Death on Dangar Island

Saturday Afternoon

He twisted awkwardly in his camp chair and watched the marauders arrive. Two waves of the beasts flew in, razor beaks poised, alien-yellow eyes seeking their prey. They found the nest. He couldn’t let them get away with it: He had to do something.

Israel pushed up out of his low-slung seat and bustled through the undergrowth towards the myna birds. Cursing his aging body, he still managed to duck down and scoop up a fallen branch without breaking stride. ‘Footsack’ he cried, brandishing the stick at them. They scattered in a cloud of feathers and angry cries.

The small dome of woven grass sat on a branch just above his head. He sighed, hitched up an immaculate trouser leg, placed his foot against the trunk and hopped up, grunting as he grasped the base of the branch and pulled his face level with the nest. Three small, matt-white eggs with reddish splotches sat in the tiny space. He dropped back to earth and his shoulders slumped with relief. They were still there, all three of them.

Whistling an off-key tune under his breath Israel ambled back to his spot under the gum tree. He lowered himself back into the camp chair, retrieved his sun hat and picked up his binoculars from where he’d dropped them in the rush.

The mother fairy wren returned first, her diminutive, rotund, body landing effortlessly on the branch near the nest, her remarkably long tail pointing to the sky. She looked inside and gave a chirp. The father joined the mother on the branch: Israel leaned forward and fiddled with the focus of his field glasses. A vivid, eggshell-blue covered the bird’s forehead, ear coverts and mantle. This astonishing pale blue was superimposed over a black mask and a midnight blue throat. In his opinion, the breeding male of the superb fairy wren was an ornithological jewel. He allowed himself a grim, self-congratulatory smile. The myna’s were an introduced species and the wren’s were native – he was justified in intervening – wasn’t he? Sometimes in life it wasn’t enough just to stand by and watch, sometimes you just had to get involved.