The Casual Birder Podcast - Transcript of Episode 89
Australian Birds - An Offbeat View with Evo Terra
SPEAKERS
Suzy Buttress, Evo Terra
[Inserted voiced description]
Evo Terra:
Australian White Ibis (Threskiornis molucca), AKA: Dumpster Diver.
The majestic Ibis is a much-revered bird with deep roots in Egyptian mythology. But this isn’t Egypt, it’s Eastern Australia, and there are no pyramids or hieroglyphics here. But there are plenty of trash dumpsters, the preferred habitat of the Australian “white” Ibis. The “white” moniker is somewhat of a misnomer: the birds might be white underneath all that grime, but the ones you’re likely to see are dingy grey or brown… or whatever the color of the dominant food-stain from the bins they’ve been occupying.
Viewing tips: Anywhere you’d find a pigeon in America, you’ll find the Australian white ibis. Just don’t expect them to be “white”.
Odds of seeing: Quite high and almost guaranteed if the sanitation workers are on strike.
Suzy Buttress:
In Episode 89, I speak with Evo Terra podcaster, author, and self-described professional contrarian, about his unique observations of Australian birds and his appreciation of the natural world.
[Introductory music]
Suzy Buttress:
Welcome to The Casual Birder Podcast. I'm Suzy Buttress. As a casual birder, I take time to watch birds as I go about my daily tasks. In my show, I'll tell you about the wild birds I've seen, speak with other enthusiasts, take bird walks, and share stories from listeners around the world.
Suzy Buttress:
I know Evo Terra best as the host of the thought-provoking show Podcast Pontifications, but my birding side was piqued when I heard him make mention of an article he wrote, describing the birds he encountered while living in Australia. Evo shared the article with me and when I read his wonderfully quirky descriptions of these birds, I knew I had to speak with him further.
Evo is one of the very first podcasters and has hosted over 20 shows since he started in 2004. He also co-authored 'Podcasting for Dummies'. He is deeply passionate about podcasting, and he runs a strategic podcast consultancy providing advice to businesses.
[Music transition]
Suzy Buttress:
Evo, thank you very much for joining me on The Casual Birder Podcast.
Evo Terra:
Thank you very much for asking me to come on. I enjoy talking about you know, odd random things like birdwatching, right? That's our topic, we're talking about birds?
Suzy Buttress:
It is! But I thought you were an expert. So am I, am I wrong about that? [Laughs]
Evo Terra:
We're gonna find out by the end of this conversation, that's for sure.
Suzy Buttress:
You're very well known in the podcasting world. And you were one of the very first people to have a podcast. They've said there's around 900,000 podcasts out there. What was the number of your podcast?
Evo Terra:
I had the 40th podcast ever.
Suzy Buttress:
That is amazing.
Evo Terra:
Isn't that crazy?
Suzy Buttress:
When was that?
Evo Terra:
October 14 2004.
Suzy Buttress:
Wow.
Evo Terra:
Yes, I can recall the exact date that it happened. But yeah
Suzy Buttress:
That is fantastic! And you obviously love it. Because you're still podcasting today.
Evo Terra:
Almost 16 years later, here we go. It's went from being a fun hobby of mine to my full time gig. I am a professional podcast strategist for companies all around the world now. Yeah!
Suzy Buttress:
That is wonderful. And it's just, you know, something to think about, for those of us that are just starting out. If we just wait 16 years...
Evo Terra:
I can give you a list of things not to do if you would like those.
Suzy Buttress:
And I'm guessing a lot of those things were actually mentioned in your show Podcast Pontifications.
Evo Terra:
Yeah, Podcast Pontifications is a podcast about podcasting. But where other podcasts about podcasting tell you how to do something my show tells you what to think about, talks about the future, talks about where podcasting can be as opposed to how to put all the dials together. So all those shows are great and fine. I love, I love many of the PAPS, podcasts about podcasting, that are out there, but I like to take a little higher level approach to things and and make people scratch their noggins.
Suzy Buttress:
And they're nice small segments
Evo Terra:
Always less than 10 minutes. Yeah, I've got a timer running and that's that when that gets close to nine I'm going, Oh, I'm talking for too long. I should shut up now.
Suzy Buttress:
I really do enjoy listening to it
Evo Terra:
Thank you.
Suzy Buttress:
So I'm thrilled to have you, er, I was gonna say in the room. You're not quite in the room because we're speaking via Skype. Would you just like to say whereabouts you are.
