Bush Walkabout 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.

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Australia is full of fascinating, unique animals.

I suppose the kangaroo is the most famous of them

but there are many other creatures - insects, birds, reptiles - which are

also unique to Australia and which occur nowhere else in the world.

This country, the Northern Territory, has more than its fair share of them.

We have been here now for over three months

and we have managed to see quite a number of them.

As always, the most productive place to search for animals

is around water.

Few creatures can live without it and up here there are great swamps

that attract an enormous variety of birds.

In the trees that fringe the lagoons, perch splendidly coloured bee-eaters

which come here to catch the insects

hovering above the surface of the tepid water.

On the shore, one of the scavengers of the territory -

a kite that has found some carrion

and is having some difficulty in dealing with it.

And, of course, there are ducks of all sorts.

These handsome creatures are radjah shelduck

or, as they are called out here, Burdekin ducks.

Egrets and herons of many different kinds also throng the lagoons.

These are pied herons.

There are several sorts of ibis here too. This is the white ibis.

And this, the glossy ibis,

probing in the mud with their long, curved beaks in search of insects.

And the biggest of all the birds on the lakes - the brolga,

the Australian crane.

Four feet tall with a seven-foot wingspan.

Many of these birds, like this great white heron,

have come here to feed on fish

and there are lots of fish in these billabongs

including the big barramundi,

which is the finest tasting fish in the whole territory.

But this, I was fairly certain, was not a fish.

There was no dorsal fin on its back and it was swimming

close to the surface and in a most un-fishlike way.

What was it?

I went round to the part of the shore

for which it was heading to find out.

And this is what it was - a goanna, a very large lizard.

To be honest, goannas are not particularly dangerous.

They don't have a poisonous bite, but all the same,

they have been known to go for people when cornered

and as they have extremely powerful claws

and quite formidable teeth, I thought it best to take no risks

and keep a stick handy to fend him off if he did go for me.

One of their methods of attack is to slash their tail, like that.

And that.

And I dare say that that could be quite a painful blow

if you got it across the shins.

I expect this one was down by the lake looking for frogs

or birds' eggs or maybe carrion.

He can have few, if any, natural enemies

and he certainly didn't seem in the least afraid of me.

But eventually I became too persistent and then he was off.

He went to seek safety back in the lagoon from which he had come.

His long, pink, forked tongue, like that of a snake,

is not, of course, poisonous.

It's simply a way of smelling, of tasting the air, as it were.

The name goanna is simply a corruption of the word iguana

which, strictly speaking, is a South American type of lizard.

But these lizards are quite different.

They are a kind of monitor lizard

related to the water monitor of Asia

and the big Komodo dragon of Indonesia

which is the largest lizard in the world.

From the tip of his tail to his head this goanna was about four feet long

but there are goannas that grow to be six feet or more in length.

Goannas, in fact, are the largest lizards in Australia

but there are lots of little ones too.

One of the most grotesque of them all is this little creature -

the thorny devil.

It's only about four inches long.

We found a pair of them in the Central Desert,

skittering about in the grass of the dunes.

These creatures seem to be able to live on next to no water

and get all the moisture they need from dew.

At the back of their necks they have a curious growth which is

a sort of satchel of fat which can be absorbed during a bad season.

Though they look ferocious and terrifying,

particularly in close-ups like this, they are, in reality, quite harmless.

Their mouths are too small to give you a bite

and their only defence is this astonishing armoury of spines

which must make them, I imagine, a pretty unpleasant mouthful

for anything like a hawk or a snake

which might try to make a meal of them.

They eat only ants and indeed not any old ants

but ants of a particular kind and size.

Their mouths are too small to allow them to tackle anything

but quite tiny ants.

But though the ants they eat are minute,

they consume enormous quantities of them,

as many as 1,500 in a single meal,

which must, I imagine, be a fairly long, drawn-out affair.

But there are plenty of ants everywhere in Australia.

