For the past ten years, Sandra Stewart has been rescuing and caring for injured and orphaned native wildlife on her Upper Hunter wildlife refuge – Rocky Creek.
She now has her own website, with some great photos.
Here she shares her many close encounters and relationships, and her concerns, such as about commercial kangaroo shooting licence extensions into the Hunter and Mudgee areas.
Lately the harrassed mother magpie has been closely shadowed everywhere she goes in the yard by her overly large and overly vocal teenager.
Not yet black and white but greyish-brown and white, he is bigger than his mum and always a bit behind in copying whatever she is doing.
The other day she had landed on the bird feeder to check it out.
Finding it empty, as it often is, she quickly took off again.
He sat in it for a while longer, looking confused as to what he was meant to be finding and eating there, and whingeing half-heartedly — but continually.
Then he plunged off after his mother — still whingeing, of course.
After a week on the move, talking about the new book, Mountain Tails, I was glad to be home in the quiet of my natural world, especially in such beautiful Autumn weather.
But I am off again next week, as I am speaking at Tuggerah Library on the central coast of NSW. This will be at 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday 20th May, and if you live in that area, it would be great to meet you there.
The first round of talks were in quite varied venues, some more successful than others, but as always it was terrific to get feedback from the audience afterwards.
First talk (below) was at Parramatta Library, back in the area of my birth, the western suburbs of Sydney! It was a good venue and a receptive audience, with Borders bookshop coming along to this one, for the first time.
Next was outdoors, at the café in Heritage Gardens near Maitland, where what you might call an intimate group shared afternoon tea and conversation afterwards. Thanks to Helen of Angus & Robertson at Greenhills and Jenny at the café for their support and the idea.
On Friday I spoke at the environmentally designed Wallsend Library, in their spacious multi-purpose room.
Despite the heavy rain outside, it was a good turnout, with several familiar faces and, as always, a pleasure to meet new ones. Sue-Ellen and Catherine from A & R at Kotara were there to sell the books and give support.
I went there the next day to sign books and was delighted that, while most people bought one or the other, at least four discerning young men bought both my books for their mothers!
On Mothers’ Day itself I was up early for a great guided walk around the Hunter Wetlands (which they do every second month). A beautiful spot, and the rain held off just long enough.
Most striking sight was the endangered desert species, the Freckled Duck (photo by Dael Allison), which were raised from eggs as part of a conservation programme and are now managing to breed on their own.
Back at the Wetlands Centre we had breakfast, and then a small group patiently tried to hear me (mike and all) over the many other Mothers’ Day breakfasters in the café’s deck area. Clearly a favourite spot.
A special treat was meeting fellow nature blogger Gaye whose site, Snippets and Sentiments, has provided me with insights many a time.
I’ll certainly go back to the Wetlands on a quieter day and walk around to the many birdwatching spots.
Last year I was delighted by seeing two quite different echidnas here at the same time. One had been in my yard, the other just outside it. One was big, one small, one dark, one lighter.
Lately I have had an echidna doing a very thorough job of poking into my whole house yard. Each day I have seen it in a different area, getting about at a great pace. I have had to keep an eye out when sitting weeding for any length of time as it’s given me a few shocks by silently turning up quite close to me. I wouldn’t want to step on it!
It has golden brown spikes and medium brown fur and has been putting its snout into the air more than I’d seen before.
Perhaps the reason was the proximity of another echidna, as the other day, after taking some photos of my regular one, I spotted a darker one ambling along just outside the fence. It came under the gate and began its beat.
This one has darker reddish-pink spines and very dark ‘roots’ showing in between; the fur seems blackish rather than brown.
They kept their distance but traversed sections of grass well within sight of each other, seemingly having no problem sharing territory.
Seen together like this, their differences are obvious, and I have taken to calling my regular the blonde and the visitor the brunette.
So far the blonde has been the more conscientious, not missing a day aerating my damp ‘lawn’ whilst feeding. The brunette, contrary to popular opinion, is more flighty, and comes and goes at will.
