A Mynah Slip-up

Our friend Roland, now back home in Brisbane, is the Australian equivalent of the naturalist David Attenborough or, if you prefer, Doctor Dolittle (not to be confused with Alfred Dolittle – “I’m getting married in the mornin'” – from the musical, My Fair Lady). His (Roland, not Alfred Dolittle) big garden, bordering on beautiful designer bush-land at the back of his property, is a veritable nature reserve; any amount of birds and wallabies call on him regularly for food, drink and pleasant conversation.

Even our friend’s penchant for the sport of home archery seems not to deter the animals… although it has to be said that they manage to carefully avoid the garden when Roland indulges in a spot of cloud-shooting (arrows aimed at the clouds, at the desired trajectory and speed, for landing into a small bucket – great fun!). They also steer clear when he hones his archery skills on deer – a big plastic deer, thank goodness; it’s quite amazing how easy it is to miss the life-sized deer from a distance of fifty metres, and surprising how many arrow holes adorn the garage door!

This morning I received an email from Doctor Davey Dolittle in which he described his latest adventure with a tiny mynah bird chick:

“I rescued the little one from the ground by the fruit trees, mum and dad were squawking to warn it that I was approaching and to hide! Well me being me, I noticed the commotion and said to myself, “Hello there’s trouble going on”. Sure enough I found that little young mynah chick on the ground and managed to catch it and put it back in a fork of a tree. Where it might be safer, oh, I’m so good aren’t I??”

Well, I didn’t say he was modest!