It all started after a move last year when my housemate and I made the difficult but life affirming decision to leave our very well loved share house and venture out into the world of two bedroom apartments. We decided to stay in the same suburb – our new apartment was only a 15-minute walk down the road from our old place.
It was unsettling acquainting ourselves with a new place. The neighbourhood on this side of town looked different, the walls in our apartment seemed thinner than our previous house, we missed our old neighbours’ kids and we had to adjust to the longer trek it took to collect our groceries.
With the arrival of spring came something unexpected. I soon became familiar with a blood curling, demonic screech or, as I later described it to a friend in gentler terms, “a cross between a squawk and a honk.” My friend humorously suggested that the word I was looking for was “squownk” and I thought that was possibly the funniest but most accurate word I’d ever heard.
The bird (what else could it have been?) seemed to love the big tree in the backyard opposite ours. From my bed, I used to spend, and still do, many afternoons admiring the green vista that replaced the brick wall I had to stare at from my previous room. But this new bird cry, which I heard almost every day, sometimes in the morning, occasionally in the afternoon, at times at dusk and often in the middle of the night, kept me intrigued but slightly guarded. Of course, the whole mystery was heightened by the fact I couldn’t see the creature that was emitting it.
What followed was a relentless attempt to catch the bird out. When I heard, it I would rush to the nearest window but I never saw it through the thick foliage that blocked out large bits of the sky where I imagined it was flying through. Once, as I was walking to the bus stop, I saw and heard the bird squownking away in flight right above me. I craned my neck to look at the thing but all I could see was its underside which from my angle made it appear like an abnormally large, misshapen, fat pigeon. Squinting, I watched it flap its wings and disappear off into the distance.
I found myself reciting my close encounters with the unknown bird to friends and family. Some lucky people were provided regular updates on the status of my investigation. I wouldn’t say I was obsessed – but I did come realise that my interest in the bird was more than just regular curiosity.
I’ve always been fond of birds: kookaburras, galahs, corellas and cockatoos. I know that mudlarks and butcherbirds aren’t baby magpies. I’ve identified strange parrots in the park at the bottom of our suburb and I know the difference between an Australian minor and the introduced species. I’ve seen a family of emus in the wild and took a careful, gentle interest in the baby plover on our street. But for some reason, I couldn’t reconcile my frustration with this bird.
After months of relentless curiosity, sharing stories and many desperate runs to the window, I was rewarded with a lead. Although I had attempted to Google the bird before, this time my particular combination of search words pointed me to the direction of the Channel Billed Cuckoo. I was elated and relieved: now I could put a face to a sound and I of course made sure to update my friends with this, what I thought was, life changing news. It was a kind of closure I had long since yearned for but had almost given up on securing.
*
Last weekend when I was on the balcony hanging some towels, I heard a rustle in the tree next door. A careful glance over revealed to me a very strange-feathered body sitting on a branch. With a longish brown patterned tale and an odd looking hooked beak, I wondered if this was the strange bird that had evaded me for the last several months. I stood watching, entranced: “squownk for god’s sake – just squownk and we can put this thing to bed!” But the squownk never came. I just stood there stupefied, and as if it knew it was being watched, the bird rustled around gently, never fully revealing itself, never emitting its infamous cry, just hopping from branch to branch immersed in it’s own birdy business.
Was it fate? Was it the universe prompting me to pause my search or restart it with renewed vigour? Was the bird a sign? And if so, for what?
I may never know.
Gabriella Florek 