Mateship With Birds - By Carrie Tiffany Page 0,49

and move from side to side – as if she is smoothing out the notes as they waft up to meet her on the moist, beefy air.

For his birthday Harry gets a birdwatching book from Betty, a poem about insects written by Little Hazel and a handwritten docket for three days’ manure spreading from Michael. There’s a roast dinner where Betty’s potatoes are, they agree, the best of her lifetime. ‘Enjoy them,’ she says, basking wryly in her achievement. ‘It’s all downhill from here.’

When Harry gets home he places Michael’s docket and Little Hazel’s poem in the biscuit tin under his bed. His wedding ring is in there, with some sewing pins and a photograph of his mother. The bird book is English. Kookaburras aren’t mentioned and it has a grating tone – as if birds exist for the sole purpose of providing gentlemen of the educated classes with a diverting interest.

Any birdwatcher will of course be interested in the question – how do birds recognise one another? Is it call, posture or colouration – or is it a mixture of these factors? Some American colleagues completed a recent experiment to try to answer this question on a pair of flickers – a kind of American woodpecker. Male flickers have a distinctive dark moustache. A pair of flickers was observed engaging in classic courtship behaviour. The female was caught and provided with a false moustache. When she was released the male approached her confidently from behind and began to mount her. A few seconds later she turned her head to the side and he saw her moustache. Immediately he disengaged and went into his full anti-male aggressive display. He pursued the disguised female for over two and a half hours, repeatedly attacking her and trying to force her out of the nesting area. The experiment proves that the moustache, i.e. colouration, has a very real significance in bird-to-bird recognition.

Harry marks his place in the book and goes over to the mirror. The top of the dressing table is stamped with overlapping circles where Edna’s teacups have scorched the veneer. Because he doesn’t shave, weeks can go by without him seeing his reflection. He removes his glasses and covers his chin with his hand. He tries to imagine himself beardless, but with a neat, curving moustache. It’s a younger look, a jauntier look, the look of a film star or a salesman. As he turns his head from side to side in the mirror he notices that the tide line of his beard has moved. While the hair on his head thins, his beard is thickening and encroaching, taking over new ground. Without even trying he is becoming a stranger to himself. He gets into bed and thinks about the flicker. Is she still flying around the woodlands of America wearing her tatty false moustache? The pillow kneaded and placed at just the right angle, he lets his head drop and finds himself speaking Betty’s words aloud: ‘It’s all downhill from here. It’s all downhill from here.’

Betty sits on the back step after work with a cup of tea and Louie stretched out beside her. There’s the sound of dishes clinking in the kitchen and a magpie warbling lazily from the fence. Her watch says it’s past seven. There are badges to sew onto Little Hazel’s brownie dress, smalls to rinse, sandwiches to make, homework to check. She touches her thumb to a single wiry hair sprouting from her throat, bending it from side to side. What if she stood up now and just started walking? What if she walked across the paddock and climbed through the fence and walked right up to his door?

Mervyn Plimeroll drives the milk truck for Gannawarra, Cohuna, Wee-wee-rup and Leitchville. It’s a seven-day-a-week job, but on Saturdays Mervyn’s boy, Leslie, comes along for the ride. Mervyn drills Leslie through his times tables and if they make up a bit of time on the open road, they stop and fish for an hour on the Gunbower, always making sure that the tray of the truck is in the shade. Occasionally Mervyn lets ten-year-old Leslie drive, which he does standing up in order to reach the pedals.

This particular Saturday is grey and overcast. A storm is rolling in from the plains. It seems to be passing overhead at height. Only the very tops of the trees are swaying and the odd raindrops that spatter against the windscreen land softly, as if they have fallen from a great