Bass Coast Post
  • Home
    • Home Nov 27
  • News
    • Point of view
    • View from the chamber
  • Coastal Connections
  • Bass Coast Prize
  • Writers
    • Anne Davie
    • Anne Heath Mennell
    • Bob Middleton
    • Carolyn Landon
    • Catherine Watson
    • Ed Thexton
    • Etsuko Yasunaga
    • Frank Coldebella
    • Geoff Ellis
    • Gill Heal
    • Joan Woods
    • John Coldebella
    • Jordan Crugnale
    • Julie Statkus
    • Kit Sleeman
    • Laura Brearley
    • Lauren Burns
    • Liane Arno
    • Linda Cuttriss
    • Linda Gordon
    • Lisa Schonberg
    • Liz Low
    • Marian Quigley
    • Mark Robertson
    • Mary Whelan
    • Meryl Brown Tobin
    • Michael Whelan
    • Mikhaela Barlow
    • Miriam Strickland
    • Natasha Williams-Novak
    • Patsy Hunt
    • Pauline Wilkinson
    • Phil Wright
    • Robert Scott
    • Terri Allen
    • Tim Shannon
  • Features
  • Arts
  • Local history
  • Environment
  • Special interest
    • Birdwatching >
      • Birdwatching
    • A cook's journal
    • Foreign Correspondent
    • Gardening
  • Comments
  • Community
    • Diary
    • Courses
    • Groups
  • Contact us

The charm of the humble blackbird

10/12/2020

2 Comments

 
PictureJohn Coldebella confesses to a love/hate relationship with
the birds that share his garden. Photos by Pauline Wilkinson
By John Coldebella
 
MOST gardeners are familiar with blackbirds, especially at this time of year when thoughts turn to the netting of fruit trees and berry bushes. In between eating crops, they keep busy digging up seedlings or burying them as they forage for worms and insects. In recent years their impact on fruit such as apples and pears has been dwarfed by the industrial scale damage caused by the flocks of parrots and their relatives that have discovered our region. Even so, the blackbird is still capable of inducing a summer of expletives. 

Having said that, they also exude a certain charm. To me, their song, particularly in the evening is entertaining and comforting. I also find the young ones to be very cute. Just after leaving the nest, with their feathers still growing, almost looking like they've been to the barber for a trim around the collar, and only able to awkwardly fly short distances, they are naive, innocent, curious and impressionable. 


Read More
2 Comments

A little upside down

19/9/2015

3 Comments

 
PictureFormer Speaker Bronwyn Bishop insisted she’d
acted within the rules as she repaid the cost of
hiring a helicopter to travel to Geelong for a
Liberal Party fund-raiser.
By John Coldebella

BACK in the mid '70s, Bob Dylan wrote a song called Idiot Wind which contained the line: "Everything's a little upside down, as a matter of fact the wheels have stopped." It didn't mean a great deal to me at the time but, 40 years later, I'm inclined to agree.

Back then, our parliaments were a breeding ground for statesmen. I use the old gender-biased term because in those days there were few if any women representing the populace. Government ministers qualified for the title "Right Honourable", and in many cases this was an accurate summary of their character. There was much respect between political opponents who, like an honest footballer, tended to play the ball and not the man.


Read More
3 Comments

Heaven help us

29/8/2015

3 Comments

 
PictureGod has been unceremoniously dropped from
Bass Coast Council meetings.
Credit: Creative Commons/Viktor Vasnetsov.
By John Coldebella
August 29, 2015

I commend our former MP Alan Brown for raising the topic of prayer time at council meetings. Having accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour, Mr Brown is acutely aware of the sacred gift Jesus left us in the Lord's Prayer, an invocation to his Heavenly Father whereby we may receive clarity of mind and purity of heart to assist us in every aspect of our lives.

Yet we must also remember the warnings and pitfalls surrounding prayer that Jesus bequeathed to us. Just as "the garment maketh not the man" so, too, the "prayer maketh not the council meeting". Jesus warned us about "vain repetitions" as well as "those who pay me service with their lips while their hearts are far from me."


Read More
3 Comments