him and asked why I didn't tell both of them where they could stick themselves.

I guess it's that old habit I have of trying to be nice to someone until they make it impossible to continue.

I was getting to that point but then the pub closed.

On New Year's Eve I went back again.

I completely failed to read the crowd and play the right sort of music until the very end.

I should have known that a room full of the olds would prefer rock and roll to the more dancey stuff I was playing.

What did I learn from this? Calvin Harris does not cure all ills.

Finally, hoi polloi elected one of their number to approach me and gently suggest that I play some AC/DC.

Like a true Kiwi, the representative appeared to struggle under the burden of having to express discontent and possibly hurt my feelings.

He looked incredibly relieved when I nodded at the feedback and told him I would cue up his suggested songs. He shook my hand and thanked me.

Things got a lot better after that. People came out to dance.

I was even able to get over my fear of using a microphone for long enough to do the New Year's countdown and cue up a peppy version of Auld Lang Syne.

The last hour was a lot of fun and I was only sorry that Nick wasn't there to give me a smooch.

He had decided to stay home because, in his words, he didn't want to have to fight anyone who might feel the need to comment on my boobs. As it turned out, there was no need to worry. I was left alone.

Pubs can be a great place to DJ because you get to know the regulars and the kind of music they like so you can keep them happy.

That's what I want most when I'm at the mixer.

The Hobbit Part Three

I went to see the final Hobbit installment yesterday and like all the other movies Peter Jackson made from Tolkien's works, this one had some good and some bad moments.

The Bad:

If anybody had possession of all the gold shown in the dwarf hall it would immediately render the substance valueless. As we all know from Econ 101, gold's relative scarcity gives it value. This isn't Jackson's fault. Tolkien wrote the story that way and the hoard represented greediness in mankind not a Middle Earth marketplace guided by an invisible hand.

Every time those damned elves start speaking to each other or making elvish angst faces I start to blush.

The most cringe inducing is when Kate Blanchette comes floating along and does dialogue with anyone. This gives me the worst case of secondary embarrassment ever. I mean ever! It's like the emotionally overwrought conversations you used to imagine yourself having with your favorite boy band member when you were in seventh grade- only this time it's not written out in your diary with the wonky lock that anyone with the grip of a toddler could break into. Everybody can see it! Just stop it already.

As a bird lover, I must protest Jackson's not staying true to the story where the thrush whispers to the archer where the dragon's weak spot is. There was a crow and some giant eagles but the thrush part was my favorite.

The Good:

The landscapes are breathtaking, although Jackson really can't take credit for that. So...um, well done to the mountains, trees, rivers and various weather conditions it took to get everything just right for the background shots.

Jackson featured a kunekune in both this and the second Hobbit film. It's nice to see this lovable pig on the big screen.

The female elf created to keep the film from being a total sausage fest kicks ass as do many of the female villagers from Lake-town.

Billy Connolly's battle pig was awesome.

When the characters weren't humiliating me with their words there were some pretty awesome battle scenes.

Benedict Cumberbatch was interviewed in a special "making of" segment before the film and he said he would like to come back and visit New Zealand.

I have a spare bedroom. I'm just going to put that out there.

In the future I may try to set aside nine hours in my day to watch all three films back to back.

Darude - Sandstorm on Eight Floppy Drives

I was recently reading about the lasting phenomenon that is Darude's "Sandstorm."

It still gets played and recognized despite being released almost fifteen years ago.

Just a few weeks ago a guest at a party I DJ-ed asked me to play it.

And then there is this video:





If my partner had done this and then asked me if I liked it my immediate response would be "marry me now."

Eight, individually programmed floppy disks..

Total nerdgasm.

Not a Special Snowflake

Not long ago I hit the "next blog" button to see where it would take me.

I found blogs full of people bragging about how little Hortense and Archibald loved frolicking on the beach during summer vacation or others humble bragging about how exciting and uncommon their lives were.

Don't I sort of do the same?

Ugh.

This blog is random. It's birds one day and politics the next.