In fact, there are lots of insects of all sorts, and wherever you go,

you see spectacular monuments to insect activity.

This is a termite hill.

Termites are sometimes called white ants

though it is not a particularly good name for them

because although they may look like ants

they are, in fact, not closely related at all.

And termites or white ants are one of the plagues of the tropics.

There are many different species,

but most of them are extremely destructive.

They will chew their way through pretty well anything -

through boots, through whole libraries of books, through wood,

through the foundations of houses until they collapse.

They have even been known to eat entire billiard balls.

In fact, there is a good Australian expression -

to be white anted by somebody.

That means that somebody has removed your foundations surreptitiously

and eaten them away until you collapse.

This particular sort of termite

is a very unusual and indeed a puzzling one.

It occurs nowhere else in the world

but in this part of northern Australia.

This is a magnetic termite hill.

From this angle, it looks a large, flat object,

but if you go and look over there,

you get a completely different point of view.

You can see that it is extremely thin,

but, in fact, it's a sort of gigantic knife blade.

Now, this is pretty odd in itself because most termite hills are round.

But it is even odder because all the termite hills like this kind

point directly north and south

with the accuracy of a magnetic compass,

from which they get their name magnetic termite hills.

Termites build nests because they are very particular

about the sort of climate, the sort of conditions, under which they live.

They don't like it too moist, they don't like it too dry.

They can't bear the light of the sun, and inside their nests,

in the darkness, they can create their own climate, as it were.

But as to why this particular species should build it

pointing exactly north and south has long been a problem.

At first it was suggested that it was because there is

a prevailing wind here which comes from the north

and which can be very strong

and, if they were building them the other way,

well, then the wind might blow over the termite hill.

This way it presents the least resistance to the wind

and so is least likely to be blown over.

But that theory is no longer accepted.

The accepted belief now is that the termites build it this way

because they are inclined to get too hot in these hills

and that in the morning, as now,

when the sun is shining on the eastern side,

well, the termites go into the shade on the other side of the hill

and then when the sun goes round in the evening

they will migrate to this part of the nest.

Well, we can at least see

if they are behaving this way by chopping a hole in the side.

Well, there are one or two termites there, but that you would expect

because these are one particular sort of caste of termite

that lives in this hill.

These are the soldier termites and you would expect them to come

when you attack their home with an axe because these are the ones

that come to repel boarders - these are the soldier caste.

What we haven't seen here

are the smaller, soft-bodied, white worker termites

which are the ones that you would expect to seek the shade.

Let's see if we can find them on this other side.

Well, here are some soldiers

and very many more than there were on the other side.

And here are the white ones.

Here are the little, soft-bodied, white caste of termite

that are the ones you would expect to seek the shade.

And there's a soldier trying to drag one of these soft, helpless creatures

back into the shade away from the light which they so detest.

So, it's true.

The little white ones really are on this side, on the west,

in the shade, in the coolness.

But whether that is the complete explanation

for this extraordinarily-shaped hill always pointing north,

I'm not so sure because, after all, there's shade on a termite hill,

even if it is a circular one.

For me, the puzzle of these orientated termite hills

still remains. And in case you're worried about the termites

and the hole I've made in their nest, well, they'll be all right.

In 24 hours, they'll have sealed off all these galleries

and, once again, the colony will be in darkness.

You can't walk in this sort of bush for long without seeing a kangaroo.

But it's not easy to get a good view of them

for they are very shy, nervous creatures.

Actually, there are many similar-looking creatures,

all of which most of us would call simply kangaroos.

But, to the expert,

there are several very different sorts with different names,

like wallaby, wallaroo, euro as well as kangaroo.

These, in fact, are wallabies.

It gets extremely hot up here

and water away from the lagoons is scarce.

One of the ways the kangaroos keep themselves cool

is to lick their forearms just as this one is doing.

It's the equivalent of mopping your brow with a wet sponge.

But they must drink sometimes

and down in the south, in the desert,

kangaroos will dig holes in the sand

so that water can soak through and accumulate in a puddle.

