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National Park: wild birds
So, Superannuated Emu is on his hands and knees on a grassy hillock on the block on the far side of Oudman’s, examining an emu blessing, when, upon looking up, he realises that a flock of wild birds is hammering down the fence-line, about three or four hundred yards away. Nineteen lovely dark birds, no chicks.
They all charged into a belt of scrub – except one, which fuddy-duddied about at the back, making me wonder if they were in fact all one flock (or it was sick). I reasoned that they might well go clear through the scrub, and up the cleared-of-gums hillside on the far side. So, I found a high-ish spot, and sat and watched. Bingo!!
The flock was heading across the far hillside, toward the fence that marks the start of the National Park. [The binoculars gave splendid service. The distance was about five hundred yards at this point, but I could see the birds quite well.] A dozen birds charged across the lying-down-having-a-little-rest fence, and disappeared into the National Park.
Then, I found another high-ish spot (undulating ground), and scanned the slope –- bingo again! There were still five birds grazing on it.
‘Kay, let’s back up: there is a short list of Final Tasks. One was to try to get one more Category down The List: a ‘5b bird,’ a wild bird that doesn’t – like the Oudman birds – get major nourishment from human-made pastures. Well, okay, we didn’t find that bird . . . but gee, we got close:
the feather is from about twenty yards short of the fence (more below); and beyond that fence is The Big Green that represents the very very last place in the world where a Category 5b rothschildi – a bird that’s never had no truck with man -- might still live.
From my place, I crossed the Highway, the scrub-strip beyond, Oudman’s itself (looking back from the N.P., the golden wattle in the clearing at Oudman’s is a landmark, the only only splash of colour in sight), the block beyond Oudman’s, then into the N.P.
[Non-emu stuff in brackets: down at the glade, I saw a pair of magpies attacking a wedge-tailed eagle. It’s a sight that never fails to impress me. The wedgies have spans four or five times that of the magpies, but the magpies just don’t care. They relentlessly swoop on it from above and behind, driving it not just off the nest, but often several hundred yards further, just for good measure.
On the ground were Muirs Corellas (an endangered species), wild ducks, magpies, and a lone ring-necked parrot. Several of the magpies were juveniles. I love them (a mate has some quite tame ones). They have, while juvenile, a ‘jacket’ of startling white – fluorescent-light white – on their upper body.]
After watching the birds grazing on the hillside for a while, I toiled up to the fence, and crossed into the N.P. -- the birds had vanished in the meantime: the environment is low scattered regrowth of cut-three-months-ago blue gum. As usual, the emus’ camouflage was up to the task.
[A tree in a boggy spot has toppled in a storm. Oddly, it has come to rest exactly balanced on a stump that was there in the first place; and the stump-end of the fallen tree looks like a car up on blocks. Some of the soil at its base – it’s probably been down ten years or more – came for the ride, and ended up on top. So, there is now a miniature compost-event, complete with decay and fungus and miniature grass patch, happening about seven feet off the ground.]
My venture into the N.P. was symbolic only – a couple of hundred yards. I saw zamia palms, but otherwise, it doesn’t surprise me that the birds cross into the cleared-gum paddock to forage. A bird certainly wouldn’t starve in the N.P. -- there are sprouts of grass all over the place -- but there are a hell of a lot of gum leaves between them. The birds clearly like the gum paddock more than I would have guessed.
Discovery!! I think I can distinguish a wild-wild-emu’s blessing from a wild-but-sometimes-goes-to-Oudman’s emu’s blessing: the wilder birds have lots of little grains of sand and dirt in their blessings, which I guess they ingest while grazing on less-verdant ground. It leaves a sort of speckled finish on the dried pat.
Better Discovery: now, at this point, readers, I note that I will describe what I saw, and make a guess about what it is; but I am by no means sure. If you have ideas, please post them:
thinking about Quiet Spots to Incubate Eggs, I poked my beak into an island of scrub about a hundred or so yards down the hill from the N.P. fence-line. It’s perhaps a hundred yards by fifty, and a real starvation patch: gum-leaf litter under gums, not another species, not a blade of grass.
And it’s full of blessings. Literally dozens, some almost in heaps. My guess is that it’s a roosting-spot or a staging-point of some sort. I recall that my birds often seem to sleep in pretty much the same spot. Perhaps one small flock actually bases itself there, and heads further away from the N.P. each dawn. What do you think?
[The black rock in the photo is not a black rock. It’s a lump of grass-tree gum. Australian aboriginals used this gum, I’m told, to do things – it melts when heated – like ‘close off’ the woven-grass cord that is used to hold the head of a stone axe onto the haft.
The Western Australian Museum has a standing-display of aboriginal war spears, and my university has a collection of aboriginal artefacts. My bet is that Your Average Person would, before seeing any of these, greatly underestimate their quality and finish. Don’t think ‘Stone age.’ Think, ‘Wow! That’s an exquisite product!’]
[I saw a second wedgie. Winter is not their forte because there are no thermals to give them the lift they need to soar – so they just fly. It was young, and silhouetted against a bank of dark-gray rain clouds as, unfortunately, it circled away from me.
Juvenile wedgies have on two occasions used the heat of the corrugated-iron roof of my house to get a ‘freebie.’ On both cases, they were no more than twenty feet above the ridge-cap, and the splendid patterns of their underwings, reminiscent of a moth, were clearly visible.]
Somewhere between my place and sighting the wild birds, I spent some time thinking like an emu. I realised that I was moving from miniature pasture to miniature pasture. It’s that simple!
Then, I started trying to guess from the colour and texture of the grass, as I approached, whether blessings would be plentiful. It began to make sense. Some patches are green alright, but the grass is short and patchy (So the blessings that the birds drop later will be speckled on the surface with grains of sand). In a couple of spots, I could even guess-then-see that longer patches of grass were the ring around an old blessing: the grass brings the birds; the birds leave blessings; the blessing make the grass thrive – e voila!
The feather . . . again I don’t understand . . . came from just short of the N.P. fence. There were eight fairly fresh blessings in a patch on the ground – that is, not an accident. Some bird(s) have returned to the spot; and the spot had a number of feathers lying on the ground, enough to suggest a bird had died there. I recall once, when walking with the chicks off my place, that we walked past a pile of feathers that was all that was left of a bird killed on a dirt road. I watched with real interest as Greedy approached the spot, expecting her to bolt. She didn’t. She showed real interest, including ‘beaking’ some of the feathers, before moving on.
What do you think? Just a co-incidence? Anyway, that’s where our symbolic end-of-thread souvenir comes from.
Finally, I took stock of my landmarks – a dam, the golden wattle at Oudman’s, a high point by the Frankland River – and bee-lined home.
Supreme Emu
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