FEATURE The chime of bellbirds. What does it say to you?

The chime of bellbirds. What does it say to you?

For many, driving down the hill at Kariong, with the car windows down on a summer day, the tink of bellbirds was the signal for, ‘We’re here; our holiday has begun!’

For others of ‘a certain age’, the sound recalls school poetry assignments from the 1960s and 1970s when Henry Kendall’s poem, Bell Birds was ‘approved reading’ in schools. And it seems, many a visitor to Henry Kendall Cottage in West Gosford can still quote every line from the first stanza of that poem.

But the association of bellbirds with Gosford and Henry Kendall goes back even further – to 1867 when Henry’s beloved poem was first published. The poet became a well-known figure in the area during the 1870s when he stayed with the Fagan family in West Gosford after the death of his daughter and the onset of his subsequent health issues.

The bellbird became an unofficial mascot for the Central Coast, often featuring on postcards, and as a symbol associated with brands including the Bellbird Caravan Park in Terrigal, a cricket team, and the Gosford High School student newsletter.

Henry Kendall, on the other hand, left behind his name engraved in a rock or two in a gully that was known as Kendall’s Glen. A great fan of Kendall, by the name of Henry Lawson, later tried unsuccessfully to locate the rock, but it remained a local myth until 1909 when the librarian from the Gosford School of Arts claimed to be the first to rediscover it ‘beside a beautiful pool and overhanging ferns and beds of bracken’.

Strangely enough, for such an often-heard but seldom-seen bird, urbanisation has helped its numbers grow. Its main habitat was traditionally around the edges of rainforests and in gullies, but with the spread of weeds such as lantana, a new protective understorey allowed it to nest well outside its usual domain. Bellbirds can scare off other birds, and insects otherwise eaten by those birds began to thrive in such numbers that native trees suffered from dieback. So the tall, bare trunks and branches you see haunting our tree lines, may well be for whom the bellbirds toll.

Bell Birds, by Henry Kendall

By channels of coolness the echoes are calling, And down the dim gorges I hear the creek falling; It lives in the mountain where moss and the sedges Touch with their beauty the banks and ledges. Through breaks of the cedar and sycamore bowers Struggles the light that is love to the flowers. And, softer than slumber and sweeter than singing, The notes of the bellbirds are running and ringing.

Source: Tales from the Rainforest: History and Heritage on the NSW Central Coast, by Peter Fisher (2020). Available to order on facebook.com/Tales-from-the-rainforest or email peterfishercentralcoast@gmail.com