The river livens up when the avian nomads arrive after winter. We saw our first sacred kingfisher of the season on Sunday, resting on a wattle branch down by a billabong.
Later that day, a family of grey fantails arrived around the house – they tend to head north for the winter too, like all those Victorian seniors with a caravan in tow, whereas its close relative from the Rhipidura family, the willie wagtail, sticks around all year.
The Boss is confident we’ll see those nimble little flyers, the trilling rainbow bee-eaters in the next week or so - and they will be followed by the dollar birds with their distinctive, raspy chatter by the end of October.
The bush orchestra in October is rather like a human orchestra warming up before a performance: the calls of the new arrivals set off the resident whistlers and shrike-thrushes, who respond vigorously to the new competition.
The blackbirds join in too, as do the wrens and silver-eyes with their high-pitched tweets. The early mornings resemble an extended concert, with the corellas, galahs and cockatoos laying down the background chords. Or discords, depending on how close they are.
We’re in a lucky part of the world for bird calls and The Boss and I are wondering what this nasty strain of bird flu might do to them, if (or when, as some scientists are saying) it arrives here.
For much of this year, the experts have been warning how Australian wildlife is at risk of being decimated by a panzootic, the avian equivalent of a pandemic, from the H5N1 flu strain. H5N1 is much more lethal than the H7 strain that recently carved up a portion of our chicken population.
In South America, H5N1 has spread rapidly across the continent since 2022, killing more than 17,000 elephant seal pups in Argentina, over 30,000 sea lions, thousands of Humboldt penguins and around 60,000 Peruvian pelicans — amongst many other animals.
Migrating birds from South America apparently spread the virus to Antarctica this March, causing numerous "mass mortality" events in populations of penguins and wild birds.
As well as seals and sea lions, genomic testing suggests our Tasmanian devils and our black swans are likely to be particularly vulnerable to the virus strain, with migrating water birds being most likely to bring it here.
Birdlife Australia’s director of conservation strategy, Golo Maurer, told the ABC the virus could take out entire species, as well as inflicting mass death on more common species.
Oceania is the only part of the world without the virus and Dr Maurer thinks it could arrive soon, as migrating species from infected parts of the world land here over spring. The virus seems more likely to affect water birds than songbirds, but it’s not good news for either - or us. Woof!