How Lifer Pie Became Lifer Day

Aboard Tropic Paradise in the Torres Strait having Lifer Pie treat with James

I reckon it was in 2017 that I began stretching the tradition of Lifer Pie into a daylong event, Lifer Day. As life birds became fewer and farther between (by both time and distance), I thought that more of a celebration was in order. I began to take a day, often drinking a non-alcoholic beer or two while eating a lot of pistachios and writing. Often writing about the bird that I was celebrating. Then in the evening, I would have celebratory food, i.e. the traditional Lifer Pie.

My classic Lifer Day setup in my study. This was in January 2023 for Papuan Pitta.

My neurodivergent brain has great difficulty in actualising any accomplishment I make. I was also raised to feel that I did not deserve to celebrate anything that I did. It was all just expected. Nothing was allowed to be special.

That sounds harsh, but it is a fact. All through my developmental years, I would hear how horribly my brother, mother, or father had suffered during various parts of their lives (although not from my father, he rarely spoke about anything). I learned not to feel that my own ups or downs had any significance what-so-ever. No, not compared with others. Not if it was ever so.

Heaps of therapy and much introspection through writing has convinced me that I do indeed ‘deserve’. I don’t feel it, but at least I intellectually know it. And the Lifer Day celebration helps with remembering that for a day, or part of a day, whatever I can get away with.

I have a storage box in my closet containing about a score of journals. I kept hand-written journals post-rehab and pre-computer. One of the first important things that I wrote in a journal were the two words.

“I deserve”.

Thirty-four years later and I am still trying to convince myself. Family of origin issues are extremely powerful and we often continue in relationships that reinforce them. 

I need to bear in mind, that the lack of deserving anything has been a large part of the fuel for the engine of my creative brain. It is why I became a successful live performer. Standing ovations and encores cannot be denied! And they happened very regularly back then. They really did.

The audience at the i.e. Theatre of Performing Arts in Axminster, England where I broke the attendance record. There was a standing ovation and encore.  

Now, I write. My two published books grew in part from my lack of self-worth and trying to understand that I had indeed done something.

I wrote to remember the experiences and to make them real to me by sharing them. “Yes, I did do that. You can read about me doing it. And I can read about me doing it!” Weird I know, but the absolute truth.

Very proud of both books. I can feel that and I know I deserve to feel that. Sort of.

I was going to have a Lifer Day last Monday for Singing Starling. Although I did eat ice cream and chips, Lynn had (we think) a case of food poisoning. She was quite sick for a couple of days. Even though ate ice cream but I really did not enjoy it in a Lifer Pie worthy way. So, last Wednesday when James came to visit and I had Lifer Pie smash burger takeaway and Ben and Jerry’s with him. And finally, Singing Starling got Lifer Pie it deserved. And it was a Lifer for James as well. Here's a little look back on a few other Lifer Pie treats.

Richard took me to this spot on Cocos to have Lifer Pie treats. My friend Alan joined us too.

Lyndhurst Hotel to have Lifer dinner for my 700th bird Grey Grasswren

I love pecan pie bars that Lynn makes and with ice cream they are the perfect Lifer Pie

Lifer Pie dinner for Princess Parrots in Alice Springs

Lifer Pie for successful brain MRI. I did not have cancer. I continue to get a yearly MRI and all good (but no more desserts after).

That leaves Uniform Swiftlet, Red-capped Flowerpecker, and the magnificent, phenomenal. mega of all megas (MOAM) Papuan Hornbill for my future Lifer Days. Wonderful things to look forward to. But... no matter how I try, I still suck at that.

Sending love as I do ❤️

Maps and Lists, Photos and Thoughts.

Me watching the sunsetting in the zodiac off Saibai Island far, far north QLD (photo Carol Suter)

First a couple of personal notes. The internet is how I keep in touch with far flung friends and loved ones.

Physically, I am doing okay for my age and mileage. After 7 months of “smaller portions, wiser choices and more active”, I am comfortably at my goal weight. Hallelujah. My migraines are around and will be until they aren’t. I do have 70 year old plumbing that seems to have gone out of warrantee a few years ago and continues to vex me. I am having a small surgery again regarding that Wednesday week with a night in hospital. Oddly, considering my anxiety issues, I do not get anxious about surgery itself. That is completely out of my control and they give me drugs. Both are good for my ADHD, anxiety/depression neurodivergent brain.

Okay, now on with what I’ve been writing about.

