Chapter Five: Wildlife Shenanigans
Chapter Five: Wildlife Shenanigans
Cassidy cooks while I hang around by the giant spice shelf. It’s like a witch’s apothecary. In the corner sits an ancient pot-belly stove that doesn’t work. Also formerly looks owned by a witch. Cassidy’s large electric wok takes the place of all other cooking apparatus, and sizzles with vegetables. The kitchen welcomes natural light from the unscreened windows, boasting an open view of the jungle over the top of the wok.
In the morning light, shimmering ivory flesh and broad branches accentuate the soft green jungle around it, illuminated everything in a fine green glow.
We also split big papaya with lunch, and Cassidy suggests we bring the leftover skin to feed the neighbor’s chickens.
“I actually have ten chickens, but the neighbor keeps the other four in her coup, so I like to bring them treats when I can.”
Cassidy guides me past the chicken wire, down a path and into the ravine. We wade between banana trees. A train of hens follow us down, clucking softly at our feet.
“They are herd animals, and when something exciting is going on under the safety of us alpha chickens, they like to be involved! But this papaya isn’t for you ladies!” The wood and earthen winding path from the garden down the ravine lays in an entanglement of wild sunflowers. They are vine-like, and don’t resemble the famous orb-like, erect sunflowers. Lower down the ravine, the hens turn back. They probably don’t feel safe straying too far. We come to a wooden chicken enclosure the size of an SUV, and I meet the neighbor, a woman named Rose, wearing a red bandana over her black hair and wearing baggy pants. We
drop the Papaya skin over the open top of the coop and watch the chickens circle it, then pick it into a dry husk, tearing what's left to shreds. I remark how that would make an awful way to die. Near the coop is a bee box with a buzzing hive of native bees. The Australian native bees are tiny, black, and can't sting. My kind of bee. Native palm trees grow along the periphery of her property, orchids and stag horns are bound to them with rope. Rose catches me looking at them and explains, “In time, these grasping plants take root and cling to the tree themselves, and the ropes are removed. A little pet project. Matt is kind enough to climb the gully and put up bird nests, which allows us to have more native species in our area all season. We get all kinds of colorful parts here. You girls interested in taking a tour of the gully?”
We follow her onto a eucalyptus-shaded dirt path, through more sunflower vines and among ferns. Rose stops at a particular tree with a large mud tumor bulging from its side. Rose says, “It’s a termite mound. Here in Australia, termites live in large dirt mound colonies, sometimes on the ground, sometimes stuck to the sides of trees meters into the air. My partner and I are presently watching it for the kookaburras— a type of kingfisher bird with a big head— building their nest here. These birds find a termite mound in a tree and start pecking it hollow, and then roost inside it.”
We hear the kookaburra before we see it. Loud cackling laughter echoes through the forest as if haunted by evil spirits. Rose points to a tree. The squat bird appears to be grinning, then throws its head back and erupts into another trailing laugh with its beak straight up in the air. The sound may also be mistaken for a hyena laughing through a megaphone, a toddler screaming, or some kind of Amazonian monkey.
We tromp further into the gully forest and Rose points out the different types of flora around us. “The creeping sunflowers are not native here, but they are more harmless and the flowers and
buds can be eaten by native species. I’ve lived here twenty years, and believe it or not, this forest gully was just a trash heap before we cleaned it up and planted trees.”
So that’s who I have to thank for this masterpiece of natural rehabilitation. I’m amazed that one person can make such a big difference here.
At the bottom of the gully, in dense foliage, we step over a plant with beautiful green and purple striped leaves. I compliment it’s gorgeous colors, but Rose doesn’t answer how I expect. “See how it’s so perfectly intact? Without any holes chewed in it? The native plants are eaten up by the local bug and animal species, but ignore the non-native things they aren’t used to. That’s how you can tell when something is invasive. And that gives it an edge, staying healthier, eventually taking over and pushing out the warn out native plants. That advantage only grows, which is why introduced plants anywhere in the world often take over and cause so much harm.” I’ve seen it before with ice plants in California, taking over entire chunks of coastline, but had no idea of the cause before. Is this true everywhere?
Only a few paces forward, crunching through dense bush, we stumble upon the decaying remains of a small animal. It wasn’t out of place in a dense gully, but Cassidy gasped, bending down to inspect it further, “I’m not positive about the state of decomposition, but I think it’s safe to assume this is our pet possum who went missing a few weeks ago.”
