The other morning there was a strange sound just outside the garden fence.
Obviously avian, but of what ilk, who knows?
Sounded like a pair of demented ravens (Corvus coronoides) trying to imitate two of Elmore Leonard's worst crooks.
Went out and had a look.
There's a pair of wood ducks (Chenonetta jubata) -- strictly a duck and a drake -- wadling along the road having what sounded to be a row.
Never heard ducks do anything other than quack!
So today ...
... Oh, yeh I have to explain first.
Sledgette Major is off to Bali today and I'm in charge of her dog.
(Black cross between a large lavatory brush and a Kombi van, name of Roxie.)
So today ...
I'm walking the dog down to the Minjup Deli for a pouch of Champion and accoutrements and we have to pass a big dead eucalypt (victim of die-back) in which the Red-tailed black-cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus banksii) tend to hang out.
Lots of nice hidey-holes up to there.
But today, there are (I'm guessing) the same two ducks.
Sitting up high, 20-or-so metres above the ground.
Someone needs to tell them they're not passerines and that they should quack.
Doesn't act like a duck; doesn't quack like a duck; so it's ... what?
Dinner perhaps?
Roxie was more interested in the chickens.
She hadn't seen those before and certainly wasn't going to go barking up that tree for her dinner.
