Buffalo, Geese and Men Adventure

BBC Four Collections -

specially chosen programmes from the BBC archive.

For this collection, Sir David Attenborough

has chosen documentaries from the start of his career.

More programmes on this theme, and other BBC Four Collections,

are available on BBC iPlayer.

DIDGERIDOO PLAYING AND SINGING

This placid stretch of water, starred by a few white water lilies,

is what is known in this part of the world as a billabong,

from which you'll guess that we're in Australia.

If you travel about 80 miles in that direction,

you come to a small cattle station.

But you'll have to travel for over 100 miles in pretty well

any other direction before you'll find another white face.

I asked one of the men in the cattle station

what the country was like ahead, and he said, "She's harsh."

Well, she is harsh.

Away from these lagoons and swamps, the country is dry and waterless,

covered with nothing but gum trees and pandanus palms,

and hot, dry rock.

Behind me, you can hear the voices of over a quarter of a million geese,

and not just ordinary geese either,

for those geese over there are among the rarest geese in the world.

They're the magpie geese,

and it's the magpie geese that have brought us here.

Beyond these eucalyptus trees,

the huge swamp begins that is the magpie geese's home,

and on the edge of it we've built a small hide,

and during the past week or so we've been sitting in that hide,

watching the geese and the other enormous flocks of water birds

that come here during the dry season to feed.

During much of the day, it's extremely difficult

to get a clear view of the geese,

for not only are they very nervous and easily scared,

but most of them are way out in the middle of the swamps,

feeding among the tall, reedy grass,

and you can see little more of them than their heads and necks.

CACOPHONOUS HONKING

But when they've finished feeding, some of them leave the swamps

to preen and clean themselves.

Then you can see how very different they are from normal geese.

Their legs are unusually long,

only half webbed, and with long claws.

They have a hooked bill, and a large knob on the top of their heads.

In fact, they're so odd that some authorities have questioned

whether they're really true geese at all.

Their long legs and claws are of great help to them in feeding,

for their favourite food is the bulbs of the plants

which grow in these swamps.

Elsewhere in Australia, they're extremely rare,

but up here, on the north coast, they still survive in vast numbers.

A few years ago, attempts were made

to grow rice on a large scale here a little to the west.

Hundreds of acres of land were cleared and sown.

Millions of pounds were spent.

The geese regarded this as a splendid increase in their feeding grounds.

They descended on the fields in thousands.

Nothing the cultivators could do would scare them off.

Rattles, ingenious scarecrows of one sort and another were tried,

but the area was too vast for them to be effective.

Then the military were called in

to keep up a regular fusillade of bullets over the swamps.

They killed quite a lot of geese, but most of the flock simply

flew off for half a mile or so and then settled down again out of range.

Finally, the rice growers gave up.

The enormous investment was written off

and the rice-growing project was abandoned.

The geese had won.

There are many other things to see here as well as the magpie geese.

In a few weeks' time, when the rains come,

much of this country will be under water and totally impassable.

But just now it's so dry that huge fires continually rage

through the bush, clearing areas of grass and blackening the tree trunks.

But even in such a scorched area as this, so recently swept by fire,

there are still interesting creatures to be found.

Just over there I can see something that...

that might look like a snake, but I am fairly sure isn't.

And that...

..I think...

Yes, it is, it's a skink.

A lot of people confuse the skink with a death adder

and think it's poisonous and therefore kill it unnecessarily.

But this isn't a snake at all. Its legs are very tiny.

In fact, it's a lizard.

And it's quite harmless.

They shouldn't give me any trouble at all,

when it comes to picking him up.

Now, the thing to do -

although of course he's got a little bit of a bite,

and I don't want to be bitten -

but the thing to do is just pick him up behind the back of the neck.

Like...

..so.

There you are, a rather nice beast, too.

Whoops!

Ah, what a nice...

He's got a blue tongue,

hence his name, naturally, the blue-tongued skink.

But a very nice creature.

Actually, you don't have to come all the way up to Arnhem Land

to see the blue-tongued skink, it occurs all over Australia,

even as far south as Sydney.

And it doesn't lay eggs, unlike many lizards.

It gives birth to live young, and there it is, a rather fine example...

Whoops! ..of a blue-tongued skink.

And having seen him,

well, let's let him go again and go on with our walkabout.

Go on.

