Trump Administration Live Updates: Senate Republicans Push Ahead With Plan to Cut Food Stamps
Agreed. While people should continue to fight politically as well, that is much slower and more stacked against them. They (the MAGAs) have been and continue to lose the lawsuits and civil cases against them. Mike Lindell just lost his $2.3 million defamation case and a Jan 6 rioter lost a $500,000 case for wrongful death of a capital police officer within just the last few days.
While I hope Newsom wins this lawsuit, he's not going to get my vote in a presidential primary. He can certainly be right in one circumstance and not in another.
Another account of the story from one of the field crew members.
"Dumbi is an important story for all three Wandjina-Wunggurr People. He’s associated with the flood story, the first story... this is a story we all heard since we were little.” - Kirsty Burgu, Dambimangari Director and Cultural Advisor
It was day one of the fieldtrip on Dambimangari Country and the chopper slowed as we neared our intended camp – a stretch of river selected from satellite imagery. Here, rugged sandstone ranges slope down to a broad watercourse, lined with galleries of tall joongoonbeem paperbark trees and stands of dense jarliwunarn wunu Pandanus. Most of the riverside was rocky and vegetated, but a large open area of white sand was the perfect place to camp, providing a safe chopper landing site, shade and plenty of freshwater.
We had several aims for this survey, one being to deploy an array of acoustic recorders to detect the threatened and culturally important Dumbi, the Northern Masked Owl. We did not know if the species occurred here, but the habitat looked suitable and camera surveys nearby showed a healthy mammal population, the owl’s preferred prey.
Dumbi, the white owl, is a sacred animal: ‘Dumbi is an important story for all three Wandjina-Wunggurr People’ says Dambimangari Director and Cultural Advisor Kirsty Burgu. ‘He’s associated with the flood story, the first story... this is a story we all heard since we were little,’ she adds.
An unexpected discovery
After deploying several recorders south of camp, we headed north to set the remainder of the array. It was here, just 500 metres upstream, that we experienced our first exciting bird encounter. There in a tall joongoonbeem was a Garr garr, Red Goshawk, mainland Australia’s rarest bird of prey! This species was recently uplisted to Endangered due its disappearance from over a third of its breeding distribution within the last 40 years and is a priority species in the Federal Government’s Threatened Species Action Plan 2022–32.
The Garr garr is a striking bird of prey, with a streaked upper chest and, as the name implies, a rich rufous colouration to the body and wings. After watching us for a few minutes, this female bird flew to land next to a nest – a large assemblage of sticks in a joongoonbeem. This is the first scientific confirmation of the Garr garr on Dambimangari Country and only the tenth nest recorded in the Kimberley. Although the landscape contains ideal habitat, the remote, rugged and vast nature of the region makes it challenging to survey its rich biodiversity.
A sacred animal
Exhausted after a big first day we crawled into bed...only minutes later to hear an unexpected, loud and haunting screech cut through the night air. Was that Dumbi the Masked Owl... or Yuwurn the similar Eastern Barn Owl? All was quiet for a few hours until the calls were heard again... and again... and again, so loud they must be nearby. So, bleary eyed, we poked our heads out of tents and shone torches into trees, only to find the majestic form of Dumbi perched just 15 metres from the campfire – confirmed by its large body and strong taloned feet with thick furred legs.
The next morning, it was the talk of camp. ‘I was so excited, it was amazing’ said AWC–Dambimangari Biodiversity Ranger Azarnia Malay. ‘I’d heard lots of stories about the owl and then I saw it, and it was good to see it in the wild.’ It was great news for the survey too, we now knew they were here. But it got even better.
As we sat around the fire the following night, a series of soft trills and ‘chirrs’ could be heard coming from a hollow in a dead joongoonbeem. Upon investigation, a young Dumbi was seen poking its head out, making this the first confirmed nest tree for the Northern Masked Owl in Western Australia! For the remainder of the trip, we were entertained and enthralled each night by the young owl and its parents, as they fed and attended to their chick. ‘Oh the little owl got me so excited, I couldn’t believe it, we saw a whole little group, a family, not just the baby, but the mother and father,’ said Azarnia.
