Downs Country - Far North Queensland

Driving across the downs in Far North Queensland - open flat country with the horizon running forever. A pure, blue enormous sky above the pink of Flinders grass, straw of Mitchell grass, the occasional Yellow wood, Whitewood and clump of Gidgee against the skyline. In the sky, like swarms of insects are the flocks of budgerigars, flashes of green when the light catches them, they move through the sky like schools of fish, turning together on an invisible signal, alighting all along a fence then in the air wheeling, circling, chattering, then on the ground, in the air again. I stop the car and walk amongst them entranced by the colour, the spontaneous movement, the surprising sound of frantically beating wings as the whole flock turns above me. I have a flock of hundreds, maybe thousands above and around me and in the distance I can see three, four, five more smudges of other flocks, turning and moving through the clear air, above the flat, flat land. It has been a good season in the Gulf, the grasses are seeding prolifically and the birds are multiplying and moving constantly. There are Plain Turkeys, Wedge Tail Eagles, Hawks, Pigeons, Galahs, Corellas and the occasional stately Brolga. Mostly, however, I am left with the impression of the budgerigars, green and swirling above the pink and straw of the grasses, the stillness, quietness and sheer vastness of the timeless landscape - flat and forever.