But although all the country around here is so waterless and harsh,

there are nonetheless a great number

of very interesting animals to be seen.

But you have to be pretty careful

when you walk around in this sort of country, because around here,

roaming among the gum trees, are over a quarter of a million water buffalo.

They're not truly Australian animals, they come from Asia,

but they were introduced here over 100 years ago as beasts of burden,

and since then they've increased enormously in numbers

and they've gone wild.

Indeed, they have a reputation of being extremely dangerous,

even though they're supposed to be docile

back in their true home in Asia.

When we were in Darwin, the main town in the Northern Territories,

people were continually telling us

how dreadfully dangerous these things were.

We met one man who had spent three hours up in a gum tree

while an angry bull buffalo tried to knock him and the tree down.

We met another man who had just come out of hospital

after spending three weeks there with six broken ribs

and a badly gored side, who had been just walking in the bush when,

without notice, a bull buffalo charged him and knocked him down.

He only got away by seizing the beast's huge horns

and twisting his neck until he went away.

We even heard of a woman who was knocked down

and who got away by stroking the beast's muzzle and saying,

"There, there, old thing, it's all right,"

until eventually the beast went away.

But even so, she was pretty badly hurt.

So, we felt that we had to get some pretty good advice

on how we should behave in this sort of bush, just in case

we did come across buffalo and they looked rather angrily at us.

And the best person, it seemed to us, to give us advice was Yorkie Billy.

Yorkie's camp is just half a mile up the lagoon that way,

and Yorkie has spent all his life as a buffalo hunter.

'Yorkie said that buffalo were very unpredictable beasts.

'Sometimes they would just walk away,

'but other times they charge without warning.

'I asked him how you could tell if one was likely to be dangerous.'

I can tell by the way they... stand up.

They've got a bad-tempered look on them.

DAVID LAUGHS

So I have to look at a buffalo and try to sort out from a distance

of 100 yards whether he's got a bad-tempered look?

Yes, that's right.

If he's got a very bad-tempered look, don't go near him.

- How close is it safe to approach? - How close?

Probably about 50, 60 yards.

- Not closer than that? - Not closer than that.

And supposing...

What advice would you give me when I'm walking around this bush?

Do you reckon it's safe for me to walk through the bush?

Oh, it is safe, but be careful.

See where you're going, don't walk into...

Don't walk onto a sleeping buffalo while he's asleep

or while he's feeding. Just...

But that's all they do, sleep and feed.

Well, then just go around them, if they're asleep.

In particular, don't walk in long grass.

That's where the buffaloes are camped of a daytime.

I see. And what happens if I see one who's looking bad-tempered

and he moves towards me, what do I do then?

Well, just keep away from him.

- Just walk away from him. - Is he liable to charge?

Yes, he'll charge.

Can I dodge him?

Well, you could by getting up a tree or getting behind a tree,

or if you have a gun in your hands...

Well, I don't carry a gun, and I don't really like

the look of these trees much,

because they haven't got any low branches to get up.

Well, if he charges you, there's another way of getting away from him.

If he charges you and he's coming full gallop at you,

just fall flat on the ground,

the buffalo will jump over you and gallop on.

- Will he? - Yes.

I'll remember that, I shall probably pass out with fright!

That's what I used to do when I was out on the plains.

There are no trees within about one or two miles away,

the nearest tree, that's what I used to do with a charging buffalo,

fall flat on the ground,

the buffalo would jump over me, the charging buffalo.

Have you been with buffalo all your life, working with buffalo?

Oh, yes, I've been on buffalo jobs, cattle stations,

droving, on railway jobs, working.

But you used to shoot a lot of buffalo, didn't you?

In the early days, when the price was good, the skins were worth £15,

up to nearly £20 a hide for an old big bull.

- How many would you shoot a year? - Perhaps a couple of thousand.

The licences were issued to the buffalo shooters

to shoot a couple of thousand a year.

- It's not worth shooting them now? - No, not worth shooting them now.

They're protected now.

Yes, but there's no price for the skins, I suppose.

No price for the skins now.

- Yorkie, were you born here? - Yes, born in Jim Jim.

- In Jim Jim? - Mmm.

- And who was your father, Yorkie? - My father came from Yorkshire.

His name was William Alderson, but they called him Yorkie Mick.

