Rides on water and land

 Tuesday October 4:

Our cabin is mostly mesh sided; it was nice to hear the birds (especially the Whistling Kites and Blue-winged Kookaburras) wake up with the dawn. After an early light breakfast we headed out for an airboat ride on the freshwater floodplain. When our trip leaders were here in June the water was very close to the lodge and the airboats were parked at the end of the cabin walkway. Today we took a 30-minute Jeep ride to get to the boats, and it was a bit of a struggle getting them off the mud to get under way. The airboats are quite loud, and frighten many animals, particularly crocodiles and the hordes of Magpie Geese which fill the reeds and trees along the water. Magpie Geese are protected, but here they are so plentiful that it seems impossible that they are in danger! The crocodiles (called saltwater because they can live in saltwater, but they are happy to live in fresh) really motored to get out of our way. In one case the water was too shallow and the croc had to essentially run through the mud leaving a wide wake behind him.

We saw many water birds while on the airboats, and some more while on a walk after lunch as well as on a drive in the late afternoon.  We also learned a lot of interesting tidbits. Buffalo have an oil on their hooves that allows them to stand in water for long periods without suffering from foot rot as horses would do.  Northern eucalyptus species do not have the oil or the moisture or the fragrance of southern species, which explains both the lower level of bush fires in the north and the lack of koalas, who get all their moisture from the leaves they eat. Koala means “no drink” in the native language. There are both tree termites and grass termites here. The aboriginal people would let the termites bore out the center of logs as the first step to making digeridoos. The grass termites create channels in the ground to allow them to avoid sunlight, but those channels are also useful to bring rainwater deeper into the soil in the wet season. Both types of termites provide food for other creatures, and other animals nest in parts of the termite mounds. Kookaburras are extremely territorial and careful about interbreeding with close relatives, so they steal eggs from other nests and raise the chicks carefully to provide fresh genetic material in the breeding pool.

It hasn’t seriously rained here in weeks, and we had a bit of the same pattern today. Big dark clouds rolled in, sometimes with thunder, sprinkles began, and then... the storm moved on. It did settle the dust a little, and for a while the breeze was cooler... but then the sun came out and the temperature zoomed up again. 

Pictured: Nankeen Night-heron, Black-necked stork (formerly Jabiru), Blue-winged kookaburra,  saltwater crocodile