Evo Terra:
I am in Phoenix, Arizona where it's toasty warm outside and we'll get much toasty warmer as we progress towards summer. Very hot
Suzy Buttress:
And I'm here in windy, cold and wet Basingstoke, so dreaming about the heat somewhere.
Suzy Buttress:
Now, it might seem to people outside that it was strange that you should come on to a birding podcast. But you had actually noticed some birds on your tour, you spent about three and a half years travelling the world.
Evo Terra:
That's right. Yeah, at the end of 2014, my wife and I decided to sell quite literally everything that we owned, and go travel for a while. The plan was to go for a year. So during that year, we hit 13 different countries in three continents, and really enjoyed it, enjoyed our time.
I spent about six weeks in the UK in Spring. You people do a terrible job of Spring, just so you know, wet and cold, non stop. But um, towards the end of that time, we were in Australia, in-between Thanksgiving, American Thanksgiving and Christmas. And by the way, great time, great place to go in November in December: Australia. Great, great spot to be.
We were there and looking at the bank accounts realising that well, the party's coming to an end, so we must do something different. We didn't want to return back to America. And we, on a whim decided to go to Bangkok, Thailand. We spent a little time in Bangkok. And as soon as we got there, it seems, my wife was picked up in the international school system. They really are looking for experienced long term educators, which is exactly what she's done. She wound up becoming the principal of a private school in Thailand. And so for the next two and a half years, we made Bangkok our home base as we bounced around Southeast Asia and explored even more of that world.
Suzy Buttress:
What an amazing, incredible experience.
Evo Terra:
It was it was a lot of fun. Yeah, it certainly was. Along the way, I mean, the reason birding is coming up here is, I, we became travel bloggers because we were travel podcasters, and then we became travel bloggers. And I had an opportunity to write for a company, an outfitter, they make clothes and gear for people. And they contracted with me to do some writing for them about the travels that were that we were experiencing. I was a paid travel blogger, if you will. And one of the articles I wrote, which I believe you've, you have had a chance to read now was about birdwatching in Australia, which is why we're having this conversation today.
Suzy Buttress:
We went to Australia ourselves about six years ago now. And as I was reading through your article, which describes a variety of birds and tells you about the behaviours, but I just could not stop laughing because the way you described the birds was just absolutely wonderful. And I wonder if you could just tell me about a couple of the birds in particular. [laughs]
Evo Terra:
I'll be happy to because Australia, as as you know, Suzy and any of the listeners from Australia or if anyone's travelled Australia, it's weird! Australian animals are weird! It's what happens when you isolate creatures from the rest of the world for millions of years they get weird and that and there's no way to describe it other than other than weirdness that happens in there. And it's, but but also fascinating, you know, just just amazing. Like, so very common things, like, I think my favourite one is I think the first one that's in the article. And it's a it's a pigeon and it has the most demonic eyes on the planet. It is just, I mean it's it looks like a bird, looks like a regular dove. It's got some interesting colours on the on the wings underneath like some greens and some blues which is very pretty, it's got this crest on top of its head and you think those would be the two things that would draw you to the bird. No, no, it's this red glowing almost eyes that are around this thing that's just you know, make makes this gorgeous bird terrifying, Which to me, is the perfect way to describe Australia: Beautiful place. Terrifying! Everything will kill you.
[Inserted voiced description]
Evo Terra:
Australian Magpie (Cracticus tibicen), AKA: Dive Bomber. Before you go looking for magpies, make sure it’s not “swooping season”. No, I’m not making that up. There’s a swooping season that every Australian knows about. Australians prefer to keep this bit of key social knowledge to themselves, mostly so they can watch and laugh as these black-and-white beauties dive-bomb unsuspecting visitors who get too near a nest. And by “near”, I mean anywhere within a 5-10 mile radius. The magpie’s call is an odd, almost underwater-sounding warble. Not nearly as iconic as the kookaburra, but not nearly as annoying as the cockatoo. And if you hear it, you probably won’t get dive bombed. So you’ve got that going for you…
Evo Terra:
Viewing tips: backyards, roadsides, parks, they're everywhere. Odds of seeing 75% chance if you're looking 100% if you're not ready for the swoop.
[Return to conversation]
Suzy Buttress:
One of the things I noticed when I first got there was how the sound of the birds were so different; everywhere you went you could hear fantastic sound. That's what I noticed because I very much am attuned to listening to bird sound.
Evo Terra:
Sure.
