Posted on

Spring offspring

Just as there are brand new leaves appearing on bare branches, and even tiny fruit emerging on my fig and plum trees, new little beings have come into the animal kingdom now that spring has sprung. I’ve seen a number of baby animals in past weeks, little beauties who stay close to their parents, reminding me how intimate a relationship it is. Seeing a brand new duck or cow is such a feel-good moment. Or a possum joey’s claws poking out of its mother’s pouch. Or a tiny kangaroo joey’s head on its mother’s belly.

E16 and her baby, P42, at Hahndorf, South Australia, 11th September
Duck family in the afternoon sun beside the River Torrens, Adelaide, 13th September
Possum with baby in her pouch, climbing a hakea tree right in front of me at  home as I worked at my computer, 17th September
Kangaroo family, Jerrabomberra Wetlands, Canberra, 13th October 2018

And high up in trees or in other secret nesting places, countless birds have been breeding. I don’t have photos but I’ve seen the chicks and their parents every day since September when there was a sudden explosion in the bird population in my garden. There are all sorts here in Canberra that I never knew existed when I lived in Brisbane, from Gang-gang Cockatoos to tiny Eastern Spinebills, often right outside my window, in the same hakea tree where I saw the mother possum and her joey. This hakea grew naturally amid some introduced species like maples and ash and white may, and I didn’t even notice it until it was taller than its competitors. Now I have all these animal visitors because of this tree.

It’s a blessing to be presented with new life in the animal world, and even more of a blessing that they pose for me while I take their photo, for they all patiently sat and waited while I got my photography act together!

*

Posted on

46 Great Opening Lines: 40

It’s pre-dawn, all dark. Breeding season.

First words of ‘Breeding Season’, Amanda Niehaus, in Overland, Spring 2017

I’ve been buying literary journals for a couple of years now, reading short stories to see how writers write in the 21st century. My translations are mostly of 19th-century stories, so I need to prompt myself to read today’s writing. It’s never good to get stuck in the past.

Overland is one of the Australian journals I’ve been reading. Not every piece is to my taste, but there’s usually one in each issue that I read and re-read. ‘Breeding Season’ was such a story, drawing me in with the very word breeding, not in the title but in the first line. And then, later, the mention of an antechinus.

I once caught sight of an antechinus in a sawn tree trunk in Wangaratta. I’d heard about them, how they resemble mice and rats, how we can confuse them all, but this one was prettier than any rat and I suspected that the crevices of the old trunk were more suited to a native marsupial than an introduced species. He stood still long enough for me to snap his photo. I wrote about the antechinus and my trip to Wangaratta in an earlier blog post.

Antechinus, North Beaches Reserve, Wangaratta (river beaches not ocean beaches…)

To return to the great opening line: my interest was triggered by the word breeding, evidence that the first words of a story can click somewhere in the reader’s experience, or in their hopes and fears. I wasn’t disappointed, for within ‘Breeding Season’, Amanda Niehaus writes about the jelly-bean sized babies of the antechinus and a woman’s own baby growing inside her.

I read this prize-winning story in my copy of Overland but it’s also available online.

*

Posted on

Weekly photo challenge: Fun

Fun with Australian animals:

Today – at Burrinjuck Dam: It might be a famous spot for fishing competitions, but the fish in our fish and chips was sadly not from the dam. Still, we enjoyed eating it at a picnic table in the sun, in the serenity of the Burrinjuck National Park, even in the company of five kangaroos that hopped up to us like seagulls coming begging from snackers at the beach. One kangaroo, her joey frequently popping its head out, moved in closer and closer, which would have been more fun if she weren’t drooling and dripping her drool close to our food. But it was not the scent of the fish and chips she had picked up, it was my leather bag. (A clue to the type of leather?) The further away I pushed the bag, the further across the table she stretched.

Last week – at home: A kookaburra was lingering in our front yard, sitting in the old ash tree, on the hose reel, on the gate, and finally on the tap post. Merry merry king of our yard is he. My son felt a personal challenge to try to pat him, and succeeded. It’s a fun Australian memory for Josh now; a few days later he moved to Munich with his wife, and today sent me a photo of himself beside a pretty German stream.

May – at Wagga Wagga zoo: Another son, Ben, took me to the Wagga zoo for Mother’s Day. I felt just a little sorry for this emu confined to its own bit of park. But perhaps I was just endowing him with human emotions. He was probably looking back at me thinking: what goggly eyes you have, and what bad hair!

It’s always fun to find the human in an animal.

Thanks WordPress for the challenge.

*****