Regarding TMI

Apropos of nothing specific, I am introducing a new acronym. It is NEI for Not Enough Information. This would be the counterpoint to the overused and sometimes annoying acronym, TMI for Too Much Information. 

Selfie at the 'old tree' yesterday which can be a part of my hikes in Wurdi Youang

We have all heard, “Whoa, TMI!” at some point (admittedly some of us more than others) and there are those who use the expression more than others. I don’t believe I have ever said, “TMI” to anyone. But some people are too fragile and precious to be real with. They don't really want to share openly and authentically. In my opinion, there are too many precious people who would rather not know and understand than to hear something that is possibly, messy and uncomfortable. 

I can’t remember the last time someone said, “TMI” to me. It’s been a while and that’s good. As you can probably tell, I can be judgy about the phrase. When someone says it to me, it works. I shut-down whatever I was going to share. Sadly, because sometimes we could really use some more information, NEI. 

Especially as we age, we all need people we can to talk openly to about stuff. People with whom we can be comfortable talking about uncomfortable, or possibly ‘delicate’ topics. The aging body has quite a few delicate topics, as does the aging brain. There are many mental/emotional topics that can be uncomfortable to talk about. At this point in my life, all of my older family loved-ones (and the loved-me-back ones) are gone. So my circle of those who truly want some genuine information from me has been shrunk to a very few. 

Both of my books wander into delicate topics and genuine feelings. And I know for a fact there are people who have appreciated my openness regarding some things. And I hugely appreciate their appreciation. I write to share. 

Looking across a paddock on yesterday's hike

There’s a popular catch phrase question, “R U OK?” It’s cute, and like TMI it can be written just in letters. But the question only has value if the person asking genuinely wants to know, even if the answer might be considered TMI. In my opinion the vast majority are not looking for an authentic answer. They just want you to say that you are okay so that then they can feel okay about you being okay and about themselves for asking. Okay?

At many times in my life, and particularly in the last few years, I have had extended periods of not being okay. If you read my writing, you are aware of my depression and anxiety issues. I have written that they are the conjoined twins of my neurodivergent brain. I have my coping mechanisms and I do get along, but in general my genuine answer to RU OK? Would be, “Not really”. But I am rarely asked. 

The phone time I got up this morning. I love my wallpaper but I did not get enough sleep  

So, my real life friends, and my internet friends (my dear e-migos) I will promise you this, should you want to tell me about, or discuss, anything at all, it is never TMI to me. In fact, sometimes it is NEI.

Sending love as always and I am okay ❤️

Acceptance and Gratitude Again

Acceptance and Gratitude are two of the most important words for living.

Me and a Red-footed Booby sculpture on Christmas Island Dec 2023. I've used this as a profile pic. I think it fairly well represents who I am. Gonzo birding... hell yes.

As I have written before, in practice, of the two gratitude comes more easily for me. I am so very grateful for so much that I have done in my life. I am. I feel it and I appreciate it. Acceptance is much more difficult, at times it is painfully so. I have learned that I do not have to like something to accept it. In fact, it is possible to despise something and to accept it (not easy, but possible). 

And it’s sort of funny that I accept and believe that statement as truth and yet I hate it. The Serenity Prayer is (to me) the basis, the core, of AA, recovery and just plain living, regardless of addiction issues. It is simply some of the best advise ever written. 

“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” 

There you have life in the proverbial nutshell. It is a simple group of words that mean so much and yet can be so very difficult to practice in everyday living. Another little group of words is, “One day at a time.” Again, not just for recovery but for life. Another sentence that goes well with that one is, “This too shall pass.” Because that is another truth. It is a ‘chiselled in stone’ truth. Every single thing “too shall pass’. Everything ends. In the television show, Dr Gregory House said repeatedly that “everybody lies”. But also, everybody dies. Both are true.

You might as well accept it, time will kill us all. Everyone and everything. Time is the cartoon snowball rolling downhill. It starts small and then grows exponentially the further along it goes until it smashes into whatever is at the bottom of the hill.

Another often used photo of me and also with a Booby. That is a live young Red-footed Booby also on Christmas Island 2023. We took the bird to the park service. It had an injured wing.

