Did I Actually See a Platypus?

This morning I reported a platypus sighting to the Australian Platypus Conservancy. Writing this note now, a few weeks after seeing the platypus, it seems all too elusive. I had been sitting on the damp ground watching a bend in Charley’s Creek for about an hour. The banks are steep at the turn, two-metres high, and I was sitting on the grass below a massive Manna gum, and about five metres from the black reflective water. At this point in the creek, the water flows steadily and quickly on the left-bank side, but as the course turns the water slows in a smooth backwater, protected by a half-submerged moss-covered log that appears to have a hollow end.

I had been watching the insects move on the water in the backwater. Leaves fell off the gum and willow tree, setting off small ripple-rings. It was getting darker and the colour had drained out of the scene, but I could still see silhouettes, and shiny reflections.

Then They Came

Two heads surged towards me on the thalweg (valley) side of creek. It was mesmerizing, even if only momentary. I could see the bow-wave of silver water pushed aside and two dark silhouetted mounds coming up the creek. For about ten seconds they swam strongly towards me, up-stream past the moss-covered log. Then they turned with a minimal flurry of water. And as they swam away I could see a third body now between the other two.

The entire event was no more than 20 seconds long. I waited for another ten minutes, but nothing. It was getting too dark and I returned to the house. The last time I had seen a platypus in the wild was 50 years ago, growing up in Tasmania and going fishing with my father in the Great Lakes region.

Rob, the person who lived here before us had earlier said that he had watched a platypus on Charley’s Creek recently. For over an hour it had moved through the water, diving and surfacing, until Rob got tired and left.

Seeing a Platypus; Recording a Sighting

I wanted to tell the world about seeing a platypus. The Australian Platypus Conservancy website is detailed and helpful, and their requests for information are clear. So, I filled in their form:

Species Sighted: Platypus

Date of Sighting (and time): 13 March 2021, 7.30 p.m.

Name of waterway: Charley’s Creek

Location: Gellibrand

Latitude: 38°32’43.6″S

Longitude: 143°31’55.8″E

Other information: I saw two silhouetted heads surging towards me. They turned and I realized that there were three animals.

On reading the Conservancy site, I now understand that they could have also been water rats. They look the same in the water at a distance. The site does say that platypus babies emerge fully furred from their burrows in January-March. So, maybe the third creature was a young platypus. However, the site also says, ‘Because juveniles are not normally seen by people at an earlier stage of development, there has historically never been any need to adopt a specific term for an infant platypus’. There is also no collective name for a group of platypus because they usually feed alone. Perhaps I should not have reported seeing a platypus with such simple clarity.

P.S. I did not take the photograph. It is taken from a report on the web which talked of platypus being endangered. I would write here the name of that site if I still knew it, but I can no longer find the web page.