Living in Harmony with the Wildlife

The drought had broken after three long years, and the drops of rain that fell for hour after sodden hour replaced tear drops that had fallen uncontrollably as I watched the life sapped out of plants I’d known since they were fragile seedlings and that I’d tended with the devotion of an earth mother through previous, though less severe droughts.

This cruel drought, the worst in Australia’s history, might have been a symbol of climate change, or simply part of a natural cycle of brutal weather events that have repetitiously wrecked havoc across the landscape since Adam was a boy. But all I knew was that this unremitting tantrum of nature had whisked away my usually buoyant enthusiasm for life as conspicuously as it had drained the life from my garden. But on that glorious summer’s day, as storm clouds drew their thick gray curtain across the searing face of the sun, the earth’s pain, and mine, began to ease.

The rain brought new life to the garden; brown and shriveled shoots that had been claimed by death were suddenly resurrected as tiny green specks of life; and the subtle perfume of lemon scented gum trees (Corymbia citriodora syn. Eucalyptus citriodora) filled the warm damp air. When the sun finally leered down once again, lazy raindrops that loitered on petals and foliage became ephemeral jewels. The sparkle of life was rekindled, and my corner of paradise slowly renewed its tenuous grip on existence.

The bright eyed possum that gorged herself on an abundance of nectar-laden Grevillea flowers returned to her old haunt in the garden shed with a new and tiny baby clinging to her silken fur. Channel billed cuckoos announced their arrival with banshee-like calls, and evicted eggs from nests where they would lay their own. Ki...

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...fforts had been wasted – for the war against the turkey had been won without a shot being fired. He’d discovered a mountain of wood chips well away from the most vulnerable areas of the garden and, claiming it as his own, he was energetically adding weeds and grasses from the adjacent woodland to his new castle.

A female, with hesitance and a touch of timidity, eventually strolled onto the scene, and I watched, with fingers crossed, as she inspected every inch of the vast mound. And as she gave an emotive cluck of approval at her mate’s latest acquisition, I wiped a dawdling tear from my eye. It was a tear of happiness, and of satisfaction, for with the battle over, and winners on both sides, the turkeys would once again be my allies rather than my enemy. And I’d once again be able to live in harmony with the wildlife that brings a touch of paradise to my garden.