Poems about birds and animals
Better than Saturn |
Ibises |
at the Cascades near Leura
my girlfriend and I were looking over the valley at sunset and all the birds started singing and calling and whistling to each other they switched on like a radio they do it at sunrise too of course and we thought there must be a ring of it up through China and Russia and down the other side all around the world even over the oceans the wide winged birds and the flightless birds on the sprinkled islands Earth spins through a bracelet of bird song it's better than Saturn Duck worka serious looking mother duck
of a drab brown sparrow colour with ten creamy white ducklings each about the size of two thumbs is skimming past the end of a jetty the seven people there rise and look Oh yes Down there I can see Lovely then resettle to wait for the ferry the ducklings buoyant and obedient push their little thumbnail feet exhaustingly through the water they're packed tight to the mother on the side of her away from the jetty and away from the clucky bored people strict mother duck leads her brood to a new nest or a mud flat lunch and swims just fast enough that they creamy and fluffy and breathing hard learn water sense and duck striving she's wise and calm and as they grow and darken she'll tell them of preening and feeding and safety and all the subtleties of duck work Sulphur crested cockatoosin the tree near my deck
three white cockatoos wait Hitchcock quiet for me to feed them then one unfurls its sulphur crest as an Opera House of bananas after the sun had stroked their heads it left itself behind in freehand plumes what did the cockatoo say to Leunig drorr drorr is the one who is the largest today the same one who was the largest yesterday they wait therefore they think Rare birda small bird
like a pardalote a chat a robin flies past and lands in the lemon tree how curious it is its little head swivels constantly its chest is greenish black like an avocado with a similar curve and taper though smaller my heart grows to a planet I offer total love swear I will do anything for it but though I beg quietly please stay longer it hits the wing later when I check I find the adored in the heaviest of my bird books shy reclusive very little known occasional visitor to rural backyards one spherical brown egg sometimes called Avocado Bird Magpies. . . they are born pink, naked and blind
with large feet, a short broad beak and a bright red throat gymnorhina tibicen tibicen (bare-nosed flute-player flute-player) the 'nominate' form so musical it had to be named twice gymnorhina tibicen tyrannica (bare-nosed flute-player bully) a large white backed sub-species found in Victoria (though according to locals not lately in Euroa) seven others at last count while it is slowly stalking across the nearby table (weathered rough grey) at the outdoor restaurant it is also classifying you wardle wardle kookoo (sitting bulky curious) many unable to forage for themselves gather in small numbers to be fed by the more active members of the tribe short femur (above knee) and relatively long lower leg restrict its ability to hop (c/f e.g. the blue/brown wren) hence the constant walking with brief bursts of running up North they have learned to flip cane-toads onto their backs and rip into their bellies the cane-toads weep at this point (who cares) go magpies before they learn about getting-out-of-the-way many littlies/new-borns become country road-kill Greg Hughes of Euroa calls October-November the season of young dead magpies mighty Collingwood AFL might Euroa (Vic) VFL mighty Hawkes Bay (NZ) Union mighty Newcastle United (UK) Soccer mighty Souths Logan (Qld) League mighty Western Suburbs (NSW) League (formerly) mighty Glenorchy (Tas) AFL (controversial) Go 'Pies Go 'Pies Go 'Pies the selfish beak prods the cornucopic dirt for beetles grubs worms grasshoppers spiders any bug in a garden magpie beaks are easy-pleasey-beaks small frogs lizards snakes cockroaches and centipedes larvae waiting preconsciously and any handout from the sitting bulky curious given they'll eat almost anything and tolerate us they've a pretty good chance . . . complex melodious warbles pitched at 2-4 KHz do not carry long distances up to 70 minutes calls recorded for the approach of eagles and monitor lizards we've all seen a young one strutting back and forth cuddling its aural teddy bear we've all been grateful for the Christmas present of endless magpie dawns and wondered at the enigma of a black and white bird with a rainbow song that blasts the murk of human self-pity from the air and how their sound-bites are far too long bright and relevant for tv news grabs they are fleet of flute they ripple Monet through the air Met the chickencrossing the main road
for my fish and chips the other day I met a chicken on the refuge island the traffic was treacherous we stood there together looking left and right and left again she was a good looking bird soap powder white you wouldn't say plump but her feathers had a healthy suede like glow we started talking she was magnanimous about the outlooks from the houses on the North East side of the street but disappointed in their backyards all wheelie bins red brick pavers Hills Hoists everywhere and really bad scratching went on to say she'd heard encouraging comments about over-the-road I didn't want to raise any false hope sin her but mentioned that a few places on the South West strip where I lived had soft lawns lily ponds veggie gardens some even had compost heaps in addition the back rooms soaked up the heat all day and made the living well easy Cool she clucked can't wait the traffic thinned we promised to keep in touch before skipping off dodgem quick to our respective other sides I paused outside the fish shop and turned around to see that she'd made it safely over and was already pecking at one of the better looking doors Bird happydown the back of the yard
a small bird grey wings black stripes a patch of yellow on its back and a long honeyeater's beak was having a ricochet panic inside the netting tied around a plum tree I wondered how to set it free without slashing the net there was a bit of an opening towards the base of the tree where the net wasn't too tight and I started to think about how to shoo it down there when another one came by and hovered around like visiting time each was calling to the other I can't know if it saw the hole or was told by the second bird or just random luck but before I could do anything the trapped bird worked its way out and the two of them scrammed off as if they were late for something sonic booms of bird-happy tore the air to shreds |
two Ibises land in the backyard
