Apple Thief

Can vanish in an instance.

Foxes and I presently have a truce - and I am happy to report no casualties on either side - although they persist with an occasional unsuccessful raid on my hens.

This fox heard the camera click - the next frame, taken a fraction of a second later, showed simply a motion blur in the far right corner.

I had cause to ponder this image as i worked clearing fallen trees near my stream, and heard a fox calling.

Montague Island, SE Australia, Fur Seals

There are two thriving colonies of fur seals on Montague Island. 

Sassafras mobs

Once a busy rest stop for the bullock teams pulling wool from inland farms over the coastal mountains to the southern ports, the inns and shanties have fallen back into the bush, leaving mobs of emus and kangaroos.

First moments

Baby just after birth

Bluetongue Lizards - Gura'ranan (Yuin)

The first people name for these fellows is Gura'ranan (in the Yuin language). This is similar to the word for spear (Gura'ra) and wind (Gura). The word for blue (and black) seems unrelated (Nundur).  

Maybe the lizard is named for its tongue - which whips in and out like a spear - often with a guttural hissing sound. Its common modern name is still focussed on that tongue - but with a focus on the color (maybe a feature of a first contact language group).  Thanks to +Ann Pollak for the question about the name :)

Images of evening-time

Snakes

Highly venomous, our local snakes are up and moving with the returning warmth.  

It is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between Brown Snakes and Tiger Snakes - Tigers can have slight yellow coloration underneath or obvious bands of darker colors.  With no pressing need to differentiate, I give them all a wide berth.

Today I came across this one.

These ones are a bit unpredictable and very very fast.  When they get cross, they pump their heads up and and stand high n the air.  This one just slipped into the grass, and disappeared.  They are not all fearful... we have lovely big slow ones as well, that are not poisonous, that you can wear, wrapped around your shoulders. This one was quite long - perhaps 5 feet - and looks like it has been eating mice or lizards.   

And a parting shot as it vanishes into the grass.

I once ran over the tail of one of these in a car on an old dirt track.  The snake flipped in through the passenger window. I slammed on the brake and jumped out of the moving car, leaving the snake to drive the car by itself, for a little way.  Never found the snake and I ended up walking home.



Peter Quinton
Palerang
October 2014

Swamp Wallaby - Buruell

In early morning light, a small wallaby, fat and healthy, trims grass. Very shy, they camp down at the creek during the day and only come up to feed when I stop wandering about at night and the house becomes quiet. Today this wallaby is called a swamp wallaby - partly because they are found around creeks and wetlands - but also because early white settlers claimed the meat was tainted from that environment. 

In 1897 Hobson recorded in the Sydney Mail:
"There were said to have once been 13 different tribes, with as many dialects, between Kiama and Nowra. Mr John Brown, of Brownsville, who went to the South Coast as far back as 1829, tells me they were usually in bands of 70 or 80. For food they relied on fish, wallaby, paddymelons, opossums, and so forth. The waters still teem with fish and the ranges with paddymelons and wallaby, but the old-time hunters have gone."

The pessimism of the article did not match reality on the ground. Today, there are many who proudly count Yuin speaking people among their ancestors.  Some are forthright in their views, acerbic in their comments and ruthless at any hint of paternalism - qualities that will serve us all well as they become thought leaders.

I would like to give the first people name for this wallaby - this fellow deserves a real name. The records I have tell me that, in Yuin dialects, this included Baral, Bhurrar, Budalima, Buruell (Black), Djenbella, Palahua (Red), Waru, and Wulban applied to wallaby.  It is possible that Buruell is the right name - swamp wallabies are sometimes referred to as Black Wallabies.  

Carrying a baby in her pouch, she is capable an amazing burst of speed.  She has decided to make her nest in a couple of overgrown bushes at the back of the farm.

Heavy horses - Dubbo

Looking through sheds for a stock saddle with decent knee pads, I came across my great-grandfather, Howard Edmonstone.  A collection of leather and iron, in a corner out of the way, serves as his shrine.

I have a couple of pictures of him.  He stands proud with his family, horses and cars.  The one that holds my eye is his team loaded with wheat from “Kookaburra Station” crossing the Macquarie River.  The crossing is now the Rotary Park boat ramp at Dubbo, in central New South Wales.   

Howard Edmonstone's team, mounted right in water, lead horse "Noddy" ~1904

The photo is a little indistinct – but you may be able to make out the white lead horse.  The horse was called “Noddy”.  Noddy was used as a study by George Lambert when a young stock man at Warren and the sketches were later used in his famous 1899 painting “Across the black soil plains”.