Oystercatcher Diary - 2015 Day 2.7

For today's note I'd like to sing a song to the tune of an old Herman's Hermit song called "No Milk Today".

Here goes, and for those of you that have heard me sing, please try to remember how the Herman's Hermits lead singer did it who was in tune.

"No news today, the dogs have gone away, the birds they sit forlorn, watching nothing but the dawn."

Today was our first no dog day, so am over the moon. I know we have a lot of work ahead on this front, but one whole day is worth celebrating!

Our end message for our birds, however, is hopefully going to be brighter than this song. I looked it up because it was the only leading line I could think of to describe a no news day, but then looked up the whole song lyrics and they are less than cheery. Bouncy tune, sad lyrics, how does that work? Sells lots of records apparently.

John Perkins, my key adviser, who is working with South Coast Shorebirds, called today to let me know he is sending up a box of hair from the South Coast. Apparently they don't look at you down there like you were asking to smoke the hair in front of their reception area and are quite willing to give it to you.

This is why it seems so hard to protect our last remaining birds on a Sydney beach. People just seem to look at you weird when you ask for something a little outside of everyday normal, particularly when they perhaps live on the edge of the heart of suburbia. Asking people to look out for birds? How bizarre. Here we are lucky enough to live just outside, and are proud to put up with our unusual suburbia requests to let the last of the birds still willing to put up with the eccentricities of Sydney a go.

Also today our two beach metal detector guys were at it again. They were working the beach up until last weekend and I gave them no mind. Today, they were hard at it again so thought I should just have a word to them because the only patch of the beach they haven't covered is the patch our birds our nesting in. Turns out they work for Wollongong council planting trees on the islands and if they were to go into a bird nesting area it would cost them their jobs. What they did tell me was that someone had told them to come up here with their metal detectors because there was a fortune to be made. I pity that person. He then reached into his pocket, pulled out four sinkers and 1 metal fish lure. Mark and I go hunting for "treasure" on the Tuesdays after a particularly good long weekend and that consists of caps, thongs (never two the same style or size) tennis balls, and if we are really, really, lucky, a flat soccer ball.