Jagun walk, March 28

Jagun, joey at start of the track delayed us

Mother and joey, reluctantly leave the track to us

A magical autumnal morning, cold air to start that’s how I caught a glimpse of Stephen’s Banded Snake, warming on the edge of the track. Too quick for my camera, as was the Brown Goshawk. Lot of birds out and about with Golden Whistlers battling in song.

Jagun, Smilax vine

Heading to the the Aran Islands a few years back I tried to get hold of Tim Robinson’s book, The Stones of Aran: Pilgrimage (The Lilliput Press, 1986), it was out of print so I scoured second hand bookshops in Dublin and further west, without luck.  The book tells of his getting to know the places (having moved from London) by walking sunwise (clockwise) “at an inquiring, digressive, and wondering pace.” He was interested in the history, mythology, ecology and geology – in everything about each landmark and place.

Rather than Rousseau’s drifting Robinson talks of the ‘good step’, sensitive to the ground and surrounding animals, birds and insects – walking as a way of getting in touch with the environment.

Clavulinopsis laeticolor, a coral mushroom

Oyster Lagoon

Jagun, Oyster Lagoon railbridge

Jagun Oyster Lagoon, an Azure Kingfisher was fishing from that small tree (middle left)

Jagun, Oyster Lagoon, swallows were hunting over this lagoon, perhaps getting ready for their migration to more northerly parts of Australia (some stay).

 Impressions

Jagun, old termite nest

Jagun track

Bron and I walked for a couple of hours, the track wide enough for us to keep in step. We alerted each other to the birds, Wonga pigeons in a tree, Silvereyes and Thornbills.

Jagun, Oyster Lagoon

Thinking of Robinson and the work ahead of me I remember an Irish nature writing genre called dinnseanchas, defined by Seamus Heaney as “poems and tales which relate the original meanings of place names and constitute a form of mythological etymology.” I would need the Gumbaynggirr language for this.