Is it a complex jigsaw puzzle? Or a close-up peek at an insect factory? These are some of the suggestions that have been made by the million or so viewers from around the world given a glimpse into the intricacies of shearing in outback Queensland, thanks to Andrew Hughes.
Now living in Goondiwindi, Andrew hails from Thargomindah and was back home last week to help his parents put their annual shearing through at Autumnvale.
A keen photographer and winner of the 2012 Australian Year of the Farmer photography competition, he packed his drone into his car for the trip out, and set it loose above the sheepyards as shearing got underway.
Andrew says he captured 10 hours of footage on the property, but just two short video segments, sped up to look like time lapse photography, have enthralled the world via social media.
The trained eye can see the logical flow of cream-coloured sheep through the drafting gate and up to the shed at one side, while the shearing shed spits out little white lozenges at regular intervals on the other side of the shed.
In the other equally-mesmerising video shared by Andrew, a mob of 903 sheep are let out from the yards and returned back to their paddock.
Like a swarm of insects, the mob flows through the landscape, pushed by the invisible force field exerted by motorbikes patrolling its sides.
Andrew said he’d never worked sheep from a helicopter and so the footage had given him a different perspective on their operation.
“It’s about knowing where to stand – there’s a definite art to it,” he said. “You don’t have to make a sound to move sheep.”
His videos have had over one million views so far. Andrew said they “went big” very quickly, with 18,000 watching them the first night they were posted.
Thanks to drought, it was the quickest shearing ever done on Autumnvale, with 3100 head put through in three days.
In a normal year the Hughes would shear 10,000 head and a good year could see anything from 14,000 to 20,000 head shorn.
A run in the Bulloo River has given them some good herbage, and although the sheep were skinny, a 40mm fall nine days before shearing has meant they have green grass to put their shorn sheep onto.