In the Territory the stories are all too common...backpackers in vans swerving to avoid a wallaby of a basking lizard or a stubborn eagle feasting on roadkill, losing control in the dirt, over-correcting, rolling over and over 'til they come to permanent rest in the the scrub...
The penalties for the unauthorised possession of wildlife in the NT are high - for an individual the maximum penalties range from $65,000 to $130,000 and are of course much higher for corporate offenders.
As usual, the locals have the last laugh - and the best eyes for a bird. Just before I left Saibai I had a yarn with Saul Aniba about this most beautiful bird. He told me that he had seen one a few months before - also dead - not far from where we found this latest specimen.
Armadillos make common roadkill due to their habit of jumping to about fender height when startled - such as by an oncoming car.
Not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world's most remote marine sanctuaries.
This poor thing had been dragged around the countryside for the best part of 30 years until it finally expired on a dusty, corrugated stretch of road in the centre of Arnhem Land earlier this year.
To me the call of the Yinkardakurdaku sounds like water flowing out of a narrow-necked bottle, a beautiful succession of fluid sounds ending in an almost joyous, crazy climax.
All about me lay the scattered, shattered remains - here the severed head, there a leg, stripped of flesh, next to the road another head, ten feet away a razor-taloned foot, wing and tail. Whatever had happened here had been brief and incredibly brutal.
I have a vicious occasional thought that when the get to Darwin they will all run out of road and over a cliff into the Arafura Sea.
Feral cats have been in Australia since European settlement. They live independently of humans and are found in all habitats ranging from rainforest to desert throughout the Northern Territory.
