Shut Up!

Now I know what the Storm Bird sounds like...I hear it all the time. It was particularly noisy this morning with its “Cooooeeee” call...and did a storm come or a sprinkling of rain?...No!A new name for it would be the ‘Liar’ bird, not to be confused with the Lyre bird...which actually exists. The Lyre bird is also renowned for its call in that it is a great mimic and copies the calls of other birds and has even been known to mimic the sound of a chainsaw. I dream of getting a ’Liar‘ bird and a Lyre bird together so that when one goes “Cooooeeee” I can teach the other to shout “Shut up!”It would also come in useful when flippin’ dogs bark. Last night there was one barking well past midnight. Sometimes one barks and they set off all the others in the houses all around. There are all manner of yelpings, yippings and howlings until all hours of the night or early morning. It is very annoying and most un-neighbourly.Then there are the helicopters and planes from nearby Archerfield airport. I remember the noise of these planes from previous visits here in the last four years but the helicopters are new. They are very noisy...even the small ones...with their  'whop whop whop' 'wuppa wuppa' 'whumpa-whumpa-whumpa-whumpa' 'whup-whup-whup' 'flac-flac-flac' 'chakk-chackk-chak-chak, chak-a-chak-akk-chk-chk-chk' 'DUBDUBDUBDUBDUBDUBDUB' 'THITH-THITH-THITH' 'batabatabatabata' 'tocotocotocotoco'SHUT UP!They are flying late into the evening and early in the morning too. One of the flight paths to Brisbane International is over the house here too. They are landing all through the night and as they approach their deceleration sounds very much like they are falling out of the sky until they pass over.The other night there was noise, after midnight, of youths and their motorbikes. I think they were riding around on the school playing field just over the road. You could hear the shouts and laughter of friends egging them on. I waited in vain for the sound of an approaching police car but must have dropped off finally.All this is noise is apart from that made by the crickets, the geckos, the bats, the masked lapwings and stone curlews. The only thing I want to make a noise is the flippin’ mosquitoes that continue to sneak up on me unawares.It is no wonder that I have not been sleeping well with this noise, the heat and the itching of mosquito bites. I fell asleep in the middle of the day today for two hours. I was just tired out.A 90 year old that I know reminded me, as if I needed it, that she never sleeps during the day. We may differ in that aspect but we agree on despairing at the noise.She actually shouts “Shut up!”... but embellishes it in her own inimitable way with a few other choice words.