I do not know what is at the bottom of the hill. But I know for an absolute fact that I will get there, and it will be much sooner than later. I accept that. I cannot change it.

We are getting closer to the US election and I do have genuine hope. Millions will vote Harris and Walz and blue down the ballot to begin to save that country. Together.

Sending love as I do. Stay Gonzo, there are way fewer rules than you think 💙

Adulting: I Would if I Could, but I Can't and I Won’t.

Over a year ago, I wrote a blog post about becoming 70 and entering my official era of ‘Old.’ I am 71 now and yesterday I hiked over ten and a half kilometres on my favourite trials in Wurdi Youang (the You Yangs Regional Park). It was the first 'real' hike I had done since 30 July and that my friends, was fucked up. But I now I am back to Hiking!

The rock I named "Old Grumpy" when I first hiked up there several years ago. I almost aways take a selfie with him.   

  

Another spot that I almost always take a selfie, where the trail passes through a boulder. So cool

Time goes by so much more quickly as we age. It is math that even I can understand. A year is now less than one seventieth of my life’s existence. Time passes by me over 69 times faster than it does for my 2 year old granddaughter. It flies. 

So, when you think... Well, I went for a hike just ‘the other week’ it turns out that it was almost two months ago. And just as quickly, over-eating can add up calories before I notice. Gaining a kilo a month is nothing. It’s nothing until, in what seems like the blink of an eye, six or seven months have flown-by and I’m up fifteen pounds or so. Why don’t these jeans fit anymore? They fit last month, no wait, maybe that was six months ago. Damn.

There is no nice way to say it, time will eventually kill us all. And many of us are getting to the age where we can sort of ‘see’ that coming. Not in a “I am dying” kind of way, but in a realistic “time is running out” way. Because it is. Literally.& I know that I do not behave like a seventy-one year old (except for the naps, and I have taken those for years). In general I don’t even act like what some consider to be a ‘responsible’ adult. I would if I could, but I can't and I won’t. 

But to mention a few things that I am: I am a hippie, leftwing, compassionate, obsessive, right-brained, creative, smart (143 IQ so they told me), tattooed, birding, insecure, over-sensitive, recovering alcoholic, recovering smoker, depressed, anxious, nature loving, approval seeking, old guy. That's me.& And I am massively ADHD with the accompanying Autism traits. It is now known that ADHD and autism frequently co-occur. Many people with one of the two diagnoses show elevated traits of both. I was diagnosed ADHD twenty-some years ago. 

Common experiences for ADHD and autism include sensory differences, intense focus on specific interests, rejection sensitivity, executive dysfunction, sleep issues and emotional dysregulation. Those are me 100%. Yes I cope. But it would be nice if people understood that there’s a reason for my behaviour other than being lazy. I have learned many coping mechanisms and will continue to do my best. Like most of us, I have always done my best. At seventy-one there are not going to be a lot of changes in my basic personality. 

Getting a shingles jab the other week. I do believe in science.

But I am genuine. I am real. I create and some of what I created is ‘Velveteen Rabbit’ real. My books and my songs will carry on beyond me and that, my friends is valuable to me. It is far more valuable than money. I loathe with all my heart placing monetary value on life. Despise it (so of course I don’t have it).

     

And once again, I have written. I do write. I like to write and I will continue. Please follow me if you enjoy my words. I may go to Substack or something. I suck at technology I do continue to pay for My Website so there is info on there about what I have created.

Stay Gonzo my dear friends and in the USA vote blue down-ballot because lives literally depend upon it. Sending love as I do 💙

Velveteen Wisdom ~ My Books Are Real

I hope y'all like this. I enjoyed writing it more than I have enjoyed writing anything in a very long while. 

I first met Mal Macdonald in person during a fantastic week birding the northern Australian islands of the Torres Strait in March of 2024. He had first met me through my books. As I have said many times “If you’ve read my books, you have met me.” Those books genuinely are me (granted, mostly the better parts of me). 

The photo from the post that brought it all together for me. Thank you Mal.

