By then, the rising water had nudged the foxes out of their holes along the riverbank, which kept the hares watchful in turn. Naturally, New Boy was straight into the action, spending our long walk tearing around after a fox cub and understanding nothing about anything. I took the more dignified approach, surveying the overnight arrivals settling on the long billabong.
And what a crowd it was. Black duck, grey teal, handsome chestnut teal, wood ducks and a pair of mountain ducks circling overhead with their persistent carking. They fluttered and paddled across the water, dipping their heads into a buffet of beetles, grubs and other bugs flushed out by the rising river.
How the teal know a flood is coming before I do, I can’t tell you. There hadn't been any around here for weeks, and then suddenly there were dozens, celebrating like they'd won something. The Boss reckons the females’ descending cackle sounds like Shakespeare’s witches plotting mischief around a cauldron. To my ears it’s far too gleeful for that — more like a hen’s night that’s gotten out of hand.
It set off the whole river bend. The gravelly quacks of the black duck mingled with the meowing of the wood duck, the grey shrike thrush joined in, the magpies warbled and a mob of white-winged choughs added their tuneful whistles. The froglets kept time underneath like a drummer who's forgotten where the end is. The bush orchestra was in full swing.
“They all look happy and healthy, General,” The Boss said, looking out over the water. Then he took a breath. “So far.”
He's been keeping half an eye on his phone for weeks, tracking the bird flu strain that finally reached the Western Australian coast in June — Australia's last line of defence gone — with cases now in South Australia and NSW after a dead petrel turned up on the Mid-North coast.
The Boss keeps track of these things — he knows this nasty H5N1 strain has spread heavily across Europe, Asia, the Americas and even down to the elephant seals on sub-Antarctic Heard Island.
He looks at the news and sees poultry culls, and devastation as vulnerable species like our coastal-loving chestnut teal mix it with the migrating birds. New Boy, on the other hand, looks at the noisy chaos and sees opportunities to get wet and lay chase.
Although the government’s been on this since 2024, The Boss tells me the tools are limited, and the experts keep landing on the same answer: healthy habitats and strong populations are the best defence there is.
If that’s true, our billabong isn’t waiting around to be vulnerable — it’s holding a health-and-fitness summit. Going by the cackling and the drumming, these birds are in serious training, bulking up on high-protein bugs and building what The Boss would call resilience — and I’d call showing off. They are feeding like they are preparing for a marathon.
So we’re hoping the flood music plays on a while yet. The teal, it may turn out, are better prepared for another pandemic than either of us. Woof!
