After years of drought in the Australian bush, a change in the season has given natural cycles a kick start, and a strange phenomenon is taking place.

Winter rains have lifted the mood across some of the more arid reaches in Australia and a landscape that was parched a few months ago is now covered in a carpet of green, and sprinkled with wildflowers.

Farmers and graziers are relishing the turn in the season, and a break from the harsh drought conditions that have prevailed over recent years.

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And it's not only farmers taking advantage of the softer conditions; there are shy native species which have been waiting for the weather to change.

Landholders say they are seeing signs of increased activity on their properties.

Meredith Thompson runs a mixed farming business at Bourke with her husband Tony. They were on their way to Melbourne recently when they saw a sight on the roadside that made them stop in their tracks.

"We were travelling between Bourke and Cobar," Ms Thompson said, "and we saw this line of echidna travelling in single file on the side of the road."

"My husband said 'Well! That's a photo opportunity', so we did a U-ey and went back to take photos.

"At first we thought there were three, but then we saw there was a fourth one as well. He was a long way behind; he was dragging the chain."

Ms Thompson said she rarely saw echidna on her property, aside from one which lived in a burrow near her sheds and she had never before seen a group of them together. So she said it was quite exciting to see a group of them making their way, single file across an outback road.

"But I would really like to know what they were doing; someone said they might be a family group, but they all seemed to be about the same size."

Zookeeper Denyell Woodhouse said echidna across the region would be gradually becoming more active, with the approach of spring.

"When the weather gets cooler, they go into a hibernation or torpor," she said.

"They go underground and sleep most of the winter.

"But now it is starting to kick into their breeding time, and that's what is happening here."

Ms Woodhouse takes care of the echidna flock, alternatively known as a herd or parade, at Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo.

She said the little brigade seen on the Cobar road was a classic example of an echidna train.

"What they do is a 'trailing behaviour', so you have one female that comes into season and is releasing pheromones, and you can have up to 10 males actually following behind her," Ms Woodhouse said.

"They'll follow for 10 hours a day and this can happen for several days until she decides to stop and whoever is first in line is the male that gets to breed with her."

Ms Woodhouse said the behaviour was well known to scientists; what is not so well known is precisely how the process works.

Is it a test of strength or endurance, a test to see who can be at the head of the pack?

Ms Woodhouse said this was the piece of the puzzle that was still missing; no-one knows the finer subtleties of the echidna train.