When they are at rest, they use their tail as a third leg,

sitting back on it like a race-goer on a shooting stick.

But when they run, they hold it out stiffly behind them

and use it as an excellent balancing device.

Kangaroos, of course, are marsupials,

that is to say creatures that carry their young in a pouch.

But there are many other marsupials in Australia besides the kangaroo.

Pouched rats and pouched mice, pouched cats and pouched anteaters.

And on our walks through the bush, I kept a sharp lookout for them.

Well, that up there is a pretty unusual sight.

That's a possum.

Actually "possum" is not a very good word for it because the word

is used for all sorts of very different sorts of animals.

A possum originally is an American Indian word

and was used by the settlers in North America for a rat-like creature

which, in fact, was also a marsupial.

When people came here, they applied this word "possum"

to this rather enchanting little creature sitting up there,

which is very different indeed from the possum of North America.

The local and native people here call it a wick

and maybe that would be a better word.

This particular possum is found all over Australia,

not only up here in the top end, but way down south too,

and it is almost entirely vegetarian.

It spends its time chewing the leaves and the fruit

and also will look for honey and sometimes birds' eggs

which it finds in these trees.

It's an unusual sight, because it's really a nocturnal animal,

that is to say it spends most of the day sleeping in a hole

so you don't often see them sitting around like that one up there.

And perhaps it's fortunate that no-one else is seeing them

because the people around here eat this creature.

They regard it as a very tasty delicacy.

He's not moving very much precisely because he is a nocturnal animal.

During the day, he finds it a bit hot and he'll probably stay there

for the rest of the day and then when the night-time comes, well,

he'll probably go down and start snuffling around for food.

So, he won't do much.

He's rather sleepy and I think we'll probably just leave him up there.

That magnificent flock of birds is a flock of galahs -

rose-breasted cockatoos.

Beautiful creatures with pink undersides and grey backs.

Australia is a marvellous country for birds of the parrot family -

parrots and parakeets and cockatoos - and there are many

that are more gaudy than that but not many that are more beautiful.

The galah itself, actually, is very common

and indeed it is something of a pest.

It's extremely noisy and it eats the crops

and so there is an expression here - people often call a man a galah.

That means he is noisy and talkative and not much good for anything.

Although they are so common, the galahs aren't shot for food

because they are extremely tough.

In fact, they say that the only way to cook a galah

is to put it in a billy with a steel axe head

and then you boil it until the axe head is soft enough

to stick a fork into and then your galah is eatable.

But what marvellous birds they are.

HARSH BIRD CALL

Hear that?

That's the call of a kingfisher-like bird called the kookaburra.

Down in the south, the kookaburra has a hysterical laugh for a call

but up here, well, it's rather different.

Like they say, the country up here is so harsh

that everything bites except the butterflies,

and even the laughing jackass, the kookaburra,

hasn't got anything to laugh at.

Although animals are, in fact, abundant here,

you can often walk for hours and even days

without seeing anything very interesting.

The fault is usually your own - you move too clumsily and noisily

or your eyes are not sharp enough.

Sometimes you can look for one particular thing

that's really quite common and it may take you weeks to find it.

It certainly took us a long time

before we eventually discovered this.

This strange construction is the work of one of the most

extraordinary birds in the world - the bowerbird. And this is his bower.

In front lies a huge collection of white objects.

Most of them are snail shells bleached by the sun,

but there are also little bits of white bone, a few quartz pebbles,

one or two chips of glass - goodness knows where he got those from -

all of them white.

And at the back, two parallel walls of twigs forming an avenue.

Bowerbirds are relatives of the birds of paradise,

which occur north of here in the big island of New Guinea.

But whereas the male bird of paradise has magnificent, spectacular plumes

with which to display in front of his mate,

the bowerbird is a relatively drab little creature.

A brownish creature about the size of a thrush

with a little bit of pink at the back of its neck.