It occurred to me recently that my bird list is like a map! (And I do love maps). It’s a map of my birding life. Each Life Bird represents a location, a town, a place somewhere across the vast continent and territories of Australia. I used to have a big map of the USA with pins in each of the hundreds of cities and towns where I had gigged. I’d love to do that with birds and maybe I will someday. For now, I can follow this trail of birds by reading down my list looking at the dates and locations. For me, it is one of the most wonderful parts of birding and keeping a bird list. I love my list (783 in Oz now).

My old USA gig map. I did at least one show in every town with a pin

Below are the maps on the walls of my study. And one (Queensland) on my closet door. I have run out of wall space and I love that big map of QLD that goes all the way up the Torres Strait including the northern most Australian islands.

As time and age hurtle along, choices become more limited. I can spark genuine joy in the memories of my many amazing experiences. When life sucks ‘right now’, I can still picture in my mind other places and happier times. As we get older it is increasingly the memoires that bring joy.

Sometimes remembering anything is asking a lot of the brain. So I write, and I write, and I need to share what I have written. It helps to make the experiences (and myself) real. Without external validation, I do not exist. Sad but oh so very true (you know you can buy these books).

I also look back at my photos. They are important to me as well, but my relationship with photography has changed over the years and particularly over the last few years. Photography has leaped forward technology-wise and I have chosen not to leap with it, or at least not to leap as far. I still take my camera birding, but it is (was) a 2009 camera. I have thousands upon thousands of photos taken with that camera. Here is a Blue-headed Vireo from 2014...

However! Only last week I came across an amazing deal on a lightly used 7D Mark ll. I have messed with it a little bit and so far, crossed fingers, I love it. My old push-pull, white 100-400mm lens is still working fine and of course clicks right into the Mark II. So now take birding pictures with a newer, old camera.

Fairy Martin on the track yesterday at the WTP with the new old camera

I bought my first ‘good’ camera, the classic 7D, in the spring of 2009. Some people thought my bird photos were really good. I do have a decent ‘eye’ as they call it. I have a dear friend in the US who has about 8 of my photos framed and hung in the rooms of his medical practice. They truly looked beautiful. I imagine he is the only doctor in Virginia, USA with a framed Zebra Finch in one of his rooms.& Nowadays my photographs are fairly ordinary compared to what is achievable with the new technologies. F-ing AI is a game changer. That it is a game I will not be playing. No, not if it was ever so.

Someone with modern tech knowledge can already manipulate photos into ‘something’ far beyond the photo that they originally shot. Soon (now?) they won’t even need to take a photograph. Just ask AI for a picture of whatever bird they’d like and ‘poof’ they will have one. Stringers are going to have a field day (without needing to go into the field). Oh yes, AI ‘writes’ too: books, articles, comments and posts on social media, songs, etc and so on and on. Talent is being replace by ‘tech-craft’. Heart is being replaced by technology. It is going to get worse. Yes, and worse and worse. I am honestly glad I am old and will not be around a lot longer. This is not my world in so many ways, both globally and personally. That is not going to change and I have run slam-out of acceptance. 

Sending love from a real, live heart ❤️ 

My Birder Ink

On 7 March, 2024 in the joyous company of 9 other ecstatic birder friends on Dauan Island, Queensland, I beheld the Papuan Hornbill, Rhyticeros plicatus. I knew that I would get a tattoo of that bird.

Back in Victoria, my buddy James traced and drew the hornbill’s head from a scope-phone pic taken about 700 metres from the perched bird. Then Zac at Shinto Studio traced one of my photos of it in flight and positioned it beside the head. On Wednesday 27 March the tattoo was inked onto the inside of my left forearm. I love it!   

Zac inking the Hornbill 

Ever since my 700th Australian bird, Amytornis barbatus (Grey Grasswren) tattoo in August 2018, getting a Lifer Tattoo had become an important part of seeing a particularly meaningful bird. It is like an ultimate version of Lifer Pie. It is Lifer Ink and it is reserved for very special birds. It became a significant part of my birding experience. I had not gotten any ink since Feb 2020 just before Covid and I did not realise how much I had missed it. 

This bird brought my birder ink back. It is the most meaningful and special bird of my birding-life. To quote Richard Baxter it is, “The mega of all megas, there will never be another bird to beat it.” That is my opinion as well. The mega of all megas, MOAM. At least for Australian birds and for me (and quite a few other birders).