The other day, Mal sent me a photo of himself holding well-worn, well-enjoyed copies of “An Australian Birding Year” and ”More Australian Birding Tales”. I love hearing about my words connecting with people. And then I realised that those two books, as well as some other people’s copies, have been read, and reread, and dare I say it, they have actually been loved. 

And then an awesome thought hit me. 

I thought about one of the most wonderful books ever written, “The Velveteen Rabbit” by Margery Williams. It is a children’s book that was written in 1922, but it is brilliant and timeless. It’s the story of a toy rabbit learning about what it means to become real. It happens with love.  

I will quote a small portion of the book about becoming real. 

“You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Once my books were read and reread by people, that is when they became real. It was not when they were first officially published and distributed. It was not when they were first in stores, or for sale online, or even (and I do love this) on the shelves of a library. 

I have about a score of screen caps of AABY being a number one best seller on Amazon

What Mal wrote in his post that inspired this writing. Again, thank you my friend.

It was when they were loved that they became real books.

When I learned that some people had carried them along on their travels into the bush, or out on the sea, or anywhere, because they wanted to take those tales with them, that was when I knew they were real books and that I had done something. 

I suppose I have done a few somethings. I’ve written and sung a lot of songs. I recorded albums and some people own the CDs (or even cassette tapes) of the albums. Mostly they have them and listen to them digitally nowadays. But however they hear me, I am still the one singing my words to them. And yes... some of them love some of my songs, my real songs. 

2008 doing that other something that I did so well back then.

And again, it is when they are loved that they become real.

It is in sharing that my heart can appreciate that I have indeed done something. Through that sharing I have ‘become’. For me, sharing is love. At my age I have become quite wrinkled and a bit shabby and some of my joints are loose. But I am real.

Sending real love and real gratitude. 

Life: Been there. Done that. ❤️

Bali is Gonzo Birding

Honestly (which is the only way I am willing to write) I was not looking forward to it. But I had an amazing, almost all wonderful, and many layered, very, very Gonzo experience in Bali. This may be two blogs and I will begin with my day of Gonzo Birding. It is late being posted because I am going through some changes. Back to the tale.


I was not going there to bird. I was spending a week in Bali for my stepson, Josh’s 50th birthday celebration. His actual B-day is 10 December, but he wanted to have it in Bali and Bali is better in Aussie winter. I will write about all that in the second part maybe. So we flew out of Melbourne on 24 June at dawn (I got up a 2am).





Garuda Airlines was great (I am a Virgin flyer. I did not book this, but I paid for it)
After having gazed at photos of the magnificent Javan Banded Pitta over the years, I realised that actually beholding it was a real possibility. Amongst my wonderful birding friends, there are several with a lot of Bali knowledge. Marc Gardner really knows Bali and Ed Williams does as well. Just a month or so before the trip I decided to look into a day of birding. Marc was away birding himself at the time, but I caught up with my dear friend (who I never see but is a dear friend) Ed. He really had only one name for me, Made Surya, (yes, his first name is Made). He is the number one birder in Bali and in my opinion the number one guide. If I was going to do only onr day of birding in a new country, I wanted to do it right. I did.


Made Surya and me having seen the Javan Pitta only moments ago (Made's photo)

If you have never been to Bali, you might not believe how truly horrible (crazy, scary, congested) the traffic is there. It can easily take over an hour to travel 20 km. So, Made sent a driver to collect me at our villa at 4am. As I do, I had been up since 2am coffeeing hard. We did not arrive at Made’s house until about 7:15am, over 3 hours to travel 118 km. The drive home during heavier traffic time, took well over 4 hours and I did not arrive back at the villa until almost 9pm





The first two hours of the drive were in the dark. The LED lights on the trucks were amazing. I had never before seen that sort of thing. The multicoloured lights made patterns and pictures and were really quite beautiful and even Christmasy in a way. They do help other drivers see the vehicles coming on the winding, often narrow and always crowded roads.