Poor possum. I had heard such nice things about him.
“What happened to him?”
“Probably poisoned. People poison rats, the pests, but it can be damaging to local marsupials as well.”
How unpleasant. The more I learn about living city ecology, the more depressing it is.
We climb out of the gully and cross up the sunflower path to Rose’s back garden. Rainbow birds with multitude of red feathers fly overhead.
“Are those more lorikeets?” I ask, happy to know the name of a particular local parrot category.
“No, those are called rosellas.” Rose says. “They are another kind of local parrot.” “Lesser known because they make boring pets.” Laughs Cassidy in her matter-of-fact tone. “Matt builds nests for them around here.”
Next, we pass a particular tree that appears to be buzzing. “Did they escape the bee box or is that just a coincidence?” I ask. A hive of native bees, which are tiny and black, move in a slow, drunken fashion. It makes them appear cute. It also helps that they have no stingers and are of no danger to humans.
“Ah! The little darlings!” cries Rose, made even more charming by her Aussie accent. Later, I spend the remainder of the afternoon catching up on journaling. From the other room, Matt exclaims, “Ah damnit! . . . there’s a brush turkey in the kitchen! Shoo, shoo!” In case you didn’t know, a brush turkey is a semi-flightless bird native to Australia, and despite its name, it’s not related to the North American turkey, and a menace to the garden. But more on that later. Alas, tomorrow we won't have time to wrangle brush turkeys. We have a long drive ahead of us, three hours south. The Australian Seabird Rescue has called to tell us they have ten specimens for pickup.
***
Cassidy explains that her phone connects us to all the dead birds, and is sort of like a bat call- - wherever there are dead birds in need, she's the one to call. One place I didn’t think of for harvesting dead birds from was the zoo. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that, after all, zoo animals die too, everything dies eventually.
And so, about a week into my stay, on our way home from a pickup, Cassidy gets a call from the famous Steve Irwin Australia zoo, which is an hour out, but I had no idea it was within driving distance of Brisbane.
It turns out a lot of zoos have local birds roaming the grounds and inside exhibits. It adds to the scenery, even if they are not the star animal in the exhibit. White herons scrounge the hippopotamus exhibit, while cormorants pair well with gazelles.
Down the long entryway, waving banners welcome us with the faces of Irvine’s son and daughter handling marsupials. They beam at us, welcoming us into their world of animals down under. My heart races, I’m swept up in the excitement! How lucky I am to be coming for a free zoo visit. Will we get to see some cool exhibits of rare animals, handle some exotics on our way
backstage, as we go in to collect from the morgue? My imagination runs wild. We turn from the main driveway into the parking lot, and my body anticipates Cassidy parking.
“Slow down, there are tons of spots! Why are you parking so far?” I say as we pass open spaces and continue further into the lot.
“Oh, we're not going to the main zoo . . .” Cassidy says as she jerks the car to the left, and my hopes are dashed by the same jerking motion as my body feels, as we drive on past the main parking area, away from the action, and down a small side concrete ramp, and into a side lot
surrounded by walls. It’s hideous, without character, lackluster! Nothing like behinds the scenes is supposed to be!
We are in a whole different part of the zoo. The part the tourists don't see.
“This is the morgue.”
“Ah . . .” I deflate.
Despite my disappointment, the staff is warm and very kind. They happily hand over four promising bags of birds. I try my best to shake my mood and hide any sense of disappointment. I don’t know what I was thinking, it was silly to presume anything. I guess I was just swept up in the hype of advertising at the front. Steve Irwin’s children had just looked so happy there, holding creatures, they did a fantastic job in building excitement.
Besides, this becomes the only morgue to ever offer us exotic fruit. The staff hand us a lovely fruit basket (okay, yes, I mean trash bag) full of homegrown custard apples, along with the several bags of birds. Custard apples are exotic enough for me, I decide, biting into the delicious creamy fruit on the car ride home.
*
Hours of driving later, we return to the lab by car, arriving after dark to lay out our large bounty. Tomorrow, Cassidy promises, there will be time to explore the living wildlife around our own neighborhood.
I’ve been here about a week.
I stand in the kitchen, looking up at a large bag of oranges resting on a shelf above the counter. There is a prominent slit at the bottom of the bag, revealing the bulging bottom of an orange.
The slit is growing each day.
