Unrecognisable birds
Sir: I write this on a sunny Sydney afternoon, not far from Hunters Hill, listening to the shrieks, carols, twitterings and scoldings of the local bird population that now inhabits inner suburbs. I don’t know who gave Matthew Parris the information about Australian birds he uses in his article (Another voice, 8 November) but I found it passing strange. Rosellas come in two varieties in Sydney: crimson and Eastern. No such thing as a ‘scarlet Eastern’. Currawongs — large corvids — could by no means be described as having a ‘melodious, haunting call’. The words ‘loud’ and ‘raucous’ spring immediately to mind. The Australian magpie, far from being four times the size of European magpies, is roughly the same size. Its call could never be described as ‘chilling’: it is a lovely, melodious, gurgling sound that reminds me of Hopkins’s memorable description of the skylark’s ‘rinse and ring’. I agree with Parris about the kookaburra’s extraordinary call. It too is lovely — but not when you have a fishpond.
Alison Pressley
Balmain, Sydney
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