So, as a complete surprise the other afternoon, the pair of Radjah Shellducks that hang around the farm came waddling (as ducks do) past the camper, as I was sitting enjoying a beer. Which I thought was strange, because these guys usually fly around the place and they haven’t come very close at previous times.
And then I noticed, following along behind them was a straggled stream of little fluff-balls; nine tiny ducklings and both the mom and dad looking pretty proud of themselves!
For reasons only known to themselves, they have taken up their nightly residence in the grass just out from my camper. Whether they think being near someone makes it safer for them, I’m not sure. But late every evening the whole family waddles in, with a fair amount of quacking from mom and dad and lots of piping from the ducklings. The little ones get rounded up and put in under mom’s protective wings and with dad standing guard, everyone settles in for the night.
I now even wear headphones if I am watching a movie at night, so as not to disturb them!
Now, I don’t hold out much hope all the nine will survive to grow up, but sadly, that is nature. There are dingoes around, and during the day there are crows and raptors (I saw a Peregrine Falcon the other day), who probably just view the ducks as a smorgasbord.
At night there is a Southern Boobook Owl who hunts in the area.
There is also one snake I know about (see below), and I am sure there are plenty of pythons too, who will happily take a chick for dinner.
And the first night they were there, a big, stupid cow came stomping and snorting into camp at some ungodly hour, which cows seem to do (honestly, these guys make so much noise, flailing around in the dark), which upset mom and dad duck, who started quacking in alarm. Not wanting to upset them but also imagining ducklings squashed under hoof, I yelled at the cow to bugger off.
While this might sound odd, it works! Apparently cows don’t like loud, unexplained noises booming out of the dark, so said cow galloped away into the night! There was a bit more quacking, but then everyone settled back to sleep for the rest of the night.
And the ducks can’t have been too upset, because they came back the next night…
Apologies, the images aren’t fabulous, it is actually getting quite dark by the time the duck family comes around, so the poor camera struggles a bit in the fading light. And I don’t want to use flash, so I don’t disturb them too much taking the photos.
The Unpleasant Visitor
So, there always has to be someone to spoil it for everyone else… this bad boy popped out from underneath the camper as I enjoyed a beer the other afternoon. Frankly, there are some visitors that are more welcome than others and this guy is definitely on the ‘thanks, but no thanks’ list.
Not sure exactly what it is, apart from unwelcome! It might be an eastern brown, or a western brown or it could be a northern brown (apparently a very real thing, but I have only ever heard of eastern or western browns before), all of which live up here and all of which are extremely unpleasant neighbours!
I watched it (at a safe distance) to see where he was going, and as I passed the camper, I disturbed a kookaburra sitting in the rafters in the shed roof, who had apparently been watching the snake too. I hadn’t realised the kookaburra was there, but I guess he had the snake pegged for dinner! Which would have fixed my snake visitor problem straight away, damn it!
Anyway, because I upset the kookaburra, the snake escaped under a piece of rubber matting on the ground in the shed (not too far from my camper) and the kookaburra huffed off to sulk in a tree.
I presume the snake is hanging around the shed looking for mice – I haven’t seen any, which doesn’t mean they aren’t here, of course. Now I have to hope this guy isn’t going to be sticking around; it has hundreds of hectares of lovely long grass to go hunt mice in, so it doesn’t need to hang around me, or my camper, or the shed, thank you very much!