 
After a bizarrely enjoyable 3+ hours we rocked up at Made’s (I will include a map). My driver, whose name I never truly did understand, but a very nice guy, left me with Made and we walked into the bush. We were heading straight for my main target. It is also the main target of all visiting birders. After a short hike we stopped at a small sort-of clearing and Made hung up a black webbing/screen material between two trees. It was a portable hide and we only used it there.

He directed me to sit on a stump and to look through one of two holes in the material. In only a few minutes, from our left a Javan Banded Pitta came cautiously hoping into the ‘clearing’. It hopped up onto a log and I stared at it though my bins. Then I made its photo a few dozen times.

Joy.

I had beheld one of the most beautiful birds in the world and the bird that had ‘led’ me to the other side of the country. It was right there. It stayed on the log for a minute or two I reckon. Time just stopped whilst I stared at, and photographed, that bird. Then it hopped away back into the bush. Made said that it would probably come back. But I thanked him, then I said a phrase I have often said after getting good views of a target bird, “That bird owed me nothing more.” It really was as good as it could be. We could move along to other birds.












The wondrous Javan Banded-Pitta.

I will rely on my photo time stamps and Made’s eBird list to sort the day into some sort of order. In the next half an hour I added, White-nest Swiftlet (formerly Edible-nest), Malaysian Pied-fantail, Asian Glossy Starling and the Collared Kingfisher to my World List.

We got into Made’s comfortable Landcruiser and drove to the Bali Barat National Park for more birding, including my second most wanted target and the rarest bird in Bali, the Bali Myna (sometimes called the Bali Starling). Not long ago, the population of these birds in the wild as down to only about fifty. It is now estimated to be around 600 and they are only in the national park. We saw them in two spots there and I managed to get a few photos. They are stunning and so wonderfully Gonzo.





Yes, I even saw one on a cow in the shade (it was very warm)







This was wonderful Gonzo Birding. Although my Australian Bird list is what I most focus on, it is of course nice to add some birds to my world list. I keep my official Aussie list using IOC. In order to have a guess at what my world ‘number’ is I have to check on eBird (they use the Clements list). According to eBird I have seen 1,370 species worldwide.


I do not want to just write out a list the birds I saw in Bali. I will choose some photos to accompany the words. I know I did not get a picture of every bird I saw there, but I am certainly okay with that.


Some of the stunning birds of which I only got mediocre photos of were the Chestnut-headed Bee-eater, another was the Lineated Barbet and Coppersmith Barbet. I also got a very lame recording shot of the Orange-breasted Green-Pigeon. There were so many birds that I really knew nothing about. I know I had cracking looks at a very cool Racket-tailed Treepie. I thought I got a photo of it too, but it seems I did not, so I have grabbed one off the internet just to show y’all. I may also be making a mistake or two in identification on here.




Sooty-headed Bulbul



Racket-tailed Treepie taken from the internet. Awesome bird and I really thought I got a shot of it. But I do not care about whether or not I get a photo of a bird. I bird and write.

All up, I ended up with 33 new world Lifers. I will not be having Lifer Pie for those. I save official Lifer Pie for Australian birds and besides, while I was on holiday in Bali I was indulgent with food daily.

I am definitely only writing about some of my favourites here. Speaking of which, I now have a new favourite Gerygone, the Golden-bellied. My last Lifer of the day was one of the best, and certainly one of my favourites. Although they were quite distant, I was able to stare at a pair of Javan Kingfishers through the scope and take a couple of recording shots of them in a tree. They are magnificent birds (a word I do often use, but it often fits). Here are some Bali birding memory photos (might not get them all captioned today 16 Sept).





Lineated Barbet








Orange-breasted Green Pigeon





Javan Red-faced Barbet



Last 'lifers' of the day, Javan Kingfishers way off in a tree (watched them through the scope)


Freckle-breasted Woodpecker



Crab-eating Macague Monkey and child



Javan Plover


Golden-breasted Gerygone




Small Blue Kingfisher (its name. This is why we use upper case)


White-headed Munia


Black Drongo (sounds like a movie title)


Chestnut-headed Bee-eater

It is definitely Gonzo Birding up there. I will continue to share (and to Gonzo, yes it is a verb too. I am Gonzoing pretty hard today).

Sending hope 💙