Birds soaring overhead, no matter the species, are a reminder of freedom, pure and simple. Yet, if the bird is a mutton bird, that freedom to swoop and glide is tightly controlled within a framework of dates that punctuate their calendar -- varying only by a day or so.
26 September Mutton birds arrive back on their breeding islands in Bass Strait
30 October Mate
25 November Lay their large single egg
15 January Chick hatches
18 April Adults leave rookery on their migration flight to the Bering Sea and Alaska
30 April Young birds leave to follow parents to the Bering Sea.
Then it begins all over again! For me, the mutton bird calendar is symbolic of my own migration from Phillip Island to Mitchell in Outback Queensland -- except that I don't lay a large single egg and raise a chick while spending the summer on Phillip Island.
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