Barry Clugston

There is a great variety of possibilities for causing us to be on the lookout all the time. But I feel for those who live in earthquake zones, tsunamis, snowy mountains with such sharp ridges and peaks that make it impossible to walk or climb. People have lived and survived for multiple generations and think nothing of the annual landslide season. In Australia there are no savage beasts or stalking wildlife trying to eat us as a meal.

Trees with useable hollows can be completely consumed by a bush fire or knocked over by a wind and lost as a nesting possibility. To develop new hollows in a growing tree takes many years as many as 100. First a branch needs to tear off in a wind or snow lands on the tree or the tree gets overwhelmed and the breaks apart. Then insects make their homes in the sap wood. With all this activity the branches get weakened and will drop to the ground.

All the babbler families make use of ground level and mid height to spend their day feeding, and leaping around. The babblers can fly but one of the charactiristics and easily recognizable features are these giant strides the birds make. The birds make the exercise look so easy they cover so much territory in such quick time. They live in family groups and they chatter all the time and keep in touch with each other. When it comes to nesting they have an unusual practice.