Birds I've Seen this Morning

The birds were there, company for me in the warming morning,

talking to each other as I listened and looked, trying to identify their words, spying on their ways, and keeping count of their differences.

Willy wagtail chirped and trilled, its jaunty tail flirt and wing flips

bringing me joy. The magpies pronounced judgement, then

chorused together, beautifully tuned, monochromatically toned.

Galahs frolicked and fossicked under the pine trees, hunting through the discarded pine cones, looking