The Northern Masked Owl is listed as Vulnerable and very little is known about the subspecies in the Kimberley. PhD researcher Nigel Jackett has been studying the only other known nest area in the region at Yampi Sound Training Area where AWC works in partnership with Dambimangari Traditional Owners and the Department of Defence. The abundance of mammals (particularly Golden Bandicoots, Common Rock-rats and Pale Field-rats) found at Yampi has led to a pair of Northern Masked Owls raising chicks during three of the last four years. Acoustic recorders deployed in this area have revealed further insights into the year-round calling behaviour and movements of the owls within the landscape, which has helped detect owls in other remote locations across northern Australia.
Healthy Country
To have found the nests of two enigmatic threatened bird species within a kilometre of each other is incredible. As Dambimangari Ranger Peter Cooper said, ‘seeing a lot of threatened species, it’s telling us how healthy Country is, and how lucky we are to have Country like that.’ According to Kirsty ‘the moral of the story of Dumbi is... you have to have respect for animals.’ ‘By knowing the job that we’re doing, we’re keeping all these species safe’ adds Peter.
The Dambimangari–AWC team are looking to monitor the success of both nests which will provide important information for the conservation of these threatened and enigmatic species. We will continue to work together to look after Country, protecting and respecting its wildlife.
The Story of Dumbi
Translated by Howard Coates
‘This is an old time story told by the earliest, profoundly knowledgeable elders,’ said Mickie Bungunie [an old man from the Wunambal Aborigine tribe, Western Australia].
In those ancient days Gajara was still a human creature, living along with his wife and with his sons who themselves were also married.
It came about that the earliest-time children living in those far-off days mocked, tormented and ill-treated the Winking Owl, Dumbi. They plucked out his feathers; they spat on him; they pierced him many times with grass spears, even thrusting a hole through his nasal septum.
Up into the air they tossed him, jeering at him, ‘Now fly!’ But he fell down on to the ground with a thud. This they did again; and again Dumbi thudded to the ground. A third time those children threw him up into the air, but this time Dumbi continued to go up and up through the clouds out of sight and right on up to Ngadja, the Supreme One.
‘What has happened to you?’ asked Ngadja, the Supreme Being. ‘What have they done to you?’
The owl then presented his complaint to him, saying, ‘The children mocked me; they held me in ridicule and persecuted me.’
Ngadja, the Supreme One, was inwardly grieved and felt deep sorrow for him, so he gathered his followers together and held a council with them. Among the many followers of Ngadja gathered to this council meeting were Maguriguri [the sidewinder lizard], Windirindjal [another kind of lizard], the eel, the freshwater turtle, and the black goanna.
‘Go,’ said Ngadja, ‘see where these people are; peer over the range and see if they are still camping in that same area, then come and tell me.’ This he said to his followers for he was truly sorry that these children had mocked Dumbi.
The first one to be sent was Maguriguri. He, the quick-legged one, ran to the place called Dumbey which is the range that lies across the country in that place. On returning he reported that they were all still there. Ngadja sent him again, saying, ‘Go again to the same place; see if they are still there.’ Maguriguri went to spy once more and returned again with the same report to Ngadja.
Ngadja, the Supreme Being, then instructed Gajara [who at that time was still a man], saying, ‘If you want to live, take your wife, your sons and your sons’ wives and get a double raft. Because of the Dumbi affair, I intend to drown every one. I am about to send rain and a sea flood.’
‘Put on the raft long-lasting foods that may be stored,’ he told him. ‘Foods such as gumi, banimba, and ngalindja, all these ground foods.’ So Gajara stored all these foods. He also gathered birds of the air such as the cuckoo, the mistletoe-eater, the rainbow bird, the helmeted friar bird and finches—those he took on the raft, and also a female kangaroo.
Ngadja then said, ‘All is ready now.’ He thereupon sent Maguriguri to peep at the people for the last time. ‘Ah!’ the lizard said, gesturing in their direction. ‘They all remain in one place!’