It perfectly highlights my Jill-of-all-trades-and-master-of-none background.

I suppose I'm having some sort of "who am I and what am I doing with my life" mini crisis.

And for the life of me I can't figure out how I had so many people in Germany reading my blog that one week.

Who the heck do I know in Poland? Pakistan? Venezuela?

I don't know what to do with myself at the moment. I'm getting professionally restless.

I will be DJ-ing tomorrow night and I am not looking forward to it. I always get anxious beforehand and feel sick when I'm on my way to the venue.

Sometimes I look for academic programs here in New Zealand involving the kea but what in the hell would I say? "Hi, I have a BA and Communications and MA in International Policy Studies. Sometimes I sit for hours watching captive kea fly around and I think this would make me an excellent candidate for doing a science with these birds."

I was just reading some of the thesis titles for PhD students at the University of Canterbury and they used words like "allee effects" and "cytokinin regulatory genes."

As someone who recently weenied out of her social science PhD program I'm now easily intimidated by the ideas of others and their seemingly effortless embrace of abstract theories.

I tried doing some paintings and have a feeling they were just too kitchy to sell. Still, I have to thank my brave friend Annika for putting them in her shop.

I tried to get information about being a Spanish translator for the NZ Language Line but they wanted someone with a specific background in interpretation. I don't have that.

And then there was that painfully awkward time I was going to translate for a Mapuche speaker and I froze up because I couldn't understand what he was saying.

Maybe I could specify that I am fluent in Mexican Spanish and can handle most of Central America?

All the journalism jobs that come my way are up in the North Island and if I was hired it would mean leaving my family and commuting home on the weekends.

Siiiiiiigh.

I don't know what else to say so here are some pictures I took of birds and one of me with Kiki on my shoulder:

White Faced Heron

Pukeko

Peacock

Bird lover experiencing a mild existential crisis.

Rugby's Children

This is not a sports piece. The Rugby in the title is, in fact, a Kea.

I just want to put this out there so avid All Blacks fans won't waste their time reading through an entire article completely devoid of a single shout out to Richie McCaw (or "Richie McAwesome" as my partner likes to call him).

My first meeting with a Kea took place at Willowbank in 2012.

Before that time I had no idea that they existed, or that Kiwi were endangered and nocturnal. It was a time of ornithological darkness.

When I entered Kea enclosure back then, I was amazed at how fearless the birds were. One bird in particular flew right up to me and gave me a long searching glance.

I now believe that this bird was Rugby, the patriarch of the Kea clan at Willowbank.

All the Kea at this park are the children of Rugby and his mate with the exception of Kati who was brought in injured from the wild.

Rugby is a bit of a grouchy old dad type. When one of his older kids tried to allopreen some of his wing feathers in a show of affection he thrust his foot out to the side and pushed them away.

He puffs up all his crown feathers to show visitors he's the boss and will often condescend to perch on one of their shoulder's before nipping their ear.

He will sometimes venture out of his territory and perch majestically on a fence post. When you turn to look at him he will fluff up his crown feathers again.

Two of his older children are Bill and Kiki. They both have lost all the yellow around their ceres, eyes and lower beaks.

Unlike some of their younger siblings they have achieved certain social graces such as perching on a visitor's knee or shoulder without trying to nip their ears or head.

Not so their younger siblings, one of whom still tries to land awkwardly on top of my head before losing his balance and flapping ungracefully to another perch.

Kiki will occasionally pull lightly at bits of my hair or touch the top of my head gently with the tip of her beak.

One of her younger siblings gave my hair a strong pull before nipping me right in the most sensitive part of my upper ear. The result of this was something I like to call "Hair By Kea."

In their book, "Kea, Bird of Paradox" Bond and Diamond reason that Kea are capable of destroying many types of hard materials and the fact that they don't inflict damage to humans means that they are being playful with us. I agree with this assessment although the playfulness can still sting at times.

Kea can tear holes in the strongest hiking equipment or delicately pick small seeds from your hand.

