Fred Baker

Flat earth

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I know plains are flat country but I had no concept of just how flat they can be. Out on the Liverpool Plains of NSW, as you drive up the straight flat Newell Highway you pass straight flat ‘fields’ kilometres wide.

On one side you can see where they end, as the wheat fields run smack up against the Mt Kaputar National Park.

On the other side, the rows of sorghum or wheat or stubble of one of their many other food crops stretch to the horizon and beyond.

Anything vertical, trees or wheat silos, float in fake lakes, dissolve in a wavering mirage that defies a finite end to this flat, flat earth.

As you can imagine, irrigation and drainage levels are worked out precisely.

Longwall mining for coal takes out a huge chunk 3m high for a long distance underground; subsidence invariably follows.

Boring through layers breaches aquifers, can cause the mixing of pure water with saline or acidic.

If food production is important, and until we can eat coal, only a madman would think of mining under these incredibly flat Plains.

Yet the NSW government accepted $100 million from BHP for the rights to explore at Caroona on these very Plains.

They haven’t done it yet, because the farmers have been blockading their entry for over three months.

Check out their extraordinary stand on the Caroona Coal Action Group site

Rosies can be green

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One of the Crimson Rosellas brought her young one along to try the birdseed recently. It was the first time I’ve seen this happen.

Instead of the mature red, blue and black plumage, its blue was paler, its red more tomato than scarlet, and much of its body was dusted with light lettuce green. It looked like a different parrot altogether.

I assume the green is to camouflage the young from predators until they are old enough and smart enough to fend for themselves.

Mother and child weren’t there long, and the young one didn’t strike contemplative poses for me as the older ones do, so the photos are a little blurred.

Kanga & kids

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The kangaroo families now graze around my house fence as regularly as the wallabies do. This helps keep my firebreak cropped short, as well as affording me front row viewing seats.

This mum had two joeys, one almost a teenager and one a toddler, barely able to squeeze back into the pouch if need be, and still drinking from Mum as well as grazing.

For a week or so I’d been watching him lurching and crashing about as he gradually spent more time on his own two very large and bumbling feet.

But all that hopping is awfully tiring, and while the bigger joey fed on, mother and child lay down for an afternoon nap right next to my fence.

Country Viewpoint: Swallows

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My next Country Viewpoint, Swallows, will go to air  on ABC Radio National next Monday 10th November (ABC Radio National Bush Telegraph, 11am-12noon Australian Eastern Daylight time: Country Viewpoint airs at 11.55).

Bush Telegraph is also available as a podcast.

Echidna rush

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In one week I have been visited by three echidnas, two of them at the same time.

From the orchard I saw what looked like a small dark wombat moving up the slope just outside the fence. Drawing closer, it proved to be the biggest echidna I’ve seen on my place. Its spines were darker at their bases, so less obvious, and at first I thought it had few, like a young one. But this fellow was a veteran.

As I ran to the house to get the camera, a movement within the yard, just above the orchard, caught my eye.

There was another echidna, lighter coloured and smaller! This cute one was doing the rounds of the inside of my house fence, poking its snout, or beak, into the ground as it went. A female?

And then a few days later, from the kitchen window I saw one lumbering towards my yard gate.

It wasn’t as big as the first one, but was darker than the second. As it crossed the track, because it was walking on bare dirt, I got a better look at its feet and powerful digging claws, especially the extended rear one, used for scratching their fur amongst the spines.

Then it climbed an upturned tree root and began poking about in the hard clay. Look at the bristling power and fabulous arrangement of those spines!

I am fascinated by these strange egglaying mammals, or monotremes. How lucky to be able to have them just drop by, to share their habitat.

Spring shades

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Pinks, mauves, magentas, purples – spring is hitting the full spectrum now in its flower offerings.

In the forest, the native Indigofera bushes have burst into prominence with masses of pinkish-mauve pea flowers, carried at about chest-height below the eucalypts. Normally their delicate foliage renders them less visible. Any garden would be graced by these.

In my garden, though, it’s the large and flamboyant blooms of the irises that are catching my eye most often: exotically arranged coloured flags of petals, pink up, magenta down, a dusting of gold feathers, deep purple silk buds.

They even hold their own against the riotous backdrop of the lavender.

Sad saga of the swallow babies

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Just before I went away for a few days this week, I photographed the swallow babies again.

Three were clearly visible, two in the nest and one on the rafter. I suspect the latter was the the same baby who has been the boldest ever since birth. I looked from all angles but could not see the fourth.

