Mountain Tails

by Sharyn Munro

  Perhaps they were just visiting, but I suspect she was trying to get rid of the kid, drop him off so she could have a brief respite from his relentless demands. Only he wasn’t having any of that and kept following her from branch to branch. She gave up; some kids just don’t take to day care.

  I heard him continuing the carry-on further up the hill.

  Perhaps the different species are checking out the playpen for next season, since, also for the first time, I had a visit from a Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo mother and child. I get groups of these big cockatoos in damp weather, but this time there were just two of them, sitting in the branches of the large stringy-bark uphill from the toilet.

  Set amongst the rocks at the foot of this stringy-bark I keep an upturned triple-decker old ceramic insulator full of water, so thirsty birds there often provide a little entertainment and aid contemplation for toilet-sitters. The toilet deliberately has no door; it is fully open on its eastern face, as little weather comes from that direction, and the morning sun is pleasant on bare knees in winter. Privacy is one of the great benefits of not living in suburbia; there’s no one to peep over my fence.

  These two cockatoos didn’t look much different from each other, dark brownish-black, with lemon cheek patches and tail bands, but I recognised that forward lean of the body, that whining tone. One of them had to be a young one, and it sounded like he was sawing down the tree without taking a breath.

  I’ve just realised that I keep assuming these demanding young birds are masculine. As I wouldn’t want to be accused of sexism, let’s say it’s just a convenience: ‘it’ sounds too impersonal, and ‘he or she’ is too unwieldy.

  While the baby boom lasts, I greet the oft-given comment of how peaceful it must be up here with a short and bitter laugh. ‘Huh!’ I say, quoll spots passing before my eyes, and outside the juveniles start again, ‘Hah, hah, hah, hah...’

  But once it’s over, the frogs quieten down and the wild-child rearing should be done for the season. One year I was thrilled to spot eight White-headed Pigeons fly up from the rainforest gully and land just outside my gate. I’d seen one or two before, but this was a rare sighting. Through the binoculars, one of them seemed a little greyer than the others’ strong white and iridescent black plumage.

  As I noted the event in my bird book, I heard a noise at the low window. I turned. There on the sill was the greyish pigeon. A young one? I checked the yard. All the grown-ups were gone, so I assumed the word about the playpen had spread to the rainforest. Since I never saw the young pigeon again, it must have been only occasional care they were needing for that day.

  Next year it was back to the regular enrolments, which are more than enough. I’d close the books except that you never know what unusual new mum might venture in. She could be an excitingly rare animal or bird—and her youngster just might be a quiet one.

  A BATHFUL OF TADPOLES

  I don’t have a bath for myself to use, as I still don’t have a bathroom. I do yearn for the relaxing luxury of one, and take advantage of friends’ tubs if I happen to have time when I visit, soaking and steaming in perfumed bubbly bliss, with a book and a glass of wine within reach. Unfortunately the indulgent pleasure is marred these days by my glasses fogging up, as I can’t read without them.

  The only bathtub around here is outdoors, cold water only: it’s the ’50s-style toothpaste-green tub that serves as the horse trough in my yard. One day in late summer, after rain had caused it to overflow, I noticed it was full of tiny brown tadpoles. The water level is usually well below the rim, but some misguided frogs must have taken it for a pond in its brief overabundance, and made a joint deposit for the future.

  Tadpoles conjure up primary school memories of jarfuls of the poor little prisoners on bread and water, as we watched legs grow and tails diminish. I was mostly fascinated by their transparency, by being able to see inside to what we called their stomachs but I suppose were intestines. And of course the end result was interesting too, in those squiggles of ‘waste matter’ that the nuns wouldn’t let us call ‘poo’.

  I don’t know what the tadpoles in my tub were eating but the layer of poo in the bottom grew larger and so did the tadpoles. I couldn’t empty it out to clean as I normally would because that would have been frogicide. I made sure to keep it topped up with cool water on hot days so they didn’t stew, but I resisted putting in food for them in case it affected the water for the horses, who still had to drink from it when in the yard.

