Steve Nossiter

The Father's Line

Sunrise in the outback is a surprisingly noisy event. Even as the first dusty colours creep out to play across the horizon, the kookaburras start. Rich percussive calls, bouncing off the crisp air giving permission to the smaller birds to start their own tweeting and squeaking through the bush. Only a few birds at first but before long, as the rest of the colours begin to join their siblings in the sky, the whole landscape comes alive with sound. And in the midst of it all, a majestic song begins, following a melody as complex as the very land it reverberates through. From his perch at the top of an old dead Eucalypt the Magpie calls in the morning, and everyone, it seems, even the Earth herself, stops to listen.