Their chicks are all born with yellow wattles so parents can feed them safely.

After young Kea chicks have fledged their fathers will usually take on feeding them while they learn to feed themselves.

I was amazed to observe Bill sitting in a tree and feeding Kati one day. I took this as a sign that she had been fully accepted into the clan even though she was an outsider. I was also later told that Bill did this with a lot of his other siblings.

I have seen Bill chase off some of the other Kea when they seemed to be ganging up or pestering visitors. He seems to be the older brother who keeps the peace.

At some point, a PhD student came to Willowbank to do research on Kea learning behaviors and she taught two of the birds to perform gestures for a food reward.

Two birds will still respond with these gestures when given a command.

If Bill is told "hold your beak" he will grab his beak with his foot.

He will not do this for everyone and obviously he's looking for a treat when he does. What was interesting to me is that I used to go into the enclosure wearing different outfits and hairstyles but Bill would always fly over, look at me for a moment and grab his beak with his foot.

From this and the behavior of other Kea around myself and the keepers I would surmise that they are capable of recognizing and remembering certain individuals.

I don't know the name of the other trained bird but it is an older male with a pink leg band who, when told "Wings," will give a little hop and flash the red color under his wings.

Sometimes if I hop a few steps without saying this word he will hop too.

It is well known that Kea have an extended adolescent period in which they explore and play.

I have seen two Kea playing where one will roll on its back and kick it's legs in the air while another pounces on it.

They will often switch roles and playfully pull at each other's feathers.

I have never seen any signs of open aggression, injuries or feather loss when they do this.

When one Kea wishes to warn off another they will usually drop their head, fluff out all their feathers and unfold their wings so that the flight feathers are spread out and touch the ground.

They will also push each other with their feet or chase the offending Kea away.

Sometimes two Kea of seemingly equal status will stare each other down while touching beaks.

They will also make nipping gestures which rarely seem to end in an actual bite.

I have seen older birds (including Rugby) allow the younger ones to take food or playthings away and it seems to be part of their learning experience.

As for human/Kea interactions I have played several games with the birds myself.

One involved picking up a small stone and tossing it. The young Kea then picked up the same stone and tossed it as well.

I have played hide and seek on the feeding stand with one juvenile where I would hide under the stand until he came over to look at me before I popped up on his eye level and he ran to the other end of the feeding stand before coming back to look at me when I hid.

I play chase with several of the younger birds where I will run towards them while they retreat and then I run away and they chase me.

I play another game where I walk my fingers over their fence perch toward them and they hunker down (very much like a puppy ) and then crawl forward toward my fingers and try to nip at them before I pull them away. Once I wasn't able to pull them away quick enough and my index finger ended up in a juvenile's beak. He did not bite down on my finger much to my relief.

Kea like poking their heads into bags, purses and baby strollers so they can steal toys and food and then play keep away from each other.

I lost my favorite lip gloss this way when one of them reached into my purse, pulled it out and tossed it to another one who ran off with it.

I chased him under a tree where he put it down. It was full of holes and beyond saving at that point.

I recently volunteered to work during Willowbank's 40th anniversary celebration and found myself entering the Kea enclosure with a scrub brush and bucket of water.

I was watched and followed.

Several birds tried to push the bucket over while another pulled at the handle and one perched on its edge and gazed at the dirty water.

My scrub brush was nipped and chased.

It was the most fun I have ever had while trying to clean something.

That same day I had to rescue a baby's hat and pick up a coke can that had been carried off by the Kea.

The best part was talking to visitors about the birds and their habits. Usually when I try to talk about birds people get antsy or look bored (yes I'm talking about my family members) but for one sweet day, people actually listened to my bird knowledge.

My three favorite birds are Bill, Kiki and Kati.

I like Bill's patience with his younger siblings and Kiki's habit of perching serenely on my shoulder and letting me rest my head against her feathers.

I admire Kati for her determination not to let a missing top beak keep her from having a good life. I often let her try to gnaw on my fingers while stroking her neck feathers and telling her how tough and strong she is.

