What better place to perch…

…than mama’s head?

Got another rescue call today; a baby kingfisher.  I can’t positively ID it but I *think* it’s a sacred kingfisher.  It’s also likely that I have no idea what I’m talking about.

I’m having difficulty feeding it because it’s too dry to dig for worms (they’re probably metres down, hiding in the damp) and I’ve tried tiny balls of mince with Insectivore mixed in, but they just seem to stick in its beak, so he’s just screeching. 

Meanwhile, Pudding was becoming jealous at the amount of attention I lavished on the kingfisher, so he tried a new trick: jumping onto my shorts and scaling the not-very-heights of my body, to settle on my shoulder.  The next trick he developed was to climb onto the back of the sofa and flap onto the back of my neck, then claw his way onto my head.  He’s perching there, tucked up and trying to sleep.  And the back of my neck and behind my ears is all scratched up.

I just know he’s going to shit all over my head, any second now.  Little rotter.

Please take care

Currently watching the news; another major car accident in the region has claimed three lives.  Last week, a family of four (parents and 6 year old twins) were killed and five injured in a horrendous crash not ten kilometres north of my village.  I thank whatever is out there that my pager batteries were flat, or it would have been me filmed crying for the six o’clock news on the roadside in my yellows, not the teenager from the neighbouring brigade. 

Often you see footage of the firies at accidents.  Generally the firies on scene are volunteers, people like me; while we are offered counselling after a traumatic MVA, RFS vollies still go home with graphic scenes of death burned into their brain.  Very little is said of this; I’ve seen little discussion of it.  The only reason the distress to the emergency personnel was mentioned in the media last week was because of the footage of the distressed Dude from neighbouring brigade.  The prevailing attitude appears to be – oh well.  Such is life.  You just have to get on with it.

Now, one advantage is that as volunteers, we have a choice.  Had my pager gone off, I would have been within my rights to assess the likelihood of the call being for an MVA, and decided whether or not to attend.  Given there was no page, I had no decision to make – but in hindsight, because of the time of day, I probably would have attended.  And given also the emotional turmoil I’ve been in the last week for other reasons, I have no idea how I would have coped with such images in my head.  I was speaking to the wife of a firey from another brigade today and she said "It was his first child [death].  He said it’s alright if you don’t look at the person’s face; if you look at the face that’s when you start thinking about the person, their life, their family, their last thoughts, what they did that day…"

So here’s my yuletide wish – please, everyone who uses the road this holiday season, take it slowly and carefully.  To have seven dead in two weeks, in a non-holiday period, is awful, and isn’t a good sign for the times to come – particularly given the public school term ends a mere two days before Christmas.  If you are driving, especially on the death trap that is the Pacific Goat Track north of Karuah, please think of your family.  And if that’s not enough to stop you driving like a fool, or to make you change drivers and/or stop, revive, and survive, think of the potentially dozens of people who have to scrape your guts off the road, from ambulance to fire brigade to police to accident investigators to tow truck operators.  We don’t want to see you die any more than your family does.