Jake released the big black eagle into the aviary beside Aquila, under the watchful eye of a small boy. The boy didn’t come when his father called him, or when his family moved on to the next exhibit. The eagle hopped and flapped to the highest perch and stared at the sky. What a beauty. Where was Matt? It wasn’t like him to miss such an important arrival.
‘What’s his name?’ the boy asked Jake.
‘Woorawa. It’s an Aboriginal word for eagle.’
‘Woorawa,’ the boy repeated. ‘Why is he here?’
‘Hit by a car. Happens to a lot of them. You’d think people would be more careful.’
The boy nodded, never taking his eyes off the bird. ‘How old is he?’
‘Sorry, kid. I’ve got to go.’ Jake picked up his bucket of dead possums. ‘Why not ask him yourself?’
Jake smiled as he walked away. ‘Talk to me, Woorawa,’ the boy was saying. ‘Tell me your story.’
The eagle swivelled his head and fixed his gaze on the boy. After a moment, a man came and took the boy’s hand, hurrying him away. Woorawa looked back towards the sun, rising high in the morning sky.
Last night, he’d dreamed he was back in the Tarkine with his mother and father and Moon, his sister. He’d dreamed about the ancient eyrie of his birth …
His parents. Old eagles. Experienced. Thirty seasons of chicks had hatched in their broad nest high in the branches of a centuries-old myrtle beech. Each year, they cleaned and refurbished it with new stems and lined it with sprays of soft sassafras.
It was a good season, the season of his hatching. Woorawa’s egg came first: an especially beautiful egg, splotched purple-brown and lavender. Moon’s plain white egg arrived three days later. His parents shared incubation duties by day. At night, mother eagle brooded alone, her mate on watch, roosting in the canopy. Forty-two sunsets had passed since the laying of this clutch. Sometimes she stood and stared at the eggs, listening to her unhatched chicks.
For six weeks Woorawa lay curled around his yolk, never hungry. Brightness came and went. Then one day he felt an irrepressible urge to scratch at his shell. With his beak crammed awkwardly under his wing, he scraped and struggled and scraped, not knowing why. One more scrape. He punched through the membrane, drawing breath from a trapped bubble of air, filling his lungs. He peeped. He peeped again. The world grew bright as mother eagle leapt from her nest. She stared at the egg, touched it with her beak, uttering soft low encouraging calls. Dirra-lich … dirra-lich … dirra-lich.
Woorawa peeped and peeped. I’m here. I’m coming. Tap, tap, tap … tap, tap, tap.
Moon heard him in her ivory egg. Hour after hour, he chipped away. It was gruelling work. Only strong chicks hatch. All through that day he tapped, rested, and tapped again. The sun sank below the ridge. Mother eagle tucked her eggs under her warm brood pouch and they all slept.
Morning came. Tap, tap, tap … tap, tap, tap. Woorawa raised a little bump on the shell. Mother and father stood by in rapt attention. Sister heard him too, waiting for breath inside her ivory egg. He peeped and scraped and pecked and peeped, holding his entire family spellbound. He tapped in a circle, broke off a cap and pushed it away. Mother and father leaned close to see their son. The end of the egg came off. Woorawa wriggled free and fell in an exhausted heap. There was no hint of the strength to come. Father launched off, determined to provide his mate with a meal before dark.
Mother eagle swept her baby beneath her breast, drying his snowy down, warming his wet body. And Woorawa slept. He slept all that long afternoon. He slept through the evening. He slept all night. And when morning came he sat up, bleary-eyed, wobbly head held high, surveying a view as ancient as he was new.
Mother admired her hatchling. She knew when she saw the beautiful egg that he would be special. Special like the pair’s firstborn, hatched when their nest was still small and shallow. Hatched when she was still young.
Her mate fought for her that first summer, all those years ago. The new breeding season had seen her cast out by her parents, last year’s chick no longer welcome. For two years she’d roamed alone on thermals of the central plateau. Sometimes she strayed into the territory of the few adult eagles who shared the skies. Invariably, these pairs, including her own parents, evicted her with aggressive territorial displays.
And it wasn’t just her own kind who despised her. She was a pariah of the avian world wherever she went, relentlessly hounded by smaller birds. Magpies and mudlarks. Crows and currawongs. Sometimes hawks and falcons mobbed her with shrill whistles, dashing in with claws and beaks. She mostly endured the indignity. Sometimes she rolled and plucked a too-bold raven from the air, making a meal of it. Other birds harassed her as she ate, even little robins and wagtails. Was she welcome nowhere in the world? Perhaps she should leave her hostile homeland.
Weeks of lonely, aimless flight brought her to the Tarkine, a vast wilderness in Tasmania’s north-west. But prey was scarce and hard to catch for an eagle raised in the farmlands of the Central Highlands. No dead sheep. No paddocks full of cats and rabbits here on Tikkawoppa Plateau. Instead, myrtle beech rainforest and button grass moorland extended to the horizon. She’d never learned to hunt large prey, but plump little pademelons abounded in the cold grassy clearings below. How hard could it be?