Suzy Buttress:
How did you notice, apart from the fact that there was something with a crest and glowing red eyes, how did you notice the birds? How did that impinge on your consciousness?
Evo Terra:
Yeah, well, birds in Australia are very different than birds in America that I'm used to you know. We have songbirds, I'm assuming in the UK you have similar things, you know birds sing a sweet little song. Birds in Australia scream at you! More often than not, right? The the, there are the cockatoos that are all over, a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, I believe is what it's called. And it's it's a gorgeous bird. And we were staying in a in a place in, near the Whitsundays up in Australia on the west coast, and beautiful, very quiet and serene. But there was one tree, just one dead tree, that the cockatoos when they, that that was their place to go. And they just scream at each other! And you! And they just make this really, really loud noise! All the time! Which is great, unless you're trying to produce a travel podcast [Suzy laughs] where you're trying to interview someone without the screaming sounds of the birds that are behind you. They're just really, really, really loud.
Evo Terra:
And then there's the there's a lorikeet which is very pretty green, orange, blue, beautiful. Looks like small, small parrot. Holy cow does that thing just scream and make horrible noises nonstop! It's just always, always making noises. And then there's that weird Kookaburra, which I'm probably not pronouncing properly because I'm not I don't have the proper Australian accent. That is nightmare fuel at night! I mean, if you heard that thing you would assume that someone just escaped and is coming to get you! No, it's just this toad-shaped bird up in the tree that was makes this wild crazy sound. It's just fascinating.
[Inserted voice description]
Evo Terra:
Laughing Kookaburra, (Dacelo novaeguineae), AKA: The Crazy Person In The Woods.
The kookaburra is the iconic Australian bird. Though they aren’t all that easy to spot, you almost certainly won’t miss hearing one as their warbling sound carries for miles on end. It’s really quite remarkable that such a noticeable song (and though a little unnerving at first, a quite pleasant one to hear) can come from such a small, compact member of the Kingfisher family.
Viewing tips: Listen first, and slowly walk through the woods. That's not your imagination making you think a crazy person is stalking you. It's a Kookaburra. Odds of seeing: 5050 unless you think you might be lost, then it approaches 100%. Just to unsettle your nerves further.
[Return to conversation]
Suzy Buttress:
I guess there were times then, as you mentioned, that you were trying to record but the birds but not your friends.
Evo Terra:
No! Not even a little bit my friend. Constantly interrupting, didn't matter.
And here's the great thing about Australia with birds. You don't have to go to the bush to hear these birds. I mean, walk down downtown Brisbane, you'll see a flock of Lorikeets and Cockatoos, okay I won't say flocks of Kookaburra, obviously, but go to any of the parks. That's where they'll hear ... it's not like I went off into the wilderness. They've got, there's a there's an Australian Turkey, which I didn't know existed, by the way, didn't know there were turkeys in Australia and there are. Very different than American turkeys are. But I first saw one and it, when we were actually in the bush, my wife and I were off the beaten path going to find some hidden beach and I said I, I found this, I saw the turkey and so I grabbed my phone. I looked it up and I said oh my goodness is an Australian Turkey and and I was reading about you know, stay away from the nests because they, they could get a little territorial and stuff and I'm Oh, this is great. I found this rare, elusive, this Turkey! We go back to the town which about oh, maybe 40, 50 kilometres away. And we're g oing to pick up some beer because you're in Australia, you have to drink a whole lot of beer, and in the parking lot there are three of those same turkeys.
Suzy Buttress:
[Laughs] So there you are with your rare bird!
Evo Terra 14:02
They're everywhere! Everywhere. Wildlife is everywhere in Australia!
Suzy Buttress:
Before you went to Australia, had you really noticed birds? Where do you come from originally? Do you come from Arizona?
