A MAREEBA man on trial for manslaughter told police he "whacked" his neighbour with an excavator bucket in a feud over a dead cow and where to bury it.

Roy Frederick Francis Bird, 65, is pleading not guilty to unlawfully killing 33-year-old Wayne Smith.

In the Supreme Court yesterday, prosecutor Peter Feeney said Mr Bird was at the excavator controls on January 23, 2007.

Moments earlier, excavator operator Brenton Bath had been ordered off Mr Smith's property in a heated exchange about where to bury a dead cow near the boundary of the properties.

In a police interview, Mr Bird claimed he acted in self-defence.

"I put the bucket around to bloody protect myself and as I did I f….. whacked him," he said.

"You know, it's as simple as that. As far as I'm concerned, it was self-defence."

He told police the incident came after a lengthy dispute about a dam he erected near Mr Smith's boundary in 2005.

"These things go on and on and on and on … and you know, I guess it had to come to a bloody end," Mr Bird told police.

Mr Bird later told his son he bumped the controls for the bucket as he was dodging rocks Mr Smith was throwing.

One rock broke the rear window of the driver's cabin.

Mr Feeney suggested Mr Bird deliberately struck Mr Smith with the bucket and hit him a second time while Mr Smith was returning to his feet. The second strike had "sufficient force and speed" for the bucket to continue into the dam wall.

He said the fatal injuries were caused by "the impact of the bucket with the body, rather than the body being trapped between the bucket and the wall".

Mr Smith was taken by ambulance to Mareeba and flown to Cairns Base Hospital, where he later died.

Surgeon Dr Roxanne Wu said Mr Smith was bleeding heavily when he arrived in Cairns. Doctors operated but were unable to stopthe bleeding.

Sgt Matt Duncan said he saw "blood soaking in the soil" and an indentation in the dam wall.

Two days later, a police re-enactment confirmed the excavator bucket aligned with the indentation and the teeth of the bucket aligned with a furrow in the soil.

Under cross-examination, Sgt Duncan agreed photographs from January 25 showed soil on the bucket which was not there two days earlier. He denied the furrow had emerged since the incident.

The trial resumes on Tuesday.

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