This morning, the hunt was on. A great bowerbird slowly swallowed a spider with a distended, grey abdomen. A white-bellied cuckoo-shrike devoured one insect and immediately flew into an adjacent tree and plucked another from the leaves. In shallow water near exposed mud flats in the Ross River, a black-necked stork or jabiru stood motionless, then chased a small fish that leapt from the water in silvery arcs. As it splashed in long steps through the water, the jabiru’s red legs looked like gaudy tights worn beneath a black and white dress having a metallic top that glinted green in the sunlight.

For others of the city’s wildlife, it was a time of rest. While strolling along the Ross River Parkway in Idalia, I spotted two black flying foxes roosting in a riverside tree. Their wings were wrapped around their bodies, the bare, black skin shiny and taut like stretched elastic film. One of the bats stared at me, its eyes dark, a mantle of deep brown fur on its nape. Then it scrambled out of sight in the dense foliage.

Much later, with only two hours left in this day, Vilis and Janis returned from Western Australia, having spent the morning at Kings Park in Perth, after which they flew from Perth to Brisbane this afternoon, and to Townsville this evening. They looked more rugged, as though some of the desert had seeped into them. They gazed at the cement brick walls of our rental house as though suddenly caged.

When I asked Janis if he’d had fun, he replied fervently, “Oh, yeah! That’s Australia. This isn’t Australia. This is just some random city somewhere.”

Today’s birds: Rosslea & Idalia – white-bellied cuckoo-shrikes, mynas, blue-faced honeyeaters, white-gaped honeyeaters, magpie-larks, masked lapwings, great bowerbirds, laughing kookaburras, house sparrows, brown honeyeaters, rainbow bee-eaters, peaceful doves, yellow-throated miners, green figbirds, Australian magpie, bush stone-curlews, rock doves, rainbow lorikeets, Australian white ibises, black-necked stork, welcome swallows, helmeted friarbird, sulphur-crested cockatoos, yellow honeyeater, mangrove gerygone, sacred kingfisher, white-throated honeyeater, leaden flycatcher, nutmeg mannikins, black-faced cuckoo-shrike, little black cormorant, spangled drongo. Also, roosting black flying foxes.