Have just read the first novel of my fellow writer and rural blogger, Fleur McDonald. Fleur and her husband run a cattle station in Western Australia, but this novel, Red Dust, is set on a sheep station in South Australia.
I’ve never been to a sheep station but I feel as if I could almost run one after reading Red Dust, as the settings and daily operations are so vividly and clearly described. Fleur knows what she’s writing about and it gives real credibility to the whole work.
But that’s only incidental to the rattling good yarn of sheep rustling and stock squad detective work. This story is interwoven with the difficulties and discoveries of the widowed Gemma as she keeps the sheep station running despite all predictions, following her husband’s death in a light plane crash — right before her eyes.
Yes, there’s romance, but it’s suitably subtle in its development in Gemma’s case — although for her best friend Jess, the riotous redhead, there’s no holds barred! Fleur’s ear for dialogue and idiom is spot on, and adds much to the characterisation.
It’s great to see a story of contemporary rural Australia by a female writer who can write equally well about the practical and the emotional sides of the business, of living well out of town and of running a farm. And who can use that grounding to spin a tale of intrigue where you don’t know who dunnit until she chooses to tell you!
I’m betting this will be a film or a TV special in the not-too-distant future. Bravo Fleur!
Red Dust is published by Allen & Unwin and will be in bookshops from 4th May.
A Crepuscule rose climbs along my verandah railings, the blooms of which I am very fond. Unfortunately I only get to admire them on the far branches that hang suspended in mid-air.
The rest are eaten by the brush-tailed possum.
No doubt it thinks it makes a fair exchange. It munches on flowers and leaves and breaks off stems and branches, makes a deposit on the railing by way of payment and waddles off to the next rose bush.
But whether currants or coal, I haven’t yet found a use for these little black offerings, so am not happy about the exchange at all. I could do without the presents and the presence — of any possum!
I usually don’t inspect a dish of grapes for animate occupants. But after this discovery I certainly shall.
Having eaten a small cluster of sweet black grapes, bought from a regional organic farm, I was about to select another bunch when I glimpsed hairiness where there ought only to be glossy fruitiness.
I blinked: was it hairy stems? But no, definitely hairy spider legs, as it emerged from the side of the bowl.
I hurried outside with the bowl and gently tipped it onto the verandah, where it posed for a minute. Another Huntsman, although not as bulbously brown as the big one on the rafters.
‘This is going too far!’ I admonished it, but it ignored me as it ambled over the edge.
I washed the grapes and remain vigilant.
This odd-looking bird is a Noisy Friar-bird. Friar because of the hood? If so, this friar has a very messy white clerical collar.
I have lots of them here but have never been able to catch them with the camera, as they move very quickly and seldom stay still for long.
But the days are hot and the bird bath is tempting. This one allowed a wattlebird to have a brief drink at the same time and then harangued it loudly, beak open and red eye sparking, until it left.
These birds more frequently drink at my dam, as I described in The Woman on the Mountain:
My small dam in front of the house is a great meeting place — hanging out at the local pool. As always when different gangs meet, there’s a lot of showing off, like the wattlebirds daredevil-diving from a high branch to skim the water and up to a tree on the other side. I sometimes see strangers, such as a lone cormorant or heron, stop by for a drink or a swim. Wood ducks from my big dam try too, but the magpies hustle them on their way, protesting, quacking and flapping.
Some of the get-togethers down there sound like unsupervised group therapy. The weird friar-birds, with their bald black heads and knobby beaks, have a scale of maniacal cackles straight out of bedlam, and over the top of them loudly boast the wattlebirds, ‘I got the lot, the lot, the lot!’ The racket goes on and on, up and down, back and forth, apparently reaching no satisfactory conclusion — a bit like parliament on one of its less than statesman-like days.
January has been very hot, up to 36 degrees here — of course interspersed with odd days where it plummeted to 13 degrees. It’s not called ‘climate chaos’ for nothing.
Outdoor work needs to be done before the day heats up too much, in my opinion, so I aim to be up around six and work for a few hours or until the sun hits wherever I am. Then I have earned an appetite for breakfast, the right to stay inside and write, and the comfort that things out there aren’t getting too far beyond my management.
