After the Fire 3 - A tiny miracle

In the midst of the chaos, the bickering, the anger, the grief – a tiny flicker of light.

A couple of days after the New Year fire in Mallacoota, birds of all kinds began to wash up on the beaches. Here’s a link to one of the news stories about it. Not for the faint-hearted.

I’m so glad I wasn’t here to see that.

Last Saturday morning I went for my first beach walk with my friend Jenny. We walked  through the charred remains of bushland that surrounded Betka Beach…

…through evidence of heat so intense that it split and sliced rocks…

                     ...so intense that it shattered the men’s toilet and melted the paper holder.

And down on the beach we discovered a tiny miracle. Two tiny miracles, in fact, running gaily about on the beach with their devoted parents. Look closely!

(Photo by Leonie Daws. Used with permission)

Why is this so miraculous? Because the Hooded plover (Thinornis rubricollis) struggles each year to survive. Its declining numbers reflect its annual struggle to overcome overwhelming odds. It’s endangered. It’s a beach-nesting bird and its breeding season coincides with the height of our tourist season.  Vulnerable chicks are routinely trampled – often by dogs – or taken by predators. They lose their eggs in king tides and storms. They lay clutch after clutch after clutch, often futilely. Their pluck and perseverance are magnificent.

This year the horrifying fires cut short the tourist season. The beaches are almost deserted. Perhaps many of the Hoodies’ regular predators perished in the fires. But somehow during the fire – as the bush around them burned to ash, as the rocks split, as birds in their thousands perished from smoke or heat or exhaustion from their escape attempts – our little Hoodie parents sat steadfastly on the eggs that produced these chicks. Hunkered down in the sand, they must have been low enough to avoid the worst of the choking smoke, sheltered by the natural undulations of the sand.

My point here is that the Hooded plover is possibly one of Mallacoota’s most vulnerable creatures – and yet it survived this.

To me, it’s a symbol of great optimism against almost insurmountable odds. That’s something we all need at this awful time, as the hard slog of recovery begins.

For the Hoodies

For the Hoodies

On learning of the deaths of MK’s chicks at Betka Beach, Mallacoota.

There’s something about these tiny courageous creatures,

Some imperative of instinct, some inescapable miracle of persistence.

Year after year they come to the beach. They scrape, they lay, they sit

At the mercy of the tides (which are incapable of humanity).

In the flailing fists of storms and the beating of the summer sun they sit bravely

Between the trampling feet of tourists and locals alike and

the thundering paws of all those dogs who “never chase birds”.

They hatch, defend, almost inevitably mourn

The tiny souls whose lives they cannot protect.

They can be forgiven for following their bird nature,

The pull of place each season, however hopeless it turns out to be.

And we?

We who are capable of change and choice, who choose to ignore the signs,

Who choose not to leash our dogs,

Who choose not to walk somewhere else for a brief, life-giving time -

We who pat ourselves on our highly-evolved backs, full of civilised self-regard -

We will never have half the courage and sweetness of these plucky little birds

Who struggle in the teeth of adversity.

We cannot be forgiven.

(c) Sue Hines 2018