Another Ten Days

April 6 near Gatton

Awoke to a dew soaked morning.  Two wallabies, one of them heavy with a joey in her pouch grazed along the verge of the track.

April 7: Paddington

The crows at the top of the silky oak are in full chorus this morning, gurgling and warbling, screeching and chattering and for one surprising moment giving a poor imitation of a magpie being strangled.

April 8: Tenthill

The doublebars still inhabit the apple gums that line one of the fences. 

April 9: Paddington

Lorikeets seem to be all over Queensland in the aftermath to the big wet, screeching through the trees along the fencelines.

April 10: Mackay

This is my first arrival into a fine and sunny Mackay.  We fly over country that seems to have been artificially coloured so brilliant are the greens spread below us. 

April 11 Bucasia

The usual paths to the beach are underwater with a wide reflecting pool running the length of the depression at the foot of the frontal dune.  I have to detour to the park with its graded, concreted path to the beach.  Near the children’s playground families of lorikeets have taken over the hollows in the trees.  It is like walking below overcrowded bird tenements there are so many nesting birds.    

April 12 Bucasia

Bucasia Beach at low tide is like a long calligraphic scroll, revealing stories of small dogs and large crabs, of people running in shoes or walking slowly barefoot, of children dragging sticks and shell creatures ploughing below its surface. 

April 13: Bucasia

The kookaburra that haunts the back yard early in the mornings laughed all afternoon, but, contrary to old beliefs, the weather did not change.  It remained fine and sunny albeit a little more cloudy early evening.

April 14

A pair of Burdekin ducks were sitting quietly beside the fast evaporating stream that runs through the reserve beside the beach. 

April 15

 A sulphur crested cockatoo screeches in the treetops at sunset, silencing the other birds, even the corellas. 

Claire Wood

email:  JustClaireWood@gmail.com

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Bucasia Beach

Last Sunday we walked to the beach via Symes Street which leads to the bush track that is partially underwater since the latest rains.  On the beach a pair of plovers had staked their claim to the shingle near the stinger enclosure. They scampered back and forth trying to distract the dog walkers who seemed utterly oblivious to the plovers' presence.

This must be the very large dog end of the beach with Rhodensian Ridgebacks, Great Danes and other canine monsters cantering along the high tide mark.

On Monday a female peewee spent the morning wandering around the lawn, picking on and off at the ground.  Later that afternoon I noticed her empty nest lying underneath the bunya pine that dominates the back yard.

Tuesday morning the Pioneer River was at the lowest level I've seen it since arriving here.  The floodwaters that have been  feeding it have receded and it was also low tide.  A lone cormorant perched on the exposed rocks on the downstream side of the bridge.  Towards the ocean an expanse of uncovered sand glittered in the morning sun.  The moment of regret at what might herald the end of the Wet Season passed when I saw new arrivals on the now exposed floodplain.  Two Burdekin geese stood at the water's edge at a 45 degree angle to each other, one preening, the other maintaining watch on a clump of mangroves further downstream.  

Later that morning a baby magpie burbled from the roof that covers the bbq area.  I heard no responding call and when I went to investigate the bird hopped onto the rotary clothes hoist to observe me closely, yet warily.  The bird still had its juvenile markings and was, unusually for a young magpie, alone.


Wednesday 23 March 2011
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