My hosts refuse to do anything about it, and I shudder for the day it gives way, and forty oranges make their tumultuous escape. I won’t be the one standing under it when that happens. My eyes fixate on the sunlit wok Cassidy is tending, billowing steam rises from the wok, obscuring and framing the view of the rainforest out the open window. As if we are in Southeast Asia— from the large colorful tapestries, the wooden walls and floor, the row of heavy black pots hanging on hooks over her chimney oven, my eyes follow right back to the wok containing tofu and vegetable stir fry, billowing that gentle white steam.
“Hey,” Cassidy asks, breaking my trance. “Want to go look for eggs to add to the stir fry?”
I nod and head down the back stairs, which creak underfoot as I descend into the muddy garden.
I first check their coop, a logical first step, reaching my arm inside and digging around. I scatter a few shells, tossing aside promising white round lumps, but alas, they are all broken except for one. I collect the last intact egg among the broken shells and continue to root around the yard, checking between shrubs and anything else I can think of.
I find one in an empty pot, and another under a bush by the aviary. I proudly trot back into the kitchen with my shirt bunched up with the bundle of treasures. It’s just as fun as Easter.
From this morning on, each morning I go out to get eggs, but despite my success that first time, each subsequent day to my surprise, I find fewer and fewer eggs. There are plenty of eggshells around though, so it’s not like they haven’t been laying any.
A few days in, on my morning hunt, I step into the garden just in time to hear a ruckus, and come rushing to the coop in time to spot a brush turkey fleeing the chicken coop at the sound of my oncoming footsteps, a look of alarm on the brush turkey's face. They are these wild jetblack feathered land-bound birds, about as tall as a chicken but much longer and with bigger claws. Their bald red head and comical, scarf-like bright yellow waddle make them the clowns of the woods.
I turn and immediately run up to the kitchen to report my sighting to Cassidy— Something must be done or we won’t have any more eggs.
Upstairs, Cassidy is setting up the tea kettle, with Tiki the rainbow lorikeet happily perched on her shoulder. Like a casual pirate.
“Cassidy, a brush turkey has been in the chicken house, I think he’s the one breaking the eggs!”
She scowls at the news, “Those mischievous brush turkeys! Always stealing the chicken feed! They eventually discover they can eat the chicken eggs too— “
“Ew, they eat the eggs?”
“Sure, why not?”
I go through it in my head. As the brush turkeys are basically chicken-sized, it does seem weird they would eat the eggs of a creature that so resembles them, and even though logically I know the two are totally unrelated and the brush turkeys are wild, a distant echo of cannibalism still unsettles me.
“Yes, they’re a double nuisance!” Cassidy fumes “If it gets too bad, they eat all the eggs and the food, and I’ll have to move the brush turkeys to a new territory.”
“Eh, how do you do that? There is really a service here that moves brush turkeys!?” I ask. I have no clue, for all I know there could be.
“Ah, naw,” she waves a hand. “I wrangle them up myself.”
She states this as if it’s perfectly normal.
“Uh huh . . .What??” I demand more explanation. “What do you use to catch them?” Cassidy looks puzzled, and pours herself some tea. “What do you mean? I just tackle em’ . . .!”
Hah, just tackle them, she says. Like that is so easy! Tiki seems to give me a knowing look from her shoulder.
“I’m serious! The hard part is getting them into the pet carrier. They escape more times than not at that point.”
“And then what do you do with them?” I ask, grabbing a cup for tea as well. “I put them in the car and drive them up to mount Coot-Tha! Course, I cover the carrier with a towel so they can’t find their way back, but it’s too far for them anyway.” “Wow! And that solves the problem? Why don’t we do that?”
“Oh well, I’ve done it twice since living here a year, but other brush turkeys from nearby territories always move in to take their place because it’s a suitable habitat. It just takes those new ones’ a while to realize their full mischief potential, and then the cycle starts all over again.”
Cassidy gets the honey for the tea, which turns out complicated. First, she takes out a small bucket-shaped tea specifically for Tiki, who screeches with excitement and climbs down from her shoulder to voraciously lap at it from the edge of the container. He utters happy little squeaks
as he digs in. Now that he is occupied, Cassidy takes out the Tasmanian honey from the Gold Coast honey store, to be consumed only by humans.
We move the conversation to the back staircase to eat our typical Australian breakfast of beans, veggie sausage, and eggs. This is due to the absence of any sort of dining table. Bikes and bird lab supplies fill the little room that is the origional, architecturally designed sitting area.
