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I still like the way "Adelaide Crows" rolls in my mouth. Some sense of oppositional vowel? the ways the a and the o don't sit right together but share something? A seems up, the o seems down, yet they're a major fifth apart? A de la (cr) o Up down up (down further) (up a bit) When I was a kid, seagulls - not the kittiwakes ya gets here in Cambs - used to sit on the gunbarrel bollards and stare at you with a yellow eye from the side of their head. And thems with their sodding big beaks. They were as tall as me then and looked like they could carry me off. The black-backed gulls were far worse, being bigger, but they perched on the bollards less. I shall have to listen to the Messiaen again. Roger On 3/11/06, Jill Jones <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Hi Roger, > > As for crows, well, our crows, the native ones, are actually Australian > Ravens. They have a very distinctive call. Some Aboriginal groups don't > like them hanging around at all. They link them to kadaitcha and, I was > told by one friend based in Alice Springs, that they are old men > (ghosts, if you will) spying and they bring bad luck. We met another > Aboriginal women from the Murray area and she said whenever she'd hear > the crows she knew she was being called back home (she's an artist). As > for us white white guys, well, I don't mind the crows. for some odd > reason, they remind me of my childhood. But others may differ. I mean, > they're big black birds with sharp eyes. Some people are spooked by > that, especially up close. > > Our wrens are quite gorgeous. We get a few blue wrens about in our > garden (it's the males than are blue, the jennies are brown). Not at > the moment, definitely seasonal. > > This does put one in a Messiaen mood. I used to listen that obsessively > many years ago. Old vinyl so it's stashed away somewhere. > > Cheers, > Jill > -- http://www.badstep.net/ http://www.cb1poetry.org.uk/