Evo Terra:
No, I'm from the middle of America, a little state called Oklahoma is where I'm from and from the country. I didn't grow up in the city. I grew up in small tiny towns, which are terrible. One day, I will have enough money to go back and buy those towns and then pave them, just going to put a big layer of con... Anyhow. But beyond that, my Grandfather worked for an organisation called the Corps of Engineers. And this is a government body that is in charge of the lakes in Oklahoma because every, there's like 10 lakes in Oklahoma and all of them are man-made. You know, back in the 30s 40s 50s, they, we dammed a small stream or a river and a lake came behind it. And my Grandfather worked for the Corps coming out of World War Two, got his job for the Corps of Engineers and retired from the Corps of Engineers. The only thing he's ever done! And he was in charge of, he was the project manager for, I think, three different lakes that I can, I can remember. And so while my Grandfather was by no means a trained naturalist, he was by every sense of the word, a naturalist, because he had had at his command 1000s of acres of property that you know, most of it was flooded, right, but all of the other area around it where the wildlife would be. And so he would, he rescued, he rescued a hawk and an eagle that he had, that someone had hit with their car, both of those at different times, we had a hawk and an eagle that were in his office that he had somewhat, somewhat domesticated because he raised them back from health. And just an encyclopaedic knowledge of the local wildlife in that area. And he was kind of my hero growing up and then all the way up to like major adulthood and taught me a lot of appreciation about nature and wildlife as, as well as ,you know, from birds to fish to large game to worms to the, the whole the whole gamut.
Suzy Buttress:Right.
Evo Terra:
Yeah.
Suzy Buttress:
Right, so you already were aware of birds then from, from back home
Evo Terra:
Very much.
Suzy Buttress:
When you started travelling, was Australia the first time you really noticed them?
Evo Terra:
No, because you know, being attuned to creatures that are around, I, I've travelled a fair amount. And I one of the first things I do is look around and say, what's different about this place? You know, what, what is unique? Here are things that I can't get in other places. So each, each country we went to, you know, of course, most of the animals in Europe are kind of the animals of Europe, right? So, birds birds can at least fly across the English Channel easily enough, right? That's not that big of a deal. Yeah. But when we got to Southeast Asia, about halfway through that first year trip, that's when things really became vastly different for me because now I'm hearing sounds in the wilderness that I hadn't really heard. Whether it was birds or reptiles or other animals making these noises, that's when it became much more noticeable. And the and the colours of plumage increased drastically, the closer you get to the Equator, right? Because birds in America, sure we have our Jays and we have our Cardinals and some of those are pretty but when you get to, when you can really see these tropical birds and all their real splendour that really gives you a new appreciation for, for, for the local bird wildlife.
Suzy Buttress:
What, I was just thinking about this, so your local birds, the birds you see in Arizona, in Phoenix,
Evo Terra:
Yeah.
Suzy Buttress:
You're fairly far south there, aren't you in the US?
Evo Terra:
Yes, we are.
Suzy Buttress:
Do you tend to have quite colourful birds there? What sort of birds would you have lately?
Evo Terra:
Well, not most colourful birds that are native to this area, but because this is the Southwest, which is a typically pretty warm area, even when it even when winter hits. It's rare for us to break freezing. I mean, if that happens, the news is plastered with freeze warnings and people go rush outside, and I'm not joking when I say this, put blankets over their cacti. We really do. We don't worry about pipes freezing, we worry about, you know, protecting our delicate cactus from, from having its buds broken.
But because it is a very mild winter here, we have swarms of wild parakeets, that are not wild. Well, they are, they're more, I guess I'd say a swarm of feral...
Suzy Buttress:
Feral, yeah
Evo Terra:
Parakeets. Right? They were, they were released, who knows where it was. And so I know of several flocks of parakeets that are here. There are some Cockatiels, as well. Those tend to get out because those are common in pet stores, but they get out and find other Cockatiels, because they're here and they can survive quite well. So we get that sort of colour of birds out here. But for the rest, you know we I am fortunate in Arizona that we do have Condor in the area. We, my wife and I, used to live in a little town further north, kind of midway in Arizona, and there was a Condor breeding ground right outside of, about 10, 15 kilometres from from the town and on some cliffs near a, near a, near a stream, a river. And you could, if you timed it right, you could see the, you know, one or maybe two Condors that would actually show up and you know, as the scientists were there, hopefully you can get them to breed so we can make more Condors. So yeah, lots of raptors, lots of birds of prey. But when it comes to the small colourful birds, those have come from somewhere else and, just like most of us in Phoenix, now call it home.
Suzy Buttress:
Right. Do you get hummingbirds there?
Evo Terra:
We do. We have a lot of hummingbirds out here. It's very common to see porches with hummingbird feeders on them and, my wife's a photographer and she she probably has an entire CD filled or, CD whose showing his age over here, an entire hard drive filled with Hummingbird photos. Hummingbirds are are great to take pictures of because, you know, they just sit there in one position for a very long time. But my wife is the kind of person who, she wants to take the action, the frozen action shot, which means we have to spend like $18,000 on a lens that's fast enough to catch the hummingbird's, you know, wings as it's batting up and down. But yeah, a lot of Hummingbirds as well.