While sitting on the stairs, I asked about the brush turkeys. "Why are they so destructive?" In fact, the turkey is an anceint species. A smaller cousin of the menacing, dinosaurlike cassowary, and basically half reptile. The male is the destructive one, who collects plants and scrub, using his gangly dinosaur legs to scratch up a big heap. The bigger the mound he creates, the more attractive he is to females, who come by and compare the males, then lay their eggs in the mightiest mound.
True to their dinosaur ansestry, and very unlike modern bird mom behavior, these turkey babies are born totally independent, hatching like a turtle might on a beach and wandering off to survive alone.
Apparently, they make gardening in Australian gardens, even in a city, very difficult, as they have adapted well to urban environments. It has impeded many of Cassidy and Matt's vegitable garden attempts. But more worse that, is their taste for chicken eggs.
Cassidy told me the story of the last time the brush turkeys got to of hand in her own yard. “This one time, I went on vacation for two weeks, left this place up to the housemates to take care of. When I came back, the chickens were all starving, and there were two-dozen brush turkeys literally filling up the yard! They had gone unchecked, eaten up all the chicken feed and eggs, had laid their eggs in the area, and it came to support a massive population of fearless, entitled brush turkeys! They were everywhere!”
“Woah! And none of the housemates noticed?!”
“Naw, they just did the minimal, placing chicken feed and not noticing or chasing away the brush turkey population, which had become unnaturally inflated. It was out of control. I had to tackle dozens of brush turkeys with Matt that day. Filled the car with brush turkeys, squirming in the back seats, finally released them up at mount Coot-tha wildlife preserve. It was nuts. You shoulda seen the car after that! Full of black feathers!”
I was blown away, how she managed to drive up there with a car full of brush turkeys is another image I can’t get out of my head.
As we eat, Tiki climbs off her shoulder, down her arm, and leans over Cassidy’s plate, slurping a couple beans off her plate; the perfect size to fit in his beak.
Not long after sitting, we hear the low bawking of the fluffy hens as they come up the stairs to investigate. Soon we are surrounded by curious orange hens, and we must lift our plates off our laps and nudge chicken faces out the way of our plates in order to keep eating.
Near the end of my meal, one bold hen jumps over my shoulder and onto my plate, splattering what was left of its contents all over me.
Cassidy apologetically explains, “The chickens are used to eating whatever we don’t finish. I toss food off the balcony to them all the time. They aren’t shy about eating our food!” “Right. From this day on, I will stand on the back landing with my plate and watch the jungle, keeping my meal safe from chickens. How about that?”
After breakfast, I move to my room to do some journaling. Not long after, a ruckus of clunking and smashing from the hallway disturbs me. A scratching sound startles me: it’s at my door.
When I open it, Cassidy stands in the hall, grappling with a wild brush turkey in her arms. It stops struggling for a moment, just long enough to snatch a photo from my desk before it attempts escape again.
“The dang thing keeps getting into the chicken coop and eating their food! I had have enough, maybe this will traumatize it out of ever doing that again!”
It doesn’t work. Either because the brush turkey didn’t learn his lesson, or because there are just too many other wild animals out there messing around.
The brushtail possum, is an adorable, fluffy grey marsupial with an expression of wide-eyed innocence. But they are like ninjas. One evening, I am in the kitchen looking for a snack. The bananas are looking a healthy yellow, so I pick up a bunch and to my surprise the whole thing is almost weightless. I squeeze one to find it is hollow. I turn the bunch over in my hand and find a large child’s pajama style hole, as if someone has peeled it, taken out its contents, then closed it back up. I stomp into the living room and say, “Hey guys, at least throw away the bananas when you are done with them! Sheesh!”
“But Julia, that wasn’t us!” says Cassidy, who is playing with the cockatiels. “Very funny, Cassidy!”
“No, really, it is a possum! We must have a new one coming in the window to eat our fruit. That happens if we leave the window open. They sneak in the window and eat whatever is around!”
“Well why haven’t I ever seen this before? I’ve been here two weeks now!” “We had a trained possum, who came every night, but left right before you came he went missing.”
It is quite a learning curve. I fall for it again on another night. We order a pizza with pineapples, and I came back into the room for a second slice to find all the pineapples missing! As if someone has picked them off as a joke. Again, I stomp into the living room, wondering, is it someone being rude, or is it a possum? This time I know who to suspect. Someone could really get away with being a jerk and blaming it on the scoundrel. In time, I learn listen for the sounds of paws scampering across the tin roof and then close the window.