I’ve been home about a week, with about the worst jet lag I’ve ever had. Wide awake at four in the morning. Exhausted in mid-afternoon. It’s always bad coming back from Australia, but I thought it would be over by now. I think part of the problem is that I have been stuck in the house, in a post-travel quarantine. So I’m not getting out in any sun, which helps to reset your internal clock. Not that there has been a whole lot of sun this past week. Montclair is doing a good imitation of a London winter. Dark and damp. Summer time in Manly seems like awhile ago.

I finally ventured outside this morning, having previously only scuttled out to pick up the newspapers. But I was dealing with the trash and recycling and stopped to watch two robins fighting. Then I noticed a blue jay swooping down and saw some big bird soaring around and then landing in a tree, where it proceeded to squawk. It was actually quite noisy out there with all sorts of bird calls and songs. I wonder if the birds feel more free to do their thing with fewer cars and people around. Or maybe the neighborhood is just a bit quieter with everyone in lockdown.

Contemplating the birds brought me back to Australia and particularly the portion of the trip with Kathy and Jim. They are both big bird watchers and it was their first time in Oz. And one of the many cool things about Sydney is the birds. (A bit of what follows was on Facebook and/or Instagram, but part of the reason for these posts is for me to create a more permanent sort of recollection of the trip.) Living in the New York area for most of my life, the most exotic bird I would see was a cardinal or something. But Sydney features far more exotic and tropical birds. We had sulfur-crested cockatoos and rainbow lorikeets visit our porch in Manly on a daily basis. We were actually afraid that they would hop off the railing and come into the living room. Here are few photos:

We also had a kookaburra come by one day (they are very cool). And the area around Circular Quay has lots of black-headed ibises strutting around. There were also various mynas, magpies, seagulls, weird looking owls, and lots of little birds. (Not to mention the flying foxes, which come out at night and look vaguely like a cat with wings.) One of the drawbacks to this endless avian show was that Jim (and, to a lesser extent, Kathy) were constantly stopping to whip out binoculars to check out something new. As a result, it took forever to walk through a place like the Botanical Gardens or Taronga Zoo (the zoo wit the greatest view in the world). I’ve never been much of a bird person, but being with them made me appreciate the bird kingdom in a way I hadn’t before. It probably made me notice all the birds and bird sounds this morning.