A kakadu of the south - Melbourne's once extensive wetlands
Australian scientist Tim Flannery has referred to the wetlands once surrounding Port Phillip Bay in 1830 'as a sort of temperate Kakadu'. The Yarra River's seasonal flows brought water and life to those wetlands. Lakes, marshlands, and billabongs rich with birdlife especially swans, ducks, brolgas, magpie geese, Cape Barren geese and over twenty migratory species. Only now are magpie geese making a slow recovery in Victoria.
A trip to Kakadu in September gives an insight to the 1830 'Kakadu of the south'.
A trip to Kakadu in September gives an insight to the 1830 'Kakadu of the south'.
Mamakala wetland in Kakadu
In Kakadu half an hours drive from the town of Jabiru is a bird hide looking out across the wetland - Mamakala. Tens of thousands of geese arrive in September to dig up water chestnuts (Eleocharis dulcis), by this time of the year Kakadu’s massive wetlands have water levels dropping enough to allow geese access with their long necks and hooked beaks to the food bonanza in the mud. Feasting, the birds improve their condition during this time putting a kilo of fat and muscle on, leaving to breed in the early wet season they are a 3 kg bird having arrived a 2 kg bird. Hence this time in Kakadu for Bining* is goose time and has been for around 2000 years since the building up of Kakadu’s vast freshwater wetlands, the geese are painted in the rockart adorning sandstone shelters and many people painted in the art are shown holding ‘goose wing fans’.
Bining* is the word for Aboriginal people from northern Kakadu across to Western Arnhemland
#HomeoftheYarra #RespectforCountry
Bining* is the word for Aboriginal people from northern Kakadu across to Western Arnhemland
#HomeoftheYarra #RespectforCountry
#HomeoftheYarra
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