So he can't display with plumes but what he displays with

is this treasury of articles which he collects at his bower.

This isn't a nest, it's simply a place where he displays.

Different species of bowerbirds have different tastes in what is

most desirable and attractive for the jewels, if you like,

to decorate his display ground, and this one prefers white objects.

Now, if you want to attract a bowerbird, and I...

SCREECHING

There he is now. SCREECHING

So he's around here.

If I want to bring him down here,

I've got in my hand some red seeds that I've got from a tree just nearby

and he can't abide these, so if I put these in his bower,

I hope that he'll come down and whip them out as soon as I put them there.

Let's see.

And here he is.

And there go four of the red seeds which he hates so much.

Only the cock birds make these bowers.

Occasionally the hen bird will come here too, mostly she just watches.

But when she feels the moment is right,

she will mate with the male here within the bower.

But the place must be kept spick and span by the cock bird

ready for that occasion.

Later on, the birds will make a nest which may be some distance away.

It's built afresh each year. But the bower is kept from season to season.

If you live in this country,

it can be useful to know where the bowers are.

Because if you drop something bright and shiny, like a coin,

you can be pretty sure that within a day or so

the local bowerbird will have collected it

and added it to his treasure.

There's even a story that an old bushwhacker lost his glass eye

while out riding and he found it a couple of days later

staring up at him from the middle of a bower.

No other bird shows such a passion for building and decorating

as does the bowerbird. It's one of Australia's marvels.

Week after week, we wandered through this bush,

for there was one last creature which I'd not yet seen

and one which I was determined to find before we left Australia.

Everywhere we went, we passed these huge termite hills

which can stand as high as 20 or 30 feet.

It's astonishing to think that these gigantic towers

are just the work of tiny insects less than half an inch long.

How long it takes them to build these vast nests

no-one knows for certain, but it must be many years.

But termite hills were not what I was looking for.

I was searching for a reptile.

A reptile which is not particularly rare, but yet,

search as we might, we couldn't find it.

It seemed as though our luck was out. Day after day passed fruitlessly

and then, at long last, our luck changed.

And there is the lizard I wanted to see more than any other.

It's the most spectacular of the entire lizard tribe

in this part of the world. It's the frilled lizard.

It may not look very spectacular now

because it's got a big frill of skin around its neck

which is folded up, but just as I get closer, it will get alarmed

and will display, I think, and show this big fan, trying to terrify me.

The easiest way to catch him would be to throw a cloth over him

but since I haven't got a cloth I'll just have to use my shirt.

Got him.

Well, this wonderful frill around his neck,

like an Elizabethan ruff,

is in fact just thin skin covered in scales

which under his chin are a lovely red colour.

It is strengthened by bones, little thin bones,

which come from beneath his jaw down here

and with those he can spread it out.

In fact, the arrangement is such that he can only spread it out fully

by opening his lower jaw

so that the total effect of suddenly baring your jaws

and spreading out your frill, your fan, your ruff,

is really altogether quite terrifying.

He uses it to scare off intruders, just like me,

but also the two male frilled lizards use it

when they are battling in competition for a female.

But although he may look so ferocious, he is not particularly so.

He doesn't have a poisonous bite. He lives mostly, in fact,

on flies and small insects and he makes quite a good pet.

In captivity, he lives on eggs and raw meat.

He is, I think, one of the most spectacular

of all the lizards in the world

but we still haven't seen perhaps

one of the most extraordinary of his habits.

And that is, when I let him go, he will run away, no doubt,

and, if he does, I think that he will probably rear up on his hind legs

and run on his two back legs rather like a miniature dinosaur.

Anyway, I'm going to let him go now

and I only hope he shows us how to do it.

Go on.

Shoo! Go on.

Shoo!

Shoo!

Surely he must be one of the oddest of all lizards.

I was glad that, at last, we had found him,

for without seeing him, our trip through the Northern Territory

wouldn't have been complete, for me at least.

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