Animal Diaries Archive

Agro's Little Sludge Pit!

4 March 2005

Agro loves running water. Every afternoon our head gardener "Fred"� waters the gardens near Agros waterhole. The excess water runs in a spillway and forms a steady trickle that flows into the top of the big bloke's enclosure. As the sun begins to set Agro takes up an ambush position with his head wedged into the mouth of the spillway. Often his nose and eyes are draped with large patches of weed, as if he is in camouflage mode.

So every arvo before we go home we go and have a little chat to Agro or "little Aggie"� as we affectionately call him. We ask him if he is comfortable in his spillway or "little sludge pit"�, as its known. Not that it is a sludge pit but we call it that to tease him. The conversation usually goes "Hello Aggie, how is your little sludge pit today? Have you eaten any ducks lately?"� Of course Agro doesn't even blink an eye to let us know he is listening. He just seems to sit there with a great big smile on his nobby brown head.

Unfortunately this is about as close as you can get to an affectionate relationship with an animal that, despite being in captivity for the large part of his life, would like to squash your head like a ripe watermelon.

We love Agro and he loves his spillway.