Suzy Buttress:
Does your wife have her own website? Does she display her photographs?
Evo Terra:
That's a good question. I don't believe that she does. We have a few of her photos from our travels over at a website that's Shevo, Sheila and Evo, Shevo. Shevo. WTF? I just love generic top-level domains. Yeah, you can see some of her photography over there.
Suzy Buttress:
When you were staying in Bangkok, what was the bird life like there? I've never been to that area.
Evo Terra:
So it's a giant city. I mean, Bangkok has 14 million people and it's just a sprawling gigantic mess. But of course it's surrounded by jungle. You are, people think that you live in the jungle near Bangkok, and you know, you've probably got to go north for that. But around the outside of it is, is a, is a wild area, not not jungle like deep Jungle Book stuff. But you know, it's it's undeveloped land, although there's lots of rice paddies that have been cropped up around the area, it's fully domesticated. So there's a fair amount of bird life that, that does exist there. There, I wish I could remember the name of this one bird. But the further out on the outskirts you go, you will hear this bird quite a lot. It's it's got a very distinctive sound that I'm not even gonna try and emulate. Everybody loves the sound this bird makes except for me. And the reason I'm the one that doesn't really like it is the first place we stayed in Bangkok was kind of the outskirts and every morning at 4:30 in the morning, didn't matter what day it was, 4:30 in the morning, this bird would start making its little noise. But it was not a little noise. It's like he had had some friends from Australia, who came up and taught him how to make a lot of noise. And it was just really, really, really loud. So it is one of those polarising sounds that you either love, or you grow to appreciate when you go and for people who go to Bangkok or go to Thailand Republic go, Oh, what a lovely sound. Yeah, imagine hearing it for nine months straight every morning. It's like a horrible sound that a rooster would make to wake you up each morning.
[Voice inserted]
Suzy Buttress:
Just popping in here to say that I discovered the bird Evo was referring to was the Asian Koel, which has a call that sounds a little like a high pitched Peacock ... crossed with a chicken
[Conversation continues]
Suzy Buttress:
On behalf of that bird I apologise. [Both laugh]
But isn't it interesting that that then impacts on your memories of that place? You know that 4:30 in the morning? That was it. And how wonderful to be able to wake up at 4:30 now and not hear that.
Evo Terra:
Right? Yeah. Now I don't have to worry about that. That is that is true.
Suzy Buttress:
You mentioned that you were staying in towns but you did some travelling around when you were when you're in the different countries. What kind of things were you looking for?
Evo Terra:
I think when my wife and I decided to make that trip, where are we going to travel and we didn't really have much of an agenda, we, we call ourselves, we called ourselves the opportunistic travellers. Not in a bad sense, but because of, we let opportunity choose where we were going to go. So for example, for the six weeks we spent in the UK, the vast majority of that time was spent either in Knutsford, just outside of Manchester, or Sheffield. And I think we only spent maybe three or four days in London proper. And so when people hear that they go, I'm sorry, you went all the way to the UK to stay in two towns I've never heard of, could you explain why you did that. And the reason we did that is because we were house sitting. And that's where the house sitting assignments where. We, please come stay in my home for three weeks rent free. And you know, feed the dogs on occasion, water, the plants and the places yours for three weeks. It's a wonderful way to travel the world. You have to be willing to be extremely flexible. But if you do it right, um, the... 2015, my wife and I spent, we paid for hotel rooms 30 days for the entire year, there were 30 days we had to pay for a hotel room. The rest of that time was either spent house sitting, staying with people that we met along the way and I'm not kidding, it just kind of happened that way, or with connections we had made, I had made mostly because of the podcasting world and other social media things we've been involved with. Yeah, it allowed us to really, to travel off the beaten path.
You know, when we, I tell people we stayed for three weeks in Copenhagen. That's not true. We stayed for three weeks in a little town called Kokkedal, which is about 40 kilometres north of Copenhagen in a much much smaller area closer to the water away from the hustle and bustle of the city. The cities are always close enough for us to get to them. I guess what that allowed us to do was instead of having the very touristy experience, which is pretty much how we travelled prior to this trip, we were able to really get in and, I don't want to say live as the locals do, but at least live among them for a while without any crazy expectations that we needed to go see a show or do something else on the on the tourist wagon we, we just did what locals did and enjoyed that life for a year which was which was a blast!
Suzy Buttress:
To have spent the whole year and only have to get hotels for like 30 days, that is wonderful!
