For 18 days through October and November of last year, I spent as much time looking for and watching dingoes as I could. My goal was to capture a live kangaroo hunt. I don't know why, but this seems important for me to see in person. The three packs of dingoes I found live in a high mountain valley about an hour's drive from my home city in southeastern Australia. No people live in the area, though it is a semi-popular day-hiking spot, receiving less than ten people per a day on weekdays, and up to a few dozen on weekends. The valley is large enough for the dingoes not to be noticed if they're out during the day, unless you're looking for them, and know how to look for them, and that takes experience and usually more than a single visit. On many occasions I sat hidden against a rock with my camouflage clothing, watching dingoes while hikers traipsed the walking trails oblivious to the wild lives within howling distance. Over the 18 days I saw an incredible amount of action. In hindsight I am grateful, for I considered that I may see absolutely nothing. I'll recount those days over several posts, experimenting with writing style as I go, in these early stages of my writing journey.

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I arrived in the valley late in the afternoon, on a mostly clear day with passing clouds, the sun had shone through to warm the meadows, so that much life was active and I felt an uplifting grace. The familiar dirt road led up through the woods then down into the fields, crossed a shallow creek, and then rose again to a view over the land. A great green expanse spread out beyond, dotted with copses of snowgums and peppermint eucalypts, and granite outcrops like groups of grey houses, and in the lightly hazed distance an enclosure of blue-green steep slopes, rising to the circling mountainous rim. Through all of this a river ran narrow and deep, with just a few gentle bends where other creeks joined, and dense stands of pale reeds — phragmites — slowed the water in a boggy morass, against all the green they were distant creamy flats. The flats had their own hidden life, a pair of swamp harriers lived there, who seemed to float buoyantly all day long, looking for mice, rats, lizards, and perhaps waterfowl chicks. The flats were also wading points for all the larger animals in the valley, and sometimes deadly places where the old and slow were bushwhacked.

At the end of the road is a large grassy sward, fringed with dark scrubby woodlands that signalled the end of the expansive bright world for half-a-days walk until the next valley beyond. Here a mob of around fifty grey roos kept the grass well-cropped, so that no blades or machines were needed to make it seem like a lawn, and a few red-necked wallabies were scattered on the margins, where they could shoot like a bullet back into the dark woods, and agility and known trails would be their refuge. The sun was settling in behind the nearby western peaks, that rose five hundred metres above the already high valley floor, but still in the east the rim of ridges nurtured the last golden beams before they deepened to red.

Now I immersed myself in the character of the mob, crouching low to the ground and my attention cast downward just to watch them and fool them, I was a predator in their midst. Unaware of this paradox, their gregarious nature was revealed, a few different personalities rising out of the mob to prove not all are alike. Most were bowed down occupied by their green buffet, some were more curious and hopped straight towards me, the joeys darted away and then back to their mothers, wonderful practise for the deadliest game. A man-sized male roo was in a flirtatious pursuit, tickling her tail with his sharp claws that could also rake and tear, but each time he did she took another hop forward to keep just out of reach. Her joey at foot looked on in confusion, sniffing his mother from a safe distance to make sure she was alright. The buck repeated the process for several minutes, until perhaps in exasperation he stood up tall to look into the beyond, and his face was framed by the ridges grazed golden in the east, and I raised my camera and captured the moment.

Eventually the valley was filled with the cool purple glow, that hangs in the air before the dim blue of late evening. There was stillness and soft ambience, the songs of the woodland birds petering out, and the familiar plucking and grinding of herbivores heard in grasslands all around the world. I was engrossed in a comparison of the roo's warm brown tones against the cool purple glow, when they all stood up bipedally and swung their attention to the north-west.

One hundred glass bulbs all converging on a small distant point, the pupils small black windows allowing the data of light to stream in, and the iris around it rich brown and reflecting sky, detected and interpreted the portent. A unique yellow shape came up from near the river, dripping with water, perhaps it had crossed at the creamy flats? It trotted casually amidst parting waves of bounding dark shapes, whose own glass bulbs were wide with panic and showed the whites normally hid by their lids. The mellow coat reflected the sky's waning glow, a stark contrast against the dark land and shapes around. The form bounced almost cheerfully, like a jaunt, adding new energy to the valley, over the plucking and grinding that would otherwise go on all night.

A new law had arrived, it was the law of caloric theft, if you chewed only cud you had evolved on an unfortunate branch, for this law will take your life's work of thousands of meals, in a single sitting, day after day, generation upon generation. Of course, that was the law that the dingo enforced, as do predator's around the whole world, but the grazer's themselves maintain their own philosophies. When the roo's were a safe distance they stopped, turned, and watched, and soon continued to graze amongst themselves, knowing the threat was over for now, and there was long work to be done. The wallabies were long gone, the predator continued towards my own small remaining group, only a few ravens dared to stand up to his reign, but when one swooped too close the jaws snapped at the air and the dingo continued, alone again, and closer.

Our eyes met through the view finder of my camera, they were like dark honey in a black pot, and triangle-shaped, they held something earnest and wise. Whether he looked at me solely, or just glanced over our group, I cannot be sure. His ears gave away more clearly his attentions, they stood firm and aware, beginning low on the skull, swooping up from the jawline continuing the curve of his face, to a stiff rounded apex that captured the breeze, then dropped to converge above an intelligent high-domed forehead. They were uniquely dingo ears, permanently erect, sturdy like an outgrowth of the skull, like horns even, the secret to their continent-wide success. So as his ears bored into me, I remained very still, just my camera, a large black eye replacing my face, tracking his evening escapade vicariously. Unbothered, he continued past prospecting some more, then turned up a hill where at the top he stopped and looked east.

The roos of that hill had already scattered into the next valley, except a lone doe that stood firm and stared him down bravely. Tension was building and so were the silhouettes, I felt desperate, if fate happened now what would I get, but the moment had weight so I directed my camera and held my breath. She was small in stature but did not even so much as flinch, for female roos are the fastest, and without the luggage of new life she was sure of her speed. The line of his body was aimed, calculatingly at her, considering odds, distances, angles, obstacles, anything that might help him cancel out her speed. All this was done with a well-seasoned mind, results borne from instinct proven through time. The reckoning must have been close because the standoff lasted seconds, normally a chase begins with the prey springing instantly, but here it was the dingo to initially crack. Tentatively the right leg bent, the forepaw poised in the air, then swinging left to take a reluctant step back to the north. The other legs followed, then the body and swooshing tail, but for a few steps the head remained pointed at the truculent doe with an ominous gaze. I'll be back. When you're not ready. We'll have a good chase. Within a few steps the head followed too and with his light jaunty bounce he disappeared into the last gleam of evening.