Gajara gathered his sons as the crew, and his own wife and his sons’ wives together. Ngadja the Supreme One gave Gajara some of his own foods. Then Ngadja sent the rainclouds down, shutting the clouds in upon them. The sea-flood came in from the north-northeast and the people were closed in by the saltwater flood and the tidal waters of the sea. The flood began to sweep all the living creatures together and was pushing them all along to one place, Dumbey. Here the waters were spinning in a whirlpool and the people were screaming as they looked for a way of escape. Ngadja whirled the flood waters and the earth opened, drowning and flattening them all. He finished them at Dumbey.
Meanwhile, the flood carried all those who were on the raft with Gajara along on the current far away to Dulugun where the world ends and the waters flow over. That is where the flood had been taking him all the time, the place of the dead, where there is no land. The waters were rolling him this way and that way and spinning him around for a long, long time.
At last, however, the flood-waters brought Gajara back in this direction. He sent some birds out from the raft, first the cuckoo. The cuckoo found the land and did not return to him. Gradually the waters were going down. The first land that Gajara sighted was the hilltop at Ngumbindji [Doubtful Bay]. ‘Oh!’ he said, ‘I have found a hill!’ and he was glad within himself. Then, as the waters continued to go down, he sighted Numbuzare [Mt Waterloo].
Later on, the other birds returned to Gajara and he sent them out again the following day. They arrived on the land and met Dumbi, the owl who said, ‘Oh, you have returned already!’ and invited them to stay. The land was already drying the waters up and the living creatures found a home and food. Soon in many places the owls were breeding.
As the flood subsided Gajara noticed that it was leaving a water-mark like a painting along the hills. This is the flood spirit line, left there where the flood made it. The waters were taking him past Munduli [Montilivet] when he bumped into a rock. [Munduli is ’the tomahawk place’ where they used to get stone for tomahawks.] Gajara was bumped off the raft with a splash and sank to the bottom. On the bottom of the sea he walked to the shore of the mainland.
His sons and his wife paddled the raft towards the shore where they met him. His sons wailed for him, crying. ‘Father has come out to us with a lot of heavy seaweed and oysters all over him,’ they said among themselves. They removed some of the oysters, prising them off, and threw the seaweed into a heap. The heap turned into a lump of rock, where it remains a monument to this day.
The Wandjina’s spirit went out into the cave where he is painted. ‘I want to turn off here,’ he said; so he turned off, and for this reason the place is called ‘The Turn-off Place’. He went into the cave and lay down. The hornets are numerous down in that cave; we do not touch it; it is taboo. That is, the Gajara cave is taboo.
With regard to the kangaroo which they had taken with them on the raft and which was still with them when Gajara went down, and forced his way through the sea, and came out on the shore, they killed it after landing; and Gajara’s wife Galgalbiri put it in the earth oven and cooked it with other foods.
The smoke rose slowly until it reached through into the sky. Ngadja, the Supreme Being, said, ‘Oh, what is that smell? Ah, they are cooking a good kangaroo! The marrow smells; I can smell the odour.’ He could smell the steam and smoke rising from the female kangaroo as it was cooking and he was pleased.
Ngadja, the Supreme Being, put the rainbow in the sky to keep the rain-clouds back.
The rainbow lies bent across the sky; he ties up the clouds behind it and the rain does not come. The rainbow keeps the clouds back and protects us so that the rainfall does not rise too high. Our people understand the significance of it. When we see the rainbow we say, ‘There will not be any abnormally heavy rain.’
Art by Joshua Bollback Butler depicts the events of the tale.
I was so thrilled to find it! I've gotten a bunch where you can tell the other bird, especially when it's a large one or another raptor, that it is a fight, but this one comes off initially as so innocent.
If you check one of my other replies in this post, I talk about my wren vs woodpecker stories from this spring, and how that initially looked playful but escalated greatly to the point I thought there may have been a retaliatory assassination!