Evo Terra:
That was amazing. Yeah, then we could spend the money on the travel to get from place to place. Takes a lot of coordination. And I am not the coordinator. That's my lovely wife, Sheila Dee's job. She figured all of that out. But yeah, we we, we had an amazing experience that we couldn't have replicated in any other way. And we still look back on it with with fond memories, for every step.
Suzy Buttress:
Had you ever travelled when you were younger?
Evo Terra:
A little bit. But like most Americans, most of my travel, you know this is a pretty big country. We have a lot of things and a lot of differences within this country. And then we also have two countries north and south of us. But that's all we have ever done. I mean, I I didn't leave the country officially until I was grown. I took a trip to I think I took a trip to Mexico when I was 18. I didn't go to Canada until I was in my 30s. And other than Caribbean travel, I hadn't really done anything. So we'd gone north and south, but nothing east or west. So this decision to sell everything and just see where the wind takes us for a while was rather ambitious.
Our, our friends and family, well, people who didn't know us all that well thought we were crazy. Our close friends and family went, Oh, yeah, that makes sense. That's something these weirdos would do.
Suzy Buttress:
So having seen those birds while you were away, and having had the influence of your grandfather on the wildlife?
Evo Terra:
Yeah.
Suzy Buttress:
Are you aware day to day of the birds that you're seeing around where you live now?
Evo Terra:
I think I'm more aware than I was previously, because, people who grow up in the most beautiful places of the world, eventually you become immune to those. You just see it every day and it becomes the same thing over and over again. And that that's very much true for me. I mean, we live in Arizona, which is gorgeous. We have amazing sunsets, and we lived in northern Arizona, which has an amazing Red Rock features, it just, you know, beautiful things. But you just, that all becomes the scenery. That's just the world that you live in. This travel, this trip that we did, and plus the addition of living in Thailand for two and a half years afterwards, every day reminded us that we're not in the same place we were before. That everything is different. And I'm fortunate in the almost two years now that we've been back, it'll be, yeah, close to two years now, that sense of awe and wonder hasn't left me yet. I still look at things different. I still, I think I'm noticing more of the of the world around me whether that's a natural world or the man-made world. It has re-sparked and rekindled a sense of I would like to see more about that. I notice this thing and I want to remember this and hold on to a piece of that and keep it with me.
Suzy Buttress:
That's a wonderful statement to close on. The article that you referenced, you mentioned it might be possible to put that out there again?
Evo Terra:
I think we can make something like that work. I think if the listeners want to read about 10 really, really strange birds from Australia, written by a person who clearly is also really, really strange. I think we can make that happen.
Suzy Buttress:
And if people want to find out more about you, where can they where can they find that?
Evo Terra:
So I'm all over the internet these days. The good thing is if you just search for Evo Terra, I'm the one that comes up all the time. I'm most active on Twitter, Twitter is my social media tool of choice. If you want to see pictures of me typically with a tobacco pipe shoved in my mouth because I've gotten deeply into tobacco pipes as of, as of late. That's Instagram is what that's all about. Same name. Just search for Evo Terra on Instagram. You can't miss me. And you mentioned at the beginning of the programme that's a nice circle back that Podcast Pontifications is the short form show I do four days a week. And that's available at PodcastPontifications.com.
Suzy Buttress:
I'm very grateful to Evo for giving me permission to repost his article on my website. The link is in the Episode Notes.
[Music transition]
Suzy Buttress:
Do let me know what birds you've seen recently. I love to hear about them. Tag me in your posts about birds on social media. Or tell me about them in a voice message using speakpipe at CasualBirder.com
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Thank you all for listening. And I hope you'll join me again for another episode of The Casual Birder Podcast.
[Closing music]
[Inserted voiced description]
Evo Terra:
Rainbow Lorikeet (Trichoglossus haematodus), AKA: The Pretty Loud Bird.
If ever there were a bird that looked like it was painted by Dr. Moreau, it’s the lorikeet. Patches of yellow, red, and orange make this the most colorful little bird we’d ever seen. They tend to travel in large flocks, making for a colorful splash across the sky as they settle from tree to tree. Like all colorful little birds, their call is more akin to shrill shrieks than melodious tunes, but they are pretty. Pretty loud, but pretty.
Viewing tips: Find a tree. Wait. Listen. Odds of seeing: If you can find a tree, you’ll find a dozen Lorikeets.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai and Suzy Buttress