Flagstone Primary School Story - Sally and Harry Save a Mopoke

It was twilight at Flagstone Creek. The shadows were starting to darken and a light breeze was blowing through the Bottle Brush Trees in the bed of the creek.

Some fruit bats had flown over and had landed in the Bottle Brushes and were munching on the flowers.

'Bleaeaeaeah, bleaeaeaeah, bleaeaeaeah!'

A platypus splashed into the water, swam one last circle on the surface and dived down into the water of Flagstone Creek.

The boy and the girl could see the trail of bubbles it left as it swam towards the entrance of its burrow.

The girl said, "Oh, look at that we'd better get a photo."


The boy said,"OK." and he reached into his pocket to get his mum's camera but it wasn't there.

The girl said, "Oh, no! You idiot!"

"You've lost Mum's camera. You wait till I tell her. Ha Ha!"

The boy said, "No it wasn't me. I put it in my pocket."

"Well we'd better find it," said the girl, "because if we don't Mum might cry and I don't like seeing Mum cry."

So they walked back along the path. The boy said, "There it is!" But as he bent over to pick it up it scuttled across the path and went plop into the creek. He said, "Naa, that's a turtle."

They walked a bit further and this time the girl saw a frog on the edge of the creek. It started croaking and soon there were many croaks echoing around the banks.

The boy said, "Wow, there are lots of frogs here but we still haven't found Mums camera. Wait a minute, look there's something glowing over there."

They both ran along the path in the dark and, sure enough, it was Mum's camera. The boy said, "I'll get it!" and he ran over and picked up the camera. He said, "Hooray!"

The bats flew off startled by the sudden noise. They could hear their wings wooshing through the evening air and wind blew through the bottle brushes again.

"Hey listen." As the wind died down again they could hear, "Mopoke, mopoke, mopoke."

"What's that?"

"Dad calls them a mopoke but I think they're really a Tawny Frogmouth."

"Is that an owl?" said the boy.

"Well they look a bit like owls but they don't have talons to catch their prey so they're not."

"I know what they like to eat - bacon."

"Why?"

"That's what he's saying. Listen. More pork, more pork, more pork."

The girl said, "No. It's mopoke, mopoke."

"Let's see if we can find it."

The girl said, "Naaah, I think it's time we were heading home. Mum will be wondering where we are."

So they hopped under the fence, walked along the path, and opened and closed the gate.

The girl said, "Give you a race back to the house."

The boy said, "You're on."

They ran as fast as they could up the driveway to the house. The girl got their first. "Hey, I won!" but when she looked around the boy wasn't there. She said, "Harry!" but there was no answer.

Her Mum said, "Oh what's Harry done now."

"He's disappeared. I bet he's gone looking for that mopoke."

Her mother said, "You're probably right and I bet he's got my camera too."

"Yes Mum."

As they looked there was a flash of light and in the light they could see Harry standing at the foot of a stringybark tree and in the branches of a tree they could see a Tawny Frogmouth pretending to be a branch.

"Will I go and get him mum?"

"No Sally. We'll walk down together."

Sally's mum picked up the torch and together they walked down the driveway towards the stringybark tree. As they arrived a gust of wind rattled the branches of the tree and an old rotten branch came crashing down onto the lower branches. The mopoke fell to the ground right next to Harry.

"Mum, it's hurt look but it's moving."

"Be careful. It might have a broken wing." She shone the torch on the bird and, sure enough, they could see that one of its wings was at a funny angle.

Sally said, "Mum, mum, can we look after it."

"Oooh, I'm not sure if we can manage that. We'd better put in in a box and keep it calm while I ring the wildlife carer who lives down near Fordsdale."

Harry scooted back along the driveway and into the garage. He came back with a box. They wrapped the Tawny Frogmouth carefully up in Harry's jumper and carried it carefully in the box back to the house.

There mother got on the phone and rang a friend of her's. "Do you know you were telling me about those wildlife carers. Do you know where we can find them? We've got an injured Tawny Frogmouth."


"Oh, oh, there's one at Fordsdale. I'm not sure if I can remember her name. Oh, oh, Alison's her first name. I'm not sure if I can remember her surname. Oh, I must be getting older. What is it? Harrison, Alison Harrison. That's it."

Her mother looked up the name in the phone book and gave the number a ring and said, "Oh, the wind knocked a branch down and we've got an injured mopoke, a Tawny Frogmouth, can you look after it?"

The carer said, "Oh yes that happens but, look, can you look after it for the weekend? I'll tell you what to do."

So they looked after that mopoke all weekend and on Monday morning before school they drove it down to the wildlife carer near Fordsdale. One Sunday, a few weeks later, they were down by the pool at the creek trying to see the platypus and do you know what they heard? - 'mopoke, mopoke, mopoke'.

 cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo by Peter Nijenhuis:
http://flickr.com/photos/peternijenhuis/2958345689/

(This story was created by the Prep - Yr 2 students at Flagstone Primary School and Daryll Bellingham
as part of the Catchy Lockyer Stories Bush to Beach Under 8's Week Tour.)