I had house wrens nest on my patio this year, but they were close to the tube feeder the much larger red bellied woodpeckers frequented. The male wren would glare at the woodpeckers from my garden stakes, and as days went by, the wren got increasingly aggressive to defend his nest. When I first noticed them, I thought the wren just wanted a spot at the feeder, but it got to be very obvious as the wren started going from grabbing at the woodpecker's tail to its face. After a while, it would attack much faster after the woodpecker's arrival, and it even started smacking it with its wings to the point I could hear the smacks through the glass of my patio door.
The one day I did catch the woodpecker on top of the nest platform the wrens' nest was on. I was worried it had enough of the wren's aggression and was going to attack the nest! My presence broke up the fight, but shortly after I found the nest largely destroyed. I didn't see any signs of a fight - it was mainly the top part of the nest removed and I didn't find anything in the nest itself. There were maybe a couple feathers on the ground, but again, no signs of violence. I'm thinking/hoping that the parents made sure the babies fledged before anything could happen. What I believe are the parents still hang around, as I still hear and see house wrens hang out on the patio, so that keeps me feeling things worked out well.
Bird combat can really look innocent at times. It was sort of "cute" seeing the woodpecker come "visit" the wrens, but it probably could have easily taken out the lot of them. I've seen the Cooper's hawk stalk the feeders. I've watched the jays fight off the hawk and the crows and squirrels. I think it's easy to forget these guys are little dinosaurs having epic battles on a scale we can't appreciate because we are so big and they are so beautiful to us. It's part of what I find fascinating about nature though. I wouldn't relish the thought of going one-on-one with an emu or ostrich! They're still pretty cool to look at though!
That's what it looks like, but it's really an intense battle of wills! I suppose it's like if you had a photo of 2 people in a brawl, but you snaped that photo at a time where it looked like they were hugging with toothy grins.
I love the ripple pattern!
That's awesome!
I love Owl Pope!
Zounds! And they got the number of toes correct!
It does seem to have potential similarities. Even with the owl head bobbing, it seems to be when they really want to 100% focus on something.
I haven't seen the young GHO eat yet, so I try to hide from it. I did my best job so far last week as the rain helped mask my sound I'm thinking. I hid behind the slats of the fencing and poked an eyeball around the corner. I figured it could still see me just fine, but without my whole outline, I wasn't sure it could recognize what I was.
That was the first time I saw it bob and weave its head while looking in my direction. It did it a few times. I was trying to stay as still as possible, and I was wondering just how good its hearing is. Can it hear me breath? Can it hear my feet keeping balance on the uneven ground? If they can hear mice under leaves with pinpoint precision, it doesn't seem that unlikely.
It eventually took some looks away from me, but as nothing else more interesting came up, it kept turning back to where I was and analyzing. The rain started picking up and I had actual work to do other than trying to outsmart owls, so I called it quits and chalked another win up for the GHO.
Head/eye injuries can be so serious to owls since those eyes make up so much of their heads and they tend to often smack face first into whatever they hit. We just lost a cute young Screech due to a double eye injury. It's so amazing to see ones like this Barred have another opportunity to be able to live out its full natural life after such a disaster. It really makes me love the owls and the care providers even more for their stubborn persistence.
We could go for interchangeable novelty glass eyes, ala Last Action Hero.
Excuse me, I was supposed to have the decaf!
Ooo that would be nice to see! That's too artsy for my skills.
He even still has the white streaks! 😄
(Greater Sooty)
Right?! How could you choose one over the other. They both look cool, make different sounds, and come in different sizes for different occasions. There's room for both in the world....and my heart.... 😍
It is one of their most superb adaptations. They don't all have offset ears, and some have it to greater or lesser degrees, but for those that do, it can be a second chance on life as long as they can get their injuries attended to.
I'm always on the lookout for a list of which species do/don't have this adaptation, which seems like something that would be fairly well known at this point, but I've yet to come across anything listing more than a handful of the 250+ species used as quick examples to say, yes, owls sometimes have this feature.
They feel like little cosmic owls to me. I love their space/stars patterns. Certainly not any "lesser" in my view. ✨
The downside is those people have kids that didn't vote for this.
And while I'd like the people that did vote for this to understand what they supported, I really don't want them to starve either. It feels more cruel than helpful. If we're supporting basic human rights, which we should, that includes shitty people, for better or worse.