I’m heading back to Australia in a few days, so just for fun I’m sharing this video with you. If you’ve got 3 minutes to spare, I’m sure it’ll make you smile.

Councillor Robert Garland from Queensland is a politician who doesn’t like to crow like so many politicians we could all think of. However, Garland, who represents Division 8 of the Fraser Coast Regional Council, can crow very well indeed. He can also chirp like a budgerigar, coo like a pigeon, and occasionally let out a “ripper” of a Kokuboro squark.

Along with his son Daniel, Garland has been imitating bird noises for years. “I just like noises, and music, and the music of birds,” he says in a short film from Director Tim Marshall.

As the councillor for education and training in the Fraser Coast Regional Council, Garland is known as a ‘jovial’ representative. That comes across in the film that I first saw last year at Melbourne’s Shadow Electric open air cinema. Back then it delighted the packed cinema that often show wacky and ‘off the wall’ shorts before the main feature of the night.

Garland said the footage for the film was shot about 3 years prior to it’s release, but he was very pleased with the way it turned out. “It’s all a bit of fun. At the end of the day if you can’t have a laugh at yourself then who can you have laugh at?”