Cloudy skies allowed her to drop lower and lower without fear of the prey detecting her shadow. Selecting her target now. One … two … three. With folded wings she plummeted earthwards. The pademelons heard the whine of wind in wings and leapt as one for the forest. Her intended victim reached shelter. She switched focus to a larger male, crashing onto his shoulders mid-bound before the trees swallowed him. Seizing her prey tight with beak and claws, beating broad wings in reverse, she hauled him back into the open.
But this was no rabbit. The struggling wallaby weighed ten times more than the inexperienced young eagle. And it fought, desperate for life, ignoring the pain of slashing talons, resisting the force of battering wings, dragging itself closer and closer to the haven of the forest where she dared not follow.
It threw itself on the ground, dislodging its attacker with powerful kicks of clawed hind legs, inflicting damage of its own. Discouraged, she retreated, while a flurry of buff breast feathers whirled about the battlefield. The wallaby regained its feet and gathered itself for one final bound to safety. She hung back, unsure if she possessed the strength to mount another assault.
Then, out of the blue, the cavalry arrived. A second bird screamed earthwards, slamming the pademelon with all the force and know-how of a born and bred Tarkine forest eagle. Now both birds went in for the kill. Beaks like knives. Rapier talons crushing with bone-piercing force. The stranger’s claws gripped the wallaby’s neck, throttling it. Soon their victim ceased struggling. The eagles fed in a spirit of companionship, gorging until their crops could hold no more. The male lifted off, roosting on a low bough, ruffling feathers and preening. He watched her. She joined him. Side by side they rested, digesting their meal.
Hours later, the stranger took off with a stick held in his beak, broad wing strokes struggling to restore him to the breezy skies. She followed without hesitation. Higher and higher they spiralled, riding updrafts where wind met mountain. Her companion was in a playful mood, dropping his stick over and over, only to sweep around and catch it again. She joined in the game, diving on the stick, snatching it in her claws.
The male bird abruptly plunged, wings folded, then looped into a vertical climb. Stalling, he hung suspended in space, striking a heroic pose in silhouette. She watched this virtuoso display with admiring eyes, sometimes mirroring his movements. Again and again, he demonstrated his acrobatic skill. Teasing, she swooped him. He fled in mock fear. First she pursued him, then he her, flying close above and behind, perfectly synchronised. She spun and hung upside down in the cold air, presenting her talons. Instantly he seized them in his own, and the pair fell from the sky in a spectacular, cartwheeling trust exercise.
They pulled from their giddy descent just metres from the treetops. Intoxicated with love and lust, the birds alighted on a broad branch in the upper canopy, making low, affectionate yelps. He preened his intended, nibbling her nape, caressing her bill, serenading in high tremulous yodels. She crouched, beginning a loud, demanding choo … choo … choo, reminiscent of the voice of a whining nestling. Her suitor mimicked the call. Rising a few metres in the air, he landed lightly on her broad back, balancing with clenched claws to avoid causing harm, wings beating in slow motion, beak agape. Bowing low, he curled his wedge-shaped tail aside … and she had her wild mate.
When other male eagles strayed into the forest, he defended her honour. Hovering high on silent wings, he would arrow down, trying to knock his rival from the air. So fierce were these encounters that both birds sometimes crashed into the canopy, where the fight continued. No challenger ever matched his savage resolve. Each time he saw his opponent off, occasionally dropping down to strike the humiliated loser in the back as he fled. Master again of his skies.
Thirty springs had passed since the she-eagle hatched that first, lovely lavender egg. She remembered the love, the pride, at the sight of her chick. The sadness when tapping from her second egg grew weak and died. The joy of her son’s first flight, of his first kill.
She’d laid many eggs since then. Speckled ochre ones, blotched green ones, dull grey ones, spotty brown ones. But never one to match the beauty of that splendid original egg. Until Woorawa.
Moon hatched three days after her brother. Father was such an enthusiastic provider that the nest soon groaned with uneaten prey. Discreetly waiting for his departure on the morning hunt, mother took to collecting old carcasses and dropping them away from the nest. A boon for devils and forest ravens.
At two weeks, the chicks shed their silky white down for sooty grey fuzz. By three weeks, mother brooded them only at night or during the wildest storms, shielding them with extended wings to keep them dry. At four weeks, the eaglets were strong enough for play. Tug of war with sticks and bones. Hop chasey. Pretend-to-fly games. Dark primary quills sprouted on stubby wings. Soon Woorawa managed little lift-offs, facing into the wind, flapping uncertainly until rising over his sister’s head. Filled with envy and admiration for her accomplished brother, Moon practised too. The chicks grew bold, exploring branches beyond the nest, giving ungainly chase to yellow thornbills whose pretty nests adorned the eyrie’s walls and understorey.
At three months, the eaglets were fully fledged. One hot afternoon Woorawa took his first flight. Moon tried to follow, flapping and leaping skywards. But she-eagles are larger than males, and Moon’s weight put her at a disadvantage. It was more than a week before she joined him, flying clumsily about the canopy.
