Spotted Quoll

Spotted Quolls are my favourite Australian animal.  They are feisty, curious and strong-limbed.  Considered an apex predator, they are the second largest carnivorous marsupial (behind the Tasmanian Devil) and to hear them in the wild, they sound every bit as intimidating.

But unlike other marsupials, they have brilliant colouring.  Their fur is a bright, tawny brown with white spots – perfect for hiding on the dappled sunlit floor of sub-tropical rainforests.  Their noses are disproportionately large for their faces and their ears, disproportionately small.  It makes them no less attractive.

There are four species of Quoll, but I have only ever seen this one in the wild.  I have heard another but in the dense rainforests of the tropical north, I could not spot it.

They don’t live long.  At two years of age, this one is already middle-aged.  And while they are nocturnal, they spend their days basking in the sun.  For what little time they get, they cram in an awful lot of living.

Legacy

The gravelly voice of a bluesman crackles over a wireless.  Soaked in perspiration, the landowner eases himself into a chair on the porch.  It creaks under his weight.  Casually, he sips at a jam jar of sweet lemonade and unwinds to the gospel melody of the musician.

He stares off at the summer sun as it dips below the line of oaks smothered in Spanish moss.  He won’t sit here long.  It is nearly time for supper and it is an indulgence to spend batteries on a day other than the Sabbath.

He runs his hand over the twisted vines that curl up from the chair’s legs to form arms.  Allowing himself a quiet smile, he admires the handiwork of the slave that had made it for him.  It was a pity that he had to beat him so hard the first time.  The slave should never have tried to waste quality timber for this luxury.

As the song ends, he leans forward and switches off the radio.  Rising to his feet, he breathes deeply the cooling air of early evening and heads inside.  Little does he appreciate that the music he just enjoyed will one day hurtle through space on technology impossible for him to conceive.  And while he may be master of this landscape, it is the work of his slave that will endure to bear witness to these advances and not his self-righteous hegemony.

Whales

I was unfamiliar with Victor Harbour when I arrived.  Certainly, I didn’t know its reputation as a winter haunt for the Southern Right whale.  It is early September and I should have missed the whale season by the best part of a month.  But sometimes, you just get plain lucky.

A few days ago, a pod had entered the sheltered waters just north of the sleepy town.  Locals expected them to leave any day.  I have no time to waste.  A short drive and I am sitting on a pale-sanded beach, watching four of them bob in shallow seas not 100 metres from the shore.

I don’t know how old they are or how big, but one is clearly a calf being watched closely by its mother.  They are so close, it would take little effort to swim out to them.

Farther out, I spy two more rolling and pec slapping deeper water.  And out by a granite island, a more energetic soul regularly breaches, thumping the gentle swell with almighty splashes.  There are seven in all.

I sit mesmerised on that beach for hours, watching them rest and play.  Immune to the cold wind that sweeps across the water, I take more than my fair share of shots.  This is my favourite – mother and calf in foreground, a breaching member of the pod behind.