There are no horses here any more, as my daughter has them at her place now. So I am gradually removing the tree guards in the yard, collecting the last of the precious manure, weeding around the fruit trees, and attempting to prune broken or munched shrubs into less distorted shapes.
Working very close to the yard fence the other day, I noted a kangaroo family stretched out on the grass right beside the wire, just above the little dam.
Despite the fact that I had my small and crackly portable radio on and was clipping and clacking and clanking with my tools and the ancient wheelbarrow — they stayed put as I worked towards them.
I went to get the camera. The biggest stood up when I returned and aimed it; the other two didn’t bother. An ear flicked, a head raised, an itch was scratched. The sun grew warmer; the kangaroos dozed — carefree in their Wildlife Refuge.
Such are my rewards.
I have some new tenants: a family of maned wood ducks. As often happens with my wild neighbours, they took up residence in the house yard when I was away.
As always happens when you’ve been away, there’s lots of washing to do; as I went to hang it out on my simple wire clothesline, there was flurry of movement down near the fence as five wood ducks waddled off from the hydrangea bush to new shelter.
Of course I went for the camera and snuck about. Of course they flew up and over the fence to the dam. It seems the magpies are allowing them tenancy there too, which is a first.
Each day I see them in different places of the yard. This morning they were right outside the steps, and took off in a great flapping fuss when I sleepily emerged.
Because they are so shy it’s hard to be sure, but I think the family is composed of a male and female and three almost grown young.
The male has the plain brown head; the female two white stripes around her eyes and more dappled plumage.
Heatwave days last week, but the wretched python had me beseiged in the house with the door and all but two windows shut! I still am beseiged, although the temperature has dropped. Here’s why.
I was making some small shelves in the house, trotting back and forth to the verandah to saw and drill timber, stepping over the thigh-high masonite snake barrier in place in the doorway.
On one foray back out, I got to the door just as the python was oozing over the snake barrier; half in, half out. I shut the door against it so it couldn’t come in, not fully shut, so not hard enough to squash it against the ‘barrier’ – ha!
I just stood there holding it, almost heaving with fear, cursing hard and wondering what to do! It wouldn’t be able to climb back up in such a small space so it would remain there until I did something.
Dragging the sewing machine over with my foot, I wedged it against the door, then climbed out the window and used one of my long bits of shelf timber to lever the ‘barrier’ up and hold it up so the thing could get out. If it headed my way, I’d drop the timber and run.
But it went into the box cover on my gas bottle, right near where the grandkids play at cooking.
Constant checking showed it later went back behind the shower to its old haunt on the timber frame. I washed in the sink that night.
Thoughts of what the situation would have been had I been a second later reaching the doorway kept me shuddering all night.
Next day it had gone from there. Good, maybe I could have a shower.
But no.
Peering about to see where it had moved to – far away, I hoped – I broke out in a sweat as I saw it curled up just above the shower. Had this been at night I might have missed it until I was in there, happening to glance up, maybe with shampoo in my eyes. Ugh!
I think I’m losing my nerve to cope with such things. If the python gets inside I’d never find it in my crowded cabin. Worse still, if I didn’t know it had got inside and it just appeared, like from under my desk, where I now must check. Often. Double UGH!
Of course when my friend the snake man came the following day – no python. Or the next day. ‘Too hot for it’, he said. The door and windows remain closed except for the few with screens; I put the fan on.
There’s still no python to be seen; not that this gives me any comfort. I keep remembering how my friend kept looking up at my ceiling edges, or behind my fuel stove. He clearly thought it could be inside!
I will have to go a demolition yard and get a screen door and some screen windows to remake to fit. The ‘snake barrier’ has been tossed in the shed. But nothing is ever that simple: my car doesn’t have a towbar or roof racks.
Perhaps it knew the snake man was here. I expect to see it again now he’s gone.
Thanks to Fleur Mcdonald for her kind remarks about Mountain Tails —