This is My World; Kookaburra;

Kookaburra in the garden; Please click to enlarge;

Kookaburras (genus Dacelo) are large terrestrial kingfishers native to Australia and New Guinea. The name a loanword from Wiradjuri guuguubarra, which is onomatopoeic of its call.

Kookaburras are best known for their unmistakable call, which sounds uncannily like loud, echoing human laughter — good-natured, but rather hysterical, merriment in the case of the renowned Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae); and maniacal cackling in the case of the slightly smaller Blue-winged Kookaburra (D. leachii).

They are territorial, and often live with the partly grown chicks of the previous season.

They often sing as a chorus to mark their territory and can be found in habitats ranging from humid forest to arid savanna, but also in suburban and residential areas near running water and where food can be searched for easily.

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My World Tuesday; Pioneer women;

A tribute to Pioneer women, Longreach, Australia.

From the 1800s to the onset of World War I, pioneers making their homes in outback Australia were joined by their wives, many of whom had no idea of the difficulties and dangers ahead.

These brave and resourceful women encountered conditions which would test their resilience and resourcefulness to the utmost:

relentless heat, dust and isolation; and no doctors or pioneer women featured who faced the risk of dying from malaria, the scourge of tropical Australia.

Many women lived in wooden huts or tin sheds with concrete floors, cooked on wood-fired stoves, and lacked any of the domestic appliances we take for granted today.

Georgiana Molloy and the Brussell women tamed hectares of virgin bush with primitive implements. Myrtle White was trapped among sandhills, the fine grains invading her home and impeding her harrowing attempts to get her feverish baby son to the doctor before he died.

White's predicament was quoted by the Revd John Flynn while raising funds for his Flying Doctor service.

The outback was indeed 'no place for a lady'. Yet many women with no previous experience of hardship rose to the challenge of creating homes, nursing farming - and keeping journals, which provided a startling vivid picture of the life they faced - part of the outback legend.

(Great Pioneer Women of the Outback by Susanna De Vries)

'Great Pioneer Women of the Outback' features women pioneering in some of the harshest land in Western Australia, Queensland, South Australia, the Northern Territory and New South Wales.

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