Critters

Australia during the Wet is so much more beautiful than I had expected. It is a world of bright blue skies with puffy white cloudy and green grass standing knee high literally as far as the eye can see. I have experienced a fair bit of America’s “big sky country,” but this takes it to a whole new scale. The landscape alternates between gum tree brush and wide open pasture, flat and green forever.

With the rain all the flowers are in bloom on bushes, in trees, and tucked into the grass. I haven’t learned many of the plants yet. Even the grass is different here.

The critters, however, are absolutely my favorite part of this fairly absurd place, and I am working to learn them all. There are birds EVERYWHERE. Outside the kitchen there are crows that sound like baby sheep and something else that sounds like a child practicing the recorder. I’m not sure what those are yet. Driving down the highway or checking water holes (called “turkey nests”) are the best places to find fowl. There are bush turkeys, which look like large, fat roadrunners, and magpie geese, which look like geese dressed in magpie outfits. A few days ago I got to see a fledgling wedge tailed hawk, which I’m told is the largest predatory bird in Australia. This one was average eagle size, but apparently they get much bigger. There are also gallahs which look like small parrots with like grey backs and magenta pink bellies. When they fly they sort of hunch forward and hurl themselves around. It’s a wonder to me that they get airborne at all.

There are also reptiles; snakes and skinks and lime green frogs and big warty cane toads. The first time I saw a cane toad I could have sworn it was the size of a cat, but now that I’ve seen more I suppose surprise was exaggerating my perception. They are huge though, by toad standards. They come out at dusk and like to sit in the puddles of light thrown by the street lights and the kitchen windows. They sit very still and with very straight backs, looking like little sentries or something out of a Miasaki film. You can walk straight up to them and they don’t budge an inch, they just stare right through you. It’s a little creepy.

Of course Australia wouldn’t be Australia is there weren’t kangaroos. And boy are there! They seem to exist here the way we have rabbits at home. They don’t do much except for eat and hop around. They’re REALLY cool when they move though. They lean awkwardly forward when they move but still manage grace and agility. Contrary to American popular belief, folks here don’t hate kangaroos. They mostly seem indifferent to them until one hops in front of their Toyota. They do shoot them, but you need tags, so it’s more like deer hunting in the US.

One critter I haven’t yet seen is a Brumby. Brumbies are the Australian equivalent to the mustang and apparently there are hundreds (thousands?) of them on the station. Unlike those in ‘Man from Snowy River’, they seem to keep to themselves and don’t cause much trouble. Even the most hardened old timer will admit that they are beautiful horses and really cool to see out in the paddocks.

Also, while there are crocodiles in Australia, there aren’t any (many?) in the Northern Territory. So no crocodile Dundee-ing for me.