Soon they soared with their proud parents. Black Woorawa and his red sister, learning eagle lore. Like all youngsters they had much to learn. How to glide on still wings and fall like a stone on their prey. How to seize wayward daytime possums and pluck birds from mid-air. And how to steal meals at roadside kills.
When Woorawa’s parents first took this territory, and for decades after, there were no cars. But then a rough road took shape, snaking through virgin wilderness, bisecting the beautiful forests of Donaldson Valley. The eagles learned to scavenge roadkill, scanning the looping track for carcasses.
Men and machines became increasingly common visitors to the Tarkine that year, as the southern beech coloured red and gold. The family sometimes trailed deerstalkers, claiming the headless carcasses of stags. One hunter released a group of sows with piglets, hoping to pursue them the following spring. The eagles picked off the piglets one by one, working in tandem to separate them from their mothers. Bold Woorawa, in particular, enjoyed these easy pickings.
One morning, as they began the hunt, he watched his father launch into high soaring flight, prospecting for prey over the forest. A waste of time. Woorawa screeched derision and veered north towards the road, Moon close behind. After a moment’s indecision, mother followed her fledglings, leaving her mate tracing measured ever-widening arcs in the western sky.
It wasn’t long before the eagles spied breakfast. A fat pademelon lay dead on a curve in the road. They dropped to earth in lazy circles. A motor sounded somewhere in the distance. Woorawa bounded to the carcass, perched on top and plucked at the belly. Mother and sister showed more caution. It took some minutes before they joined in the feast.
The motor grew louder. The preoccupied eagles barely turned their heads, unaware of the danger until a ute raced around the bend. Moon’s take-off was too slow, too cumbersome. She barely made it to windscreen height before the impact sent her crashing into the cabin. Showers of glass and feathers and blood blinded the driver. The dying eagle’s hooked beak reflexively seized his leg.
Screaming in pain and surprise, he let go of the wheel and swerved from the track towards the other eagles. On the ground their broad wings and short legs made them clumsy. Woorawa and his mother, flapping to the roadside, could not escape the careening vehicle. It snapped Woorawa’s unfurled left wing and clipped his mother’s head. The raptors collapsed in the dust.
A man in the passenger seat opened the door and hurled Moon’s smashed corpse on top of Woorawa’s prone body. ‘What the hell?’
The shaken men got out and gazed at the carnage. Blood seeped from the driver’s blue-jeaned thigh.
‘They’re bloody eagles,’ said the passenger. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Who cares what they are, Joe. Just get me to a doctor fast.’ The driver hobbled to the car and hauled himself in.
‘Hang on a minute.’ Joe retrieved a long-bladed knife from the back of the ute. Since childhood he’d been impressed by his uncle’s hunting trophies – including eagle skulls and claws. What about a collection of his own? Already Joe could see the display behind glass in his pool room. He reached down to sever Woorawa’s feet.
But Woorawa wasn’t dead. He reared back and seized the man’s right wrist in his steel-clawed grasp. Joe dropped the knife. Woorawa’s hind killer claw pierced bone. Three forward-facing talons sliced deep. His leg muscles automatically tightened his grip, ratchet-like. Joe stared at his trapped, mangled hand, too horrified at first to make a sound. Woorawa leaned forward and tore a strip of flesh from Joe’s arm.
The man’s scream roused Woorawa’s mother from her stupor. She shook her head, regained her feet, and took off at a clumsy run along the road, skipping and hopping and flapping until airborne. She circled low, calling encouragement. Woorawa heard her. Releasing Joe, he struggled off, dragging his snapped wing behind him. Joe struggled off too, moaning. Mother watched the ute reverse and drive away. She planed back to earth, reassuring her crippled son with soft double-noted whistles. Dirra-lich … dirra-lich … dirra-lich.
Woorawa nibbled her bill, her nape, yodelling like a nestling. He flapped his good wing and fell unbalanced to the dirt. Mother walked over to Moon’s body and pushed it. She picked up the knife and dropped it. She flew to a low branch and called him again.
As morning wore into afternoon she remained close by. Woorawa dragged himself a little closer to his sister’s side, surprised and confused by the pain in his useless wing. He watched his mother, comforted by her presence. Now they both heard a motor’s thrum. With one wild, grief-stricken shriek, mother launched skywards, flying south, abandoning her son. Next year’s brood would learn to stay shy of the shining eagle-slayers that hurtled along roads.
The ranger slowed his vehicle at the sight of Moon’s crumpled corpse. He got out to examine it and spotted Woorawa huddled nearby on the roadside. He fetched a net and gloves. On the ground a man can run down an eagle, but Woorawa barely tried to escape. Dejected, in pain, in shock, he suffered the indignity of netting. That was two years ago. Two years of surgery and pins and more surgery at Hobart’s Raptor Rehabilitation Centre, until Woorawa’s left wing matched his right in suppleness and strength. And now he perched in Binburra’s Number 3 aviary, waiting for his new mate and a second chance.