  My dams are full of tadpoles so I guess the horses are used to them, but a tub doesn’t offer the same scope for the tadpoles to escape an in-sucking horse’s mouth. I assumed the horses would sieve out any inadvertent traveller. I thought of Jonah and the whale—same scale differential really.

  Then one rainy day when it was too wet to let the horses in, I relented and tore a leaf of flat lavash bread into pieces, letting them flutter down into the tub like the scraps of a discarded love letter.

  At first the tadpoles didn’t approach these strange pale papery objects that floated above them. Perhaps when these soften and disintegrate, I thought, they’ll get the idea that this is food, even if unlike anything ever seen in their tubby universe. As tadpoles have multiple rows of teeth, they shouldn’t have trouble with the actual eating of it.

  Then one of the smallest nosed up to a scrap and began nibbling. Just like with humans, it’s the kids who are game to try new things, who work out how to deal with new technology.

  By the time I got back with my camera, the bigger ones had caught on and in twos and threes were swimming about pushing a piece of flat bread in front of them. Some were underneath, wearing the scrap like a hat, while smarter ones wedged it against the side of the tub to attack it. But some still weren’t convinced. Luddites, I figured.

  I thought they’d be Bleating Tree Frogs when they grew up. They’d add to the large population already in the little dam. In times of thunder and rain, their overwhelmingly loud chorus sounds as if it emanates from hundreds of big frogs, whereas they are quite small. And as only male frogs call, there are possibly thousands of frogs in there!

  A few weeks later, the tadpoles appeared to have stopped growing, let alone changing into frogs. The tiny rear legs still hung unused. They could have put metamorphosing on hold until better times, as some frogs can, but whether by choice or not, I decided that lack of the right nutrition must be the reason for not progressing. I began catching them in a sieve, tipping them into a bucket and transferring them to a more normal habitat—the dam.

  I was sorry not to have seen them change, but I’m sure they’re happier in their new home. But ... would the dam locals make them welcome, would they have any idea how to survive the predators after such a sensorially deprived childhood, would they even know what to eat, would the water be too dark and muddy for them after their peppermint green world? Had my enforced relocation sentenced them to death?

  I couldn’t help but recall a clunky rhyme from my Infants teaching days, so if it’s rattling round in my head, sorry, but you’ll have to bear it too.

  Little Tommy Tadpole began to weep and wail,

  For little Tommy Tadpole had lost his little tail.

  His mother did not know him as he sat upon a log,

  For little Tommy Tadpole was Mr Thomas Frog.

  Well, the five-year-olds thought it was cute.

  SEEKING A MATE?

  While I have frogs on my mind, I must tell you about the strangest frog encounter I’ve ever had.

  On this particular day, I’d moved the food processor to the bench from its usual home on top of my little fridge, by the window. I was about to chop a small mountain of parsley and mint for tabbouli. A favourite salad of mine, it’s also ridiculously good for me, with those two vitamin- and mineral-packed fresh herbs making up its substance, for once behaving like greens instead of garnish. The double benefit always seems out of kilter with the way of the world, like being told lollies are good for you.

  For the amo
unt of tabbouli I make at a time, the food processor is the most efficient method. The cracked wheat, or burghul, was soaking; the spring onions and the herbs from my garden were washed and nearly dry, waiting in the colander; the lemons were picked and squeezed; the bottle of golden-green olive oil standing by. There was such a lot that I’d have to process the herbs in batches so they didn’t turn into a paste. I was ready to go.

  The pusher part of my machine is hollow, quite deep, and beige, not transparent like the container itself. I don’t know why I looked into the pusher as I removed it to put the parsley in the chute; I don’t think I usually did. But sitting cramped down there at the bottom of the pusher was what looked like a large cream-coloured blob, staring up at me with two big dark eyes.

