On my CV seeking gainful employment , I can now include the rare skill of being
able to converse in Coucalese . Just the other day I was down on my knees , armed with a camera , talking to
Dracula, Magnetic Island’s cheese eating
Coucal. Dracula , a short distance away, inspected me closely.
Then our discourse opened by me
saying , “ Hello, Dracula.” Dracula came
closer and I tried to focus the camera.
To make him feel at ease
, I imitated his distinctive call, “
Whoop! Whoop!” This had an instant impact . Up went his feathery
mane, down went his head, and a throaty Whoop!
Whoop! issued .
I replied similarly , so did Dracula. Seemingly, this could have gone on
for ages but may have brought on an attack of arthritis in the knees . Passers by and horses
would , no doubt , have shied
away had they seen this scruffy looking bloke down on his knees making
strange noises. Dracula scurried off
into nearby undergrowth after insects, then reappeared. Whoop! Whoop! The same
to you, Dracula. A jolly exchange took place.
Dracula has been romping about the Queen of the Jungle,
the cheese lady, and at times becomes “naughty” when she offers him Curlew food , not cheese . On
one occasion he fluttered up onto her head and like a phrenologist read the bumps on her
cranium, some from a motorbike accident in Germany long before the Berlin wall tumbled .
Having sharp claws, he was told in no uncertain terms to get off her
head , so flew onto the back of a large
concrete emu in the garden. When a Kookaburra with an injured
wing came in for a feed and took up its usual perch on a projecting
pipe, Dracula snuck up behind it and pulled its tail, then flew
away. At times Dracula sits on the canopy of the Queen’s Mini Moke parked under the house .
