Channel Country   Each year big rains leave the Diamantina in flood. Water spreads into channels sinks in slow streams to lakes down south.   Drifts of bark and twigs catch in the fork of trees like forgotten nests of the cockatoo.   Lines of mud mark the slurry rushing through.   Tiny micro-life survives in soil washed down with the spill. Drying in silt it lifts off, flies on the wind in a red-dust storm.   Spangled perch adapt to life in puddles.   Crustaceans survive the dry season buried under sand. They wait for the big wet, breed…