The call of a platypus
I can’t explain this, but today a platypus (Ornithorynchus anatinus) called.
“What’s your favourite animal?”
My answer through the what’s-your-favourite-animal years was The Platypus.
Of course it was. So unique. Australian. A venomous, egg-laying mammal that thwarted all known classification systems of the colonisers. The Platypus.
And yet, in all my 47 years, despite many attempts, I’d never seen one in the wild. Until today.
This afternoon, out of nowhere, a platypus called my attention. And so I drove to a point in the swollen Yarra where sightings are sometimes made. It felt like a strange thing to be doing. But when a platypus calls, you don’t question that sort of thing. And so I watched. I stood on the swing bridge over swirling, racing, murky brown water, full of eddies and bubbles, and I watched. For more than an hour I was there as dusk came on. Hanging above an enormous elevated river on a suspension bridge. And then - there it was. A platypus. Midway across the giant old river. I walked towards it, but quickly it dropped out of sight. The whole thing lasted two seconds, maybe three seconds. I reached for my phone camera just in case. And as I did so, a second platypus surfaced right underneath me.
She nodded. I nodded. And I grabbed this souvenir of our moment- called from across Naarm/ Melbourne this afternoon, and called also from across decades. The call of a platypus.