Speaking of my ink, As I am writing this, I realise that I don’t know exactly how many birds names and or illustrations of some sort I have on my arms. I will now attempt to ‘inventory’ my birds (not counting the compass rose, ‘b;rd’, the Whale Shark, Troopi, or Kon-Tiki, just the birds). I am doing this at 5 something in the morning while I am having a vestibular migraine, but this is what my brain feels like doing at this point, so here we go. Now I finally have an answer when someone asks, “How many bird tattoos do you have?” Fifteen.

1. Amytornis barbatus 700 (Grey Grasswren) 

2. Polytelis alexandrea (Princess Parrot) 

3. Elanus scriptus (Letter-winged Kite) 

4. Pedionomus torquatus (Plains Wanderer) 

5. Atrichornis rufescens (Rufous Scrub-bird) 

6. Neophema chrysogaster (Orange-bellied Parrot) 

7. Ardeola bacchus (Chinese Pond-Heron)

8. Phylloscopus borealis (Arctic Warbler) 

9. Turdus obscurus (Eyebrowed Thrush) 

10. Ficedula Mugimaki (Mugimaki Flycatcher) 

11. Accipiter gularis (Japanese Sparrowhawk) 

12. Amytornis housei (Black Grasswren) 

13. Ardea purpurea (Purple Heron) 

14. Psophodes nigrogularis (Black-throated Whipbird) 

15. Rhyticeros plicatus (Papuan Hornbill)

A few are just the Latin name and some have an illustration as well. But they all have a story and they are all meaningful for me. Some of the tattoos that are only the name are not quite as ‘big a deal’ in my mind as the ones with illustrations. I liked the idea of adding some names of cool birds interwoven amongst the larger tattoos to help tie the whole thing together a bit. This was pre-Covid when I was getting ink somewhat regularly. I even created a Facebook group called, "Birder Ink".

Mirror selfie in Zac' studio last Wednesday

The next bird going somewhere on my left arm will be Northern Rockhopper Penguin. That was a special bird indeed. 

I will also get something for the Juan Fernandez Petrel as well as the Tufted Duck and a few others. I was just looking back at my list and I am inspired. Now I am going to choose photos to accompany my words as I do. Yes, this has made dealing with the migraine a little better. I hate to even mention them, but it is an integral part of what’s going on with me this morning.

Sending love as I do ❤️

Torres Strait March 2024- Part Two

After the infamous, 'night of mud', the next morning we walked back to the stakeout spot by the mangroves where we again watched the sky and trees for birds. This time we had another Lifer, Uniform Swiftlet. Everyone got good views of the swiftlet, but no photos that I know of (although someone in the group might have). I was just very happy to see it and know that is what it was. How do you identify a Uniform Swiftlet? Mostly because Richard said, “Uniform Swiftlet!” But also because it’s the only swiftlet seen on Boigu Island. In bird identification sometimes it is location, location, location. And then we went into the mangrove jungle.   

Boigu Island Richard's stakeout spot, I got 3 Lifers there and two a short walk from there.

There were a couple of spots down a ‘trail’ into the mangroves where Richard had previously found Red-capped Flowerpeckers. They are a tiny, flighty little bird that will come in, but then does not hang around. We slogged, waded and walked deeper into this mangrove jungle. We came to a clearing-like area where we left some of our stuff as we continued on following the sort-of trail into this jungle. Eventually we stopped and soon most of the group had seen the Flowerpecker. Joy. Sweaty, bug-spray smelling, joy. 

A few of the group had not seen the flitting Flowerpecker well enough and Richard took them deeper into the jungle to another spot. The rest of us followed (as best we could) the trail back. I was grateful when I saw our stuff in that clearing. I hung my bins over Richard’s scope and walked well away from the optics to apply more mozzie spray (it can destroy the coating on optic lenses). We made our way back to the our stools at our birding stakeout and then, I realised I had left my binoculars hanging on Richard’s scope in the mangrove-mozzie jungle.

I knew I had done it and I knew they were safe. But I bought those bins in 2010, reconditioned for 1600 US dollars. If I had to replace them they would cost over three-thousand Australia dollars. I am not, at this point in my life, able to absorb that sort of financial hit. I knew they were fine, but my anxiety, which is basically a brain-bush-fire waiting for even a small gust of wind, was firing up.

My bins at the corner of the table just above my scope later that day. We kept our optics and cameras on the top deck so that they would not fog-up after being in a/c in our cabins,

My new friend Mal, a few years my junior, just said, I’ll be right back and walked off quickly. I followed behind him in disbelief asking if he was really walking back for my bins. He knew I was anxious about them and off he went. It only took him a few minutes (he is also a much faster walker than I am, I have gotten pretty slow). And sooner than I expected, he was back with my bins. Mal a new real life friend, that was heroic and massively appreciated.

