Hitchcock Revisited

Could the airing of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds the other night on TV been a warning? A prophecy? A seasonal anomaly? A magnet sent out on the airwaves to the air currents?

Whatever it was the currawongs have gone crazy. As in Hitchcock’s thriller they’ve been gathering, in small numbers at first, following me down the street and crisscrossing from one tree to the next, congregating in the backyard in groups of a dozen or more, giving me the dare you stare as they perch on the clothes line, fence and shed and strut around the yard as if they own the place.

Seeing The Birds as a young teenager scared the living daylights out of me and caused me to adopt a certain attitude and respect for that rather large beaked sleek black ornithological predator. The currawongs might not be quite as big as their crow cousins but those beaks look just as sharp, and the population has been gradually increasing until something set them off today throwing us into what sounded like a Hitchcock sequel.

Congregating down on the golf course they took off in groups, circling here, there and everywhere around the village, wave after wave, probably about a hundred in all, landing in yards, trees, perching on fences, houses and wherever they liked, all the time screeching and squawking, going totally off their face. I was fascinated, had to follow them, but as in The Birds the “attack” for want of a better term lasted only a few minutes as they eventually decided to leave us alone and head into the bush. 

Despite their bravado and safety in numbers they did tend to be somewhat camera shy, so the photo doesn't do the event justice. Will be interesting to see if they return tomorrow and continue their onslaught, or whether they meet up with more of their kind and go further afield to lay siege on some other poor unsuspecting neighbourhood.