The White –bellied Sea-eagle perched upon my trailer, like
it was hiding behind the pile of trapping buckets that were stacked six feet
high up-right in the centre. What was it looking at? I was tucked somewhat
cryptically in my Coleman Instant-up Gazebo which I had only half erected,
because I was too lazy to put it up properly. I lay in my swag, curious about
the sea-eagle.
I caught a glimpse
out of the corner of my eye of a small falcon or kestrel trying to glean
something off the trunk of a casuarina tree. The sea-eagle cast off toward the
kestrel and, in it's distress the kestrel shot toward the clouds. Pounding the
air with mighty force the sea-eagle beat its wings once to which the kestrel
could only answer with with a pathetic flutter. The sea-eagle folded its mighty
wings back and lunged forth with its talons to take the kestrel out.
Free-falling in a flat spin neither would relent: the eagle not letting go of
it’s prey and the kestrel fighting valiantly for it’s release. They smashed to the ground not 10 feet away from me as I
fumbled for an i-device with which I could record this epic struggle between
prey and predator.
But, before I had the chance to take up a camera, an
astonishingly large lycocid spider shot across in front of me making an
insurgence at these two raptors that were, themselves, already consumed by
the dust storm from their own battle.
Seething with frustration at this spoiled opportunity I spat
hard at the ground, wiped the sweat off my brow with my left shoulder and
looked over toward the billabong next to which I had set up camp.
I was
staggered to see a very over-weight dirty brown-orange orangutan leaning into the trunk of a tree in the most ridiculous and slovenly manner.
Dreams that incorporate all of the eerie sounds that one is subconsciously registering whilst asleep under the stars, interspersed by sequences of aerial dog fights from ‘Top Gun (on TV the night
prior at Mt Isa), all interrupted by memes seen on facebook.
A fantastic melange in my mind, asleep by the highway in far north west
Queensland on the first night of this epic trip. But was any of it triggered by real-time events?? I am guessing the sea-eagle, the orangutan
and the kestrel were subliminal. The spider? Not so sure.
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