On a side note here, Mel was on the Torres Strait trip because he had read and enjoyed both of my books and was a member of my FB Group “An Australian Birding Year and More Australian Birding Tales- The Books”. 

When Richard had an opening on this trip, he asked me to post about it on my social media. Mel read the post in the group and booked-in for this trip. He is a great guy and birder and we all enjoyed his company. And what a very nice thing for him to do going back for my bins. 

Mal, James and me later at the Horn Island Airport

Back to Tropic Paradise and more food. In the arvo, some of the group took boat rides along the coast of the island and I took a nap. I do get up early, and too often, too early. They had a fine time and so did I (they did not see any new birds). The following morning, Thursday 7 March began with thunder and pouring rain. It had rained a lot at times but this was torrential. We were ready to go at 5:30am but Richard decided we would wait (we would have been drenched). Then it was time to go to ‘the’ island. We sometimes called it Randy Island. Dauan Island.

Our captain Tash, driving the Zodiac away from Dauan Island

I have written the tale of ‘Randy’ the mega of all megas, in the first blog entry of the trip, “The Tale of the Papuan (Blyth’s) Hornbill.” Click that link and have a read if you like. 

We left Dauan Island with the highest of Lifer High echoing through us all. The Papuan Hornbill was the Lifer of a lifetime for me (and others too I am sure). It was the biggest thrill of my birding life. I am writing these words in later March but I can honestly tap-into that Hornbill Lifer Hight right now here in my study thousands of kilometres from Dauan Island and days after I first saw ‘Randy’. The song “Blinded by the Light” will now always be special to me after Manfred Mann sang us down the road as we walked back on that phenomenal evening. Then we rode the boats back to the Tropic Paradise for another wondrous meal prepared by our lovely chef, KB. Lifer High is one of the birding gifts that keeps on giving. 

After spending some time with Randy again the following morning, we chugged over to Saibai Island which was just next door so-to-speak. Captain Tash tucked Tropic Paradise into the sheltered waters of a river where we anchored for the night.     

Dauan Island mountains behind Saibai Island

One more shot of 'Randy' the Papuan Hornbill in flight

That land across the horizon is PNG. 

Tropic Paradise in her spot on Gurney's Corner in Saibai

The following morning we birded Saibai. We took the zodiac to the town quay and walked in light rain to a soggy cemetery. There we spread out along a line at the edge and waited and watched (birding). No, it was not the most scenic area, but hopes were high for birds and Hornbill high still reverberated through us. We had lovely views of another perched Orange-fronted Fruit-dove. We also birded the tip which was as visually dismal as one might imagine a wet tip (I did not take any photos). But such places can be excellent birding spots, although we did not see any new birds, we of course had hope. 

Stakeout at the cemetery, James is down there with his umbrella. I was grateful that I had my Blunt umbrella and used it several times on this trip. Here are a few more photos on Saibai Island. 

                  

Carol Suter took a photo of Richard and me talking using the portrait setting on her phone.

We departed the soggy town on Saibai and went back aboard Tropic Paradise. That afternoon with the tide high, we were able to take our little boats up a small river and get a few more brief views of Red-capped Flowerpeckers. James even got a photo. 

Watching for Gurney's Eagle on what is called Gurney's corner. The eagle did not show.

This was on Saibai but not sure when (photo Carol Suter)

James' recording shot of the Red-capped Flowerpecker down the little river.

Leaving later that night, we steamed south through gratefully calm waters. I slept well and longish, with the low hum of the boat’s engines combining with my white noise app (I live with tinnitus and have used white-noise at night to sleep for years). The next day we packed our things and left to begin our travels home. We were all flying to Cairns on the Horn Island 5:20pm flight.

Photos are in reverse order, but you get the idea. Getting to Horn Island and flying to Cairns.

Horn Island airport. It is pretty small 

I want to include a quick and deeply heartfelt thank you and so much love to my dear, dear friend Janet Mead. Not only did she collect James and me at the airport, then give us lodging in their beautiful little home for the night, she had chicken and rice soup waiting for us when we got there. I love her and David (he was away guiding a tour). Then she took us to the airport first thing the following morning.    

Melbourne 

By that evening I was here in my study where I relive these memories by assembling words into tales of my life. Thank God for memories. I am so grateful for these experiences and the words with which to preserve them.

And I bought a new big, laminated, Hema Map of Queensland that goes all the way up to the edge of PNG. It's on the centre door of my closet. I am running out of wall space in the study.

Sending love as I do ❤️