Armory Blog Day 22 Birds Birds Birds!

TI cant believe it's been 22 days. I haven't been on site all that time though. Weekends I escape to see my Husband and our not so well 14 year old Border Collie, Kosciosko. Yes she's named after that beautiful area in the Snowy Mountains NSW and she's white on top!

I finally got myself over to the Birds Australia Information centre and Look what I found... 

A very demure looking Barn Owl! Not sure how they got it to look this way when they were stuffing it! Yes its part of a taxidermied collection borrowed from the Australian Natural History Museum ( I think I have that wrong and will correct it soon- dont panic). Next to him is his friend The Powerful Owl who looks like he just  found out what they were going to do to him...

Here's local Ranger Judy always on the look out for the airborn residents of this special area.

 And when not helping visitors and giving information on the White - bellied Sea eagles that where residents here along with lots of other birds well - here's Leslie a Birds Australia Volunteer and Judy listening for the call of the eagles who will hopefully return to the site more regularly again.

Birds Australia is set in an original building on the Armory site.

 Which has its own quirky remnants of the site's spooky past, nicely preserved for the observant visitor.

 You can see the eagle cam footage- on the wall - it's a fascinating record of the nesting habits of the White bellied Sea Eagle - apparently with the location next to the Parramatta River and the bushland area its an attractive area for these lovely creatures and they had 2 babies before the nest fell. Staff have been on the  look out for the young eagles and the parents and await their return... The footage that was taken is fascinating insight into the raising of the babies and the roles of the male and female adults...the roles get a bit blurry after a while which is nice to see :)  

There's been another artist wandering around too- Introducing the lovely Kylie (left) and Ester Bowles! Kylie is using her relatives, in this instance,  her Mum, to produce art under pressure. Its common practice for artists to use loved ones as its economically viable way of  making sure the art gets out there! Here they are working to dead line for an installation of wood cut printed prayer flags using the bigger Armory printing press. The flags are wonderful and varied in their symbolism  and can be seen currently in a unique exhibition set at the site of Rookwood Cemetry. The show is called Hidden.

We also had an open day where members of the public could see the studios and we could talk about what on earth we were doing there! Here's Artist Mark discribing his scultpture that he will be constructing on the site, to visitor, Michael. Mark will be making a life size re-creation of a  tank deterrant structure used during wartime. It will be installed at the Armory and may be tuned to pick up radio frequencies also!!?? Wow.

  Here's a tid bit of some of the strange structures that remain at the Armory ...

This really reminds me of the ghost train ride at Luna Park. light train tracks leading into the vault of doom!!! There is no return!!! If I havent told you by now the Armory was used as a munitions and explosives storage and distribution centre for the Navy during WW 1  - that's why eveything looks like a bunker by earth so that the explosives would head skyward if hit. That's the theory anyway... of course no explosives here now just moss and ghosts and the rattle of the light rail at night ...chow for now.