ISLAND LIFE

Nathan Maynard’s first mutton-birding experience with his son Clay was destined to be special. “There’s been someone in my family catching mutton birds since the beginning of time,” says Maynard, a Tasmanian Aborigine who has been travelling to Big Dog Island in Bass Strait every year since he was 15 to harvest mutton birds with his family.

“It’s extremely important for me to do my bit and keep the culture going. There’s no one else that harvests mutton birds the way we do it and at the scale we do it.”

Maynard is shown here with Clay harvesting birds – also known as shorttailed shearwaters – near their family shack at Big Dog Island two years ago. Clay, seven at the time, had plucked several young birds from their nests, to be killed and eaten at dinner.

“He wasn’t strong enough to break the birds’ necks quickly and humanely. Now he’s at the age [nine] where he can do that, he can get the action right,” says Maynard, a playwright who told the story of his cherished family tradition in his debut play,

The Season, last year. “We love the birds and what they give us. I wouldn’t call it brutal work, but it’s challenging. There’s always the island factor – the unpredictable weather, and the poa tussocks – and the practice of muttonbirding is hard, dirty work.”

Each year, from late March to late April, Maynard and Clay spend up to a month at Big Dog Island during mutton-birding season, with two other families.

“Mutton-birding with my son is something I’ve always dreamt of,” Maynard says. “Clay is in his element when he’s here. The beach and rocks are his playground.”