Byron
Shire Echo June , ArticlesWelcoming the rowdy birdsMary Gardner Oh, to be as alive as rosellas and paperbark trees
For most of May, the bright rosella parrots were here in Byron in their thousands. From dawn they would start with their chattering as they wandered from one tree to another throughout the town. At dusk, many of them nished up in a deafening chorus all along the main beach front forest strip right up to the Norfolk pines at the park outside the Beach Hotel. Being a biologist new to the area, I mean it when I say I have never seen this before. I often heard that ocks of parrots migrate throughout the year. The paperbark trees owering provided the birds with a food supply and much more. Now, in early June, as this ush fades, many birds seem to have moved on. While the large noisy ocks were around, they were an endless fascination for me. They intruded on the morning chorus. Everywhere I walked about town, they made the owering branches of trees vibrate. Birds upside down, right side up, dashing in and out, one following the other and the other again. Parrots use their beaks and feet in clever ways unlike most other birds. They are A safer thought experiment might be to chew on some hybrid peas -- they will never sprout into new plants but your farmer did pick them from living growing ones. Explaining being alive requires using metaphors, images and thought patterns much more like life itself. This calls for a massive intellectual effort, leaving us dizzy and breathless. Frankly speaking, biology is only barely beginning to learn this. To date, the best explanation I know of is this one, originating with Maturana and Varela. The wordless wonder of a living being is that each is a self-organising system, creative and interdependent with other selforganizing systems. Whatever were the free moving systems that gathered here in Byron, that played interdependent with the stationary ones lets hear it for parrots and paperbark trees. Lets use a bit of systemic thinking. Lets make damn sure those ne trees stay healthy and long lived throughout Byron Land private and public. Protect the young ones as they grow. Thats our part in welcoming the rowdy birds back again.Rosella parrot in a paperbark. Photo Mary Gardnerpart of social groupings and activities we still only guess about. For all their jolly noise and antics, they are rather shy of humans and are best observed at a distance. What are they exactly doing throughout the day What are the details of their communications with each other and other creatures What effect do they have on the trees and vice versa And on the area in general They exist as delightful mysteries on the edge of science. They are alive. In biology, explaining being alive is not easy. Is it a mix of chemicals No, a test tube of parrot pure is not alive. Is it a genetic code No, the mere reading aloud of a dictionary in parrot amino acids doesnot conjure up a noisy colourful being. Is a living being a special type of machine whose assembly and instruction manuals are hidden from view How absurd can we be to think of so puny a metaphor What machines do more than expected Adapt themselves to situations Oh, isnt being alive simply about reproducing and passing on inheritances We really must really laugh at that cultural idea passing as a scientic fact. This sounds like some twisted thinking of a fabled family dynasty in a bestseller novel, clawing at social and financial status over time. Before they kick you down, Mary Gardner is a biolotell mules they are not alive. gist, writer and tutor. See her