white horizontal teardrops on red legs like short stilts on top of all that there's a grey head with an unnecessarily elongated beak in the curve of a quill also grey and . . . (what do they find to eat in mud and do they ever get stuck in a wormhole and snap the beak trying to pull it out) . . . or if perhaps a carver had shaped it he would run his hand along the curve eye it in all directions declare it finished and perfect enough to make music my little black and white cat is optimistically stalking them their heads are jigging back and forth as if sniffing out what lies ahead snatching a breath of what's to come and then pulling back for a lungful of the certainties of now they are rock and rolling in and out of soon mesmerising themselves and me and the cat who on reassessment is content to watch these feathered metronomes conducting the future through their long improbable beaks King parrotyou couldn't blame a King parrot
picking through its velvety red green and blue-purple feathers if it thought the bush was drab the fungi that glow scarlet and yellow are mostly small and out of the way the best flowers have short seasons the honeycomb brightness of freshly cracked sandstone soon fades into the background of blurred dirty pastels of dusty greens greys and browns there's one now it flaps off a skinny branch and colour bombs the bush the outspread wings reveal a light green zigzag bar distinctly King parrot a thick line of unique blue-purple divides the main red and green and that red is not the red of fire engines embers or carnations nor is that green the green of apples bottles or Ireland it strafes the McCubbin coloured bush with an iridescent blur of King parrot red and King parrot green and you couldn't blame it Visitorsto me fifteen
red-green firecrackers exploding across the long flat verandah rail to the fifteen happy King parrots a pit stop on a pub crawl handfuls of grey sunflower seed taken on tab one bird jumps to each hand and to keep stable they sink their claws so fine as not to pierce the skin I tense into stillness my hands heavy do they think I'm something like a free moving tree or do they say to each other that I too am warm and pulse like they do all at once and altogether an urgent flapping of wings and lots of squawking and they're gone where an orchard grass heads on a roadside the picnic ground I don't think they'll tremble like I did in afterglow to them I was just another Mine Host a lower order seed-god Gang-gangstwo Gang-gangs
are creaking their hinges and gutsing red berries on a front yard tree they let me stand very close and ignore me don't even bother to look at me I'm interested because I haven't seen Gang-gangs here before and as Madonna said rejection's a great aphrodisiac I ask the male Why the hot pink helmet? either he hasn't heard me or doesn't want to . . . . . . but SHE stops mid squeeze of a bright red berry turns into the sun which ignites the salmon sub-plot of her pale grey pine-cone body dips he head down my way and asks Where's your tail? All the other wallabies have one Grubs and thingsmost of the world's small islands
are in the South Pacific and on those islands where there are few predators many of the land-based birds have shrunk their wings and don't bother to fly any more it's too strenuous and anyway far easier to pick grubs and things out of the ground and leaf-rot than catch mosquitos flies and grasshoppers mid-air a lot of them have developed the response of standing stock still trying not breath or blink if they feel threatened so they probably have something like a race memory of being the hunted ones when they think the threat has passed they'll move once more resume their life looking for food building a nest seeking a mate after a while it all starts again Chicken shedthe five fat chooks run out
three brown ones two white ones and Bonzer the little golden bantam they all start raking up the dirt one looks at me while it's scratching like a child showing off I clean out the shed scrape the concrete floor and hose away the old hay with their shit stuck through it then spread out the new hay and pack some into their nest boxes meanwhile they've scratched holes in the soft damp dirt nearby they sit down in their holes and rub dirt into their feathers then stay still with their feathers and wings at odd angles as if their wings might be broken or they look as if they might be sick or even dying but they get up and wander off together Bonzer always following behind they mutter to themselves in repetitious chook talk something about the sky and a big catastrophe I don't believe them I do a few odd jobs elsewhere paint a door weed a garden they wander all over the place my midweek casual day flies past and soon enough it's time to collect bread and lettuce and cabbage and call them back into Cackleberry House I start calling Here chooky Here chooky and find myself talking to them as they follow me into the shed though by now they must know I'll lock the door and leave them in perhaps they don't mind realising they're safer that way little Bonzer is always the last she runs in with a few crackly screeks and a fluff and flourish of her clipped wings Yellow tailed black cockatooswe heard the noise first
a drummy rapid thumping like a helicopter then looked up in time to see the invasion six black cockatoos with yellow barred tails and yellow around their eyes swooped down from nowhere and took over the trees in front of us high in a fork one by itself further along the same branch more exposed and easier to see another by itself close by in a second tree at the end of a dead branch two together kissing and frolicking like lovers in a third tree a youngster squawked and squawked hounding a larger one we'd left the track and picked our way to the shoulder of a thickly wooded Blackheath valley the ground was steep and rough mossy sandstone and hollows of leaf mould broken twigs and so on we didn't dare move in case we frightened them and our legs began to ache as we strained to keep still on the awkward ground we held hands supporting each other craning our upper bodies to get a better look at them we wished we could suddenly become gentle aliens lift float extend ourselves silently onto the branches where the big black cockatoos were they would amble towards us left claw right claw left claw tilt their yellow patched heads side to side and greet us with a quiet . . . crarck . . . crarck-crarck our minds would flow into one and share the story of our different ways of being but no we can't talk to birds yet they sit loud and peaceful in the leafy branches and we stand quiet and awkward on the ground we watched and listened as they talked to each other the lovers circled beak to beak and chattered in soft scratchy cockatoo language the kid squawked on and on all the time they seemed to call and answer and interrupt each other until one of them made . . . a directive . . . an order and the others went quiet then it sprung off its branch and thumped away through the blue air along the side of the valley less than a minute later the lovers took off in the same direction and soon afterwards the remaining three flew out we saw the whole group briefly on the other side of the valley and could hear the youngster carrying on for a long time we found a large flat rock close by and stood there hugging each other before heading up to the track again as we picked our way through the rotting leaves and mossy rocks we kept a lookout for snakes and talked about everything and nothing in the soft massaging voice of wingless human lovers |