- Yorkie Mick? - Yorkie Mick, yes.

- Because he came from Yorkshire? - Yes, nickname.

My father was William Alderson, and my name's William Alderson.

Have you ever thought much about Yorkshire, Yorkie?

Eh?

Have you ever thought much about that place, Yorkshire?

- Ever thought? - Thought about what it's like.

Well, my father used to tell me what it's like.

- What do you reckon it's like? - Snow country.

- Snow? - Yes, everything gets snowed up.

Everything had to be hand fed, cattle stock,

everything locked in the house.

And my father used to be a farmer in Yorkshire, grow spuds and onions.

Oh, yes?

Where did you meet your wife, Yorkie?

She was promised to me first, and when her father and mother...

I had no wife, so her father and mother give her to me as a promise.

What do you mean, "as a promise", Yorkie?

A promise is a tribal promise.

It's a sort of a tribal law, it's from the tribal affairs,

and a promise is a promise.

We give this wife over to this man, it's your wife,

you tell him, for ever.

When do you make this promise? How old would be the girl?

Oh, before they're born.

- Before they're born? - Yes, before they're born.

They promise...

If a man, by tribal affairs, a native,

if they've got an auntie or a cousin, that woman will say now,

the first child born, if it's a girl, female or male,

it's yours if it's a female.

That's a promise, don't break.

How many children have you got, Yorkie?

I've got five.

Two sons, three daughters.

And who looked after your wife at the birth?

- I attend the birth myself. - Did you?

- Too far away from the doctor. - I'll bet.

So you must know a fair bit about midwifery.

- Oh, yes, I've been a midwife! - As well as everything else!

Yorkie, this sort of country, is it pretty rich in animals?

- Rich for...? - In animals.

Yes, it is rich in animals, all over this country.

What sort of things - can we see dingoes here?

You could see dingoes, but you'd have to look for them.

They're pretty rare now, are they?

Yes, they're pretty scarce round this country now.

For a bunch of years, they've been dying out,

one thing or another, drought, no water...

- You've been shooting them. - Hmm?

- You've been shooting them too. - Oh, sometimes I do, for a living.

Because there's a reward, isn't there, for a dingo?

There's a reward, a bonus for a quid.

A quid for a dingo?

'Yorkie is not the only man who makes his living from the wild animals.

'Other people, wandering in the bush, depend on them for food - '

the aborigines. These are their graves.

The tribes of this part of the North Coast

are very different from the people of the central desert.

No other Australian people erect monuments,

comparable to these huge sculptures, hewn from tree trunks

and decorated in brilliant colours.

Perhaps the inspiration for them came from outside Australia.

For seamen in canoes and prows

have for centuries been visiting this coast

from the islands of Indonesia in the west,

or New Guinea in the north.

Not only do these aborigines carve and paint,

but they're also extremely gifted dancers.

They dance as part of their sacred rituals,

but they also dance for fun and entertainment,

because they enjoy doing so.

These playabout dances they call yoys,

and often in them they enact the story of a hunt.

THEY SING

THEY ULULATE

This is the kangaroo yoy,

a mimed drama portraying the killing of a kangaroo.

It's full, not only of suspense, but of comedy.

Their most skilful dancer, whose talent for realistic mime

and unpredictable humour is keenly appreciated by the audience,

plays the part of one of the kangaroos

that eventually will be slain by the hunters.

His hair is dyed bright red with henna,

and slung around his neck he wears

an ornamental ball of goose feathers.

CROWD CHATTERS

The kangaroos are squabbling among themselves and grazing,

for as yet, the hunters have not appeared.

CROWD CHATTERS

These people hunt not only kangaroos, but also magpie geese.

The approach to the swamps through the mangroves

must be made in complete silence,

and with great caution,

for if one bird is frightened and flies off,

the whole flock will take to the air.

And pelicans are more efficient sentinels than most.

The hunter uses a spear thrower to give additional force to his spear.

One plump goose lying in the now deserted waters of the swamp.

A goose that will provide a good meal for a complete family.

We too spent a great deal of time wandering in the bush

that fringes the swamps, trying to catch sight of the other creatures

that are attracted here by the open water.

Our attention was caught by these little pygmy geese.

I glanced up, and there on the opposite bank stood a dingo.

This was a real stroke of luck, for, after all,

Yorkie had been very doubtful of our chances of seeing one.