She's developed a way of using her tongue as her upper beak and grinding up large bits of food against rocks so it is the right size for her to eat.

These are a few of my observations on Rugby's children.

"Kea facial expressions" from Kea Bird of Paradox

Antarctica and the Amerikiwi

Once or twice a year the U.S. Consulate in New Zealand travels from their home office in Auckland down to Christchurch.

The meeting place for their services is at the departing terminal for the U.S. Antarctic Program.

I had an appointment to go and sign the paperwork for my son so he could get his Certificate of Birth Abroad and U.S. passport.

I arrived at the location early and this gave me time to look over the facilities.

There was a post office to send packages and mail down to loved ones at the bottom of the world.

Just past this was another office with maps of Antarctica and departure instructions for visitors.

Beyond that was the clothing distribution center where participants get all their heavy duty cold proof gear and smart red jackets.

Around the corner was the actual departure terminal for Antarctica.

The hallway to the check-in counter was lined with clear photographs of polar landscapes and penguins.

Flags of many nations hung from the ceiling.

There was a baggage x-ray machine and a poster showing prohibited carry on items. (Even carefully screened program participants aren't immune from suspicion of terrorism it seems.)

Across from the desk was a large room with theater seats and a movie screen. Above the seats hung a long wooden dog sled.

On one wall there were more polar photographs and on another there were images of the different aircraft that had flown Antarctic missions since 1955.

I wasn't going to Antarctica and yet, I felt a thrill being in that place as if others before me had left some sort of emotional imprint.

I could just imagine what it would be like to go.

It would be like that scene at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind where selected individuals get a briefing before they go off into the unknown.

Prior to my consular appointment I had seen a large hangar with "United States Antarctic Program" written on it.

I had also seen the U.S. Air Force C-17 fly over my house on its way down to McMurdo base. The drone of its engine is distinctive and it flies a different path than other planes.

I visited the International Antarctic Center recently and went inside a frozen room with snow in it where they recreate winter storm conditions from the region.

There were certain areas to hide from the wind gusts but I thought I would be a badass and sit on a snowmobile near the center of the room.

The room got dark, powerful fans turned on and the temperature dropped several degrees below freezing. A recording of the howling winds was played and bits of snow hit my face. I soon regretted not taking refuge in the igloo or gust proof regions of the room.

Another display area featured videos of scientist pulling up all sorts of creatures from the deep and talking about how they had developed methods for surviving their extreme environment.

I recalled that one of my professors at Lincoln had been down to Antarctica and talked about how wary the people living at the bases are of newcomers. Apparently things can get pretty strained when you're cooped up in one space for a long time.

There was a display at the Center on how people living at the bases fight depression and boredom.

I hoped it might be possible to hitch a ride down with the crew on the C-17 but the National Science Foundation- which handles the funding for U.S. missions- makes it clear that they don't do that sort of thing.

I don't know why I have suddenly developed this strong urge to see Antarctica. It was unexpected.

I started looking at ways to get funding and an invitation to go down.

I knew I would never qualify to go there and "do a science" unless it was a social science and after my professor's description I can only imagine that my close observation would make people's paranoia act up.

I also think I would be a prime candidate for the early onset of cabin fever.

In case you are wondering how to get down to the southern-most continent, www.usap.gov has the details.

They take engineers, pilots, scientists, service specialists (such as a cooks) and artists,

I think the last category would be the only one I would have a chance at and even then, it definitely would not be for poetry.

Roses are red, violets are blue
There's lots of snow here, and penguins too

Perhaps the appeal of the place is that is holds so much undiscovered wonder and is still relatively difficult to get to.

A few flights from Australia that will go over the region for an exorbitant fee but they don't land there.

Cruises down there are really expensive and sea conditions make land exploration unpredictable.

I guess I better start working on my painting, photography and poetry skills.

Perhaps I could write a musical called "Antarctica!"

It worked for a U.S. state so why not a whole continent?