And then I did, but not by looking up. Down on the verandah, amidst all the droppings, was a bedraggled smudge of feathers: the fourth nestling. It must have fallen.

I consoled myself – and the parents – with the thought that three out of four wasn’t bad, given all the problems of feeding and squeezing into the nest and avoiding predators.

But now I am back, only three days later, and in the nest I can see two babies, fluffed up against the breeze, looking very fat and healthy, much more developed and alert. I can only see one parent bird at a time, looking much thinner and stressed, as you’d expect, keeping up with such growth.

Yet I see no sign of the third baby — up or down. No little body on the verandah. Have they smothered it in the nest?

All the next day I have waited for a parent to return, to perch on the fairy lights as usual. Perhaps I missed a quick visit, but all has been quiet out there too — no twittering.

And then I can see only one bird up there, and I guess that the parents have been staying away to make them leave the nest.

This is not how I have seen them do it before, when they perched in view and called, encouraging their young to join them. I could then watch the learning-to-fly sessions.

This time it feels like abandonment; I can’t see a swallow, young or old, anywhere aerially about.

An hour later, and I have missed the moment when the last nestling set off on its own.

This is truly ’empty nest’ syndrome. But only until next year.

The Old Brush magic

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Recently I spent a few nights at the Old Brush reserve near Quorrobolong, in the Hunter Valley of NSW

It’s where I had my 60th birthday back in February, when it was so wet I didn’t get a chance to relax and appreciate its beauty.

Owner, professional photographer Robert Bignell, was to take the author photo for my next book, and I gladly accepted the invitation to stay longer and catch up with Robert and his wife Gail over dinner, outdoors of course in such a beautiful place.

The quaint little cabin where I stayed was Robert’s original owner-built home; called the Studio Hut, available for rent, it’s a delight.

Dawn birdsong and reflections on the still lagoon where a statue of Nefertiti reigns, a bush walk through palm forests, alongside busy creeks and giant mossy boulders, then an evening on the verandah by the outside fire, where a wallaby with joey on board visited, totally fearless.

Check out the charms of The Old Brush here.

Stop press: they’re coming out of the nest!

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A few days ago I noticed that the swallow babies had their eyes open, but as they were still mostly hunkering down inside the nest, I could see little of their bodies.

On the warm days, with my door wide open, the parents were coming inside more often, no doubt as the demand for food increased. There’d be flies and plenty of spiders, if they fancied them, amongst the cobwebs on my rafters.

Then just today, I spotted one baby outside the nest, sitting on the rafter. Understandably, as the nest is starting to look quite befouled, and given the size of this bold baby, must also be quite crowded.

As the others stretched and perched higher, I could see that the adult feathers were begining to show though the baby fluff, and the tip of the beak is now dark!

My missing creek

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The one thing missing here is a creek. I have many springs and a high rainfall, but I chose to be on a mountain rather than in a creek-centred valley.

So after a lot of rain when my spring-fed dam overflows and runs with a rush and a roar down the rocky gullies, I cherish the brief experience of having a creek on my place.

It will usually run white water for a day, then more gently for perhaps a week. At present the water table is so high that my precious creek ran across the track and down the gully for two weeks.

The mosses and ferns loved it and the elkhorns on the edging rocks looked on with great approval.

I could almost pretend it was a permanent creek, a compensatory gift for the dreadful bog of my access tracks after rain.

Swallow quads

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Finally it was evident that there were four baby swallows after all.

Their fluffy heads were showing above the nest most of the time: eyes still closed, white-lipped beaks shut tight until a parent appeared.

They look quite comical; I suspect because they resemble the old blackface makeup of the Al Jolson era.

Then they snap their beaks open and show the yellow-orange interior for a long period, blindly hoping food will be placed in there.

The adult’s beak is black-rimmed, so it will be interesting to see just when the colour changes.

As the parent opened its own beak, I saw that the inside of its mouth is also orange, which I hadn’t realised.

Still no sound from the babies, but the parents chatter a lot, so I guess they’re silently learning, taking it in as babies do.

Library visits

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I will be speaking about, and reading from, my book, The Woman on the Mountain, at two NSW libraries next week:

Parramatta Library, at 1pm on Tuesday 28th October (02) 9806 5159, and

Tuggerah Library at 10.30 am on Wednesday 29th October (02) 4353 5666.

Admission to the 30-minute talks is free, and they are followed by question times, which are usually quite lively!