  Not being able to see clearly without my glasses on, I squealed anyway. Whatever it was shouldn’t be in this indoor thing, this clean, kitchen-type non-animal-habitat plastic thing! Rushing it out to the brighter light of the verandah, I tipped it up. Nothing emerged. I tapped the base firmly and out plopped the occupant—a frog. A big one for here, sort of putty-coloured, with two fine black stripes running backwards from its eyes.

  ‘How the hell did you get in there?’ I asked. ‘And why?’

  No doubt still in shock, the frog said nothing, took a few plops to the verandah edge and disappeared into the greenery.

  From the photos and known distributions in my frog book, I think it may have been a Whistling Tree Frog. The description said that the call is ‘a loud whirring’.

  The fanciful idea occurred to me that my frog was a female who’d heard my food processor whirring and, thinking it was a very virile male, hopped in through the open window one day. She’d waited until all was quiet again, sought her ideal mate in the now-dormant food processor—and got stuck in the dead-end pusher, unable to launch herself back up and out. As I didn’t know which day she might have come in, I didn’t know how long she’d been languishing in there.

  Having been so seriously disappointed in love this time, I wondered if it was her first ‘crush’, and if, after that romantic adventure, she would be satisfied with a male of lesser whirring ability to fertilise her next batch of jellied eggs?

  Was it love or lust? Aren’t they both subject to a blind rush, beyond rationality, objectivity, judgement, and often, self-control?

  I’m told that the image of the object of first love, lost but forever enhanced and romanticised by time and wishful thinking, can spoil the chances of any subsequent suitor meeting such unrealistic standards. So for her sake I hope it was lust, which has different, less fanciful mechanisms for rekindling itself, driven by biological urges—like the need to reproduce the next generation of tadpoles.

  POOLSIDE LOUNGERS

  Apart from being frog and snake heaven, my little dam is a drinking hole for many who don’t even get their feet wet. It’s not far from my house, so I see a variety of animals there daily. The larger marsupials prop at the edge, lean forward and steadily siphon up water for a very long time, only glancing about occasionally. They rarely just fill up and leave, for they seem to like lolling on the grassy bank, sunning themselves by the pool.

  While I have many Eastern Red-necked Wallabies, I share my place with small groups of other hoppy marsupials, or macropods, and it is at this dam where I most often see them.

  Perhaps I should explain that all Australia’s main native hoppy creatures, like wallabies, wallaroos, kangaroos, potoroos, bettongs, pademelons, quokkas, etc., are macropods (macro = large, pod = foot) that is, they all have big hind feet, for hopping. These macropods are all vegetarians, or herbivores, mainly grass-eaters.

  Macropods are but one branch of the larger, better known Aussie fauna family, the marsupials, who all give birth to tiny embryonic young, which is why most of them have pouches—so the under-developed babies can continue developing safely and warmly. Most of our other iconic animals, like the koala, the wombat or the quoll, to name but a few, are marsupials, but they aren’t macropods—no big back feet. The echidna and the platypus aren’t marsupials at all, but monotremes, because they lay soft-shelled eggs.

  Under the wider-spread family tree, all these animals are mammals like us, rather than reptiles or birds. The criteria being that we are warm-blooded, feed our young on milk, and grow hair; well, we do on some bits and to varying degrees!

  Amongst my macropod neighbours, the wallaroos are really hairy, but only a few come by here, usually a small family trio. Yet one male has been hanging about the little dam on his own lately. I wonder if he’s grown up and been asked to move out from that family group, a threat to Dad’s authority?

  He doesn’t seem at all bothered by me, not even when I went up very close to the fence one day to make sure he wasn’t hurt. In fact he stretched out and went to sleep while I was there. He must have been raised around here to be so used to me and my behaviour.

  It always amazes me that the animals can tell it’s me, whatever my clothes, which, unlike their coats, change often. Although, come to think of it, my Mountain clothes, mainly once black ‘good’ clothes faded to shades of licorice or charcoal, are all so stained and spotted with paint or oil or other unidentifiable relics of past jobs that the animals probably register them as my recognisable generic coat. But what about my head shape? I might be wearing my worn Akubra felt hat, for sun or rain protection, or a red beanie if it’s cold, or no hat at all (winter only), with my grey locks on show.