We stood stock still, while he stared fixedly in our direction.

Whether he was looking at us or the birds on the lagoon, I didn't know.

It was fortunate for him that Yorkie was not with us,

for if he had been, the dingo would not have been able

to trot away like this.

The dingo is something of a mystery.

He was certainly here long before Europeans came to Australia.

It's thought that he arrived in the canoes

of the ancestors of the aborigines,

when they first came to this country thousands of years ago.

But exactly where his original home was, no-one knows.

But we had still failed to find our main quarry, the buffalo.

This egret, standing on the edge of the swamp however,

was a good sign, for egrets spend a great deal of their time

around the buffalo herds,

collecting insects thrown up by the buffalo's hooves

and picking ticks and flies from their hides.

And there they were, far out in the swamps,

wading up to their knees in water, with egrets riding on their backs.

They were nearly a quarter of a mile away,

and we were filming them with telephoto lenses,

so there was no danger of being charged.

But on the other hand, our view of them was not a very good one.

For the heat was so intense,

that the air over the swamps quivered and danced,

and we couldn't get any closer to them across the swamps

even if we'd wanted to.

Everywhere they went, the egrets followed them.

The cattle egret is really a bird of Africa and Asia,

and no-one quite knows when or how it got Australia.

As it occurs nowhere else in the world, except in association

with cattle of one sort or another,

it's unlikely that it got here before the buffalo,

and they've only been here for about 100 years.

Some 30 years ago, no-one had recorded a cattle egret in Australia.

In fact, an attempt was made to introduce them into Western Australia

in the hope that they would clear the local cattle of ticks.

18 birds were imported, but they all died,

and it was thought that the experiment was a failure.

Then a naturalist suddenly discovered that there were

great flocks of egrets up here in the Northern Territory.

Were they descendants of the original introduction?

Or had they got here by themselves, by way of the Indonesian islands?

No-one knows.

As the heat became more intense,

the buffaloes began to wander off into the bush.

The only way to get a better view of them

was obviously to follow them.

The herd was scattered throughout the trees.

Every time I saw one, I remembered what Yorkie had said,

and I must admit, I found it very difficult to decide

whether they had a bad- or a good-tempered look on them.

All of them looked rather surly to me.

But none of them stayed long.

BIRD CALLS

This was the nearest we had approached one so far.

He was a big old bull, and he snuffed our scent rather alarmingly.

Then he was off.

But he didn't go far.

His faithful egret settled once more on his back,

and then he began to circle us at a distance of about 20 yards.

What did he want?

He was certainly well aware of our presence.

Was he one of the peaceful ones,

or one of those that Yorkie had called cranky and bad-tempered?

Well, if he did charge, we would be fairly safe in this sort of country,

for there were more than enough trees to dodge behind or to shin up.

Slowly and disdainfully, he walked around us.

And eventually he just stalked away.

But we still wanted to see the large groups of buffalo

that we'd heard about,

and the place to do that was not in the bush.

Out here, on the open plains,

we should be seeing big herds of buffalo.

Whereas it was hot enough in there though,

in the shade of the gums, out here it really is baking hot.

The sun is beating down on these flat open plains,

and if I'd been a traveller walking for perhaps a week,

with very little water, well, I should be looking over there,

and I should think probably that that was a wide cool lagoon full of water,

with trees mirrored in its surface.

In fact it's nothing of the kind.

It's a mirage, an optical illusion

caused by this great, burning, beating heat.

And over there, there's nothing but scorched mud,

and there's no water and no trees.

But there are the buffalo.

A herd several hundred strong. A really impressive sight.

They had gathered around the last shrinking waterhole on the plains

to drink and to wallow in the mud.

Approaching these was going to be a little more difficult.

Slowly, we advanced towards them,

until we were close enough to get a really good view

of the cows with their calves.

They looked amiable enough, and we went a bit closer.

Here too, they were attended by birds,

though not by cattle egrets - by pied herons.

But then they decided

that we had come rather too close for their liking,

and a large group of them advanced towards us rather threateningly.

There were no trees to shin up out here.

If they charged, the only thing to do

would be to take Yorkie's advice and fall flat on our faces.

By and large, it seemed better to take the offensive ourselves.

So, maybe the buffalo is not so dangerous after all?

Provided that you can see him in good time, and he can see you.