The wind that blew all night had dislodged a branch from the red gum, or at least a slab of bark, and it had become wedged on top of the garden gate;   or so she thought. But when she approached the wooden object leaning there, a pair of yellow eyes—two egg yolks poached and glazed—opened to stare   toward her. She was disgusted and repelled. That dead branch was a living tawny frogmouth: ornithology might have told her; but such knowledge she   had no use for, referring to the bird as “That Thing”, as in “Is That Thing…