  Or am I being patronising, not giving them credit for more intelligence, for having learnt to know my face? It took dumb me quite a while to be able to distinguish between the different macropod species here, let alone within each species.

  This fellow is unmistakably a wallaroo, with his long shaggy fur, broader features and thickset body; he is not as black as the wallaroo males usually are in my region, while the females are pale grey. It will be interesting to see if he changes. The wallaroos like the rockier parts of my block: rougher country for rougher-looking marsupials, at least compared to the neatly groomed wallabies and kangaroos.

  Later that same day I spotted a family of Eastern Grey Kangaroos sunbathing and snoozing at the same spot on the gently sloping rear bank. They used to be seen only higher up on my ridge, but since the last big fire a group of them hangs around here a lot.

  They’re the macropod upper class—naturally grand, majestic in stature, the males as big as a pony, dauntingly powerful when they stand fully erect, chest out, muscular shoulders back. Lacking giraffes or elephants, these are the biggest native creatures I’m ever going to share with.

  Kangaroos all have admirable carriage: straight backs and necks, heads held high as they bound across the paddock or through the trees. The males are handsome, and while the females are smaller, they retain the well-defined facial bone structure of the species; they never look like wallabies. In their dusky greyish-brown coats, paler front fur, black highlights of ears, nose and paws, and their large dark eyes, they are most elegant.

  When the kangaroo family lies down, heads kept raised to see what’s doing, but relaxed, their long back legs languidly crossed, I am reminded of the bony yet muscular legs of ballerinas. Four or five of them stretched out like this cover a lot of the dam bank area.

  This resort is obviously popular, for the food and drink, the water views and the entertainment of watching me go about my strange business in the house yard up the hill.

  It’s very close to the bottom gate through which I put the horses out. I may then tie them up to the fence posts and feed them there. Even if I’m chastising Shari, the greedy little fat one, or calling the other horses to come before she eats all the carrots, the poolside loungers remain undisturbed at the noise. I warrant a brief interruption, a glance—Oh, it’s only her—and they resume grazing or dozing. Human or horse: just another animal.

  Kangaroo young are as cute as the wallaby babies—big-eyed, fluffy, uncoordinated, high-spirited, given to twisting themselves back-to-front to scratch at fleas or ticks, or leani
ng back at an odd angle, looking as if they’ll overbalance at any minute, to scrabble at their tummy fur, or corkscrewing themselves vertically into the air, for the sheer joy of being young and alive.

  Like the wallaby joeys, they appear to play at sparring with their mothers, who are very tolerant, literally turning the other cheek until they’ve had enough, when they give the annoying child a cuff over the head and move on. The joey shakes its head several times, as if to clear the stars it’s seeing, then catches her up to try it on again.

  I am pleased that the kangaroos now ignore me almost as much as the wallabies do, if I move steadily. As I’m seeing several family groups now, not just one, I’d say they’re here to stay.

  Good! That’s what this Refuge is for.

  Last year, for the very first time, I saw a Swamp or Black Wallaby and her joey on the grassy rise visible from my kitchen window. Dark-chocolate velvety fur, small head, usually seen in the ferny forests on the shady southern side of my ridge. I assumed the drought was sending them foraging further afield. They eat bracken, so I hope they started on mine.

  I saw them a few more times but they came no closer. Since then I have twice seen one at the little dam, so I am hoping it was the young one, who may have remained here when grown and independent, even though the weather is now the opposite—too wet! It would be wonderful if a family of Swamp Wallabies took up permanent refuge too.

  I’ll learn more about these newer neighbours when they’re fully at ease with me, when they understand how this Refuge works. That is, they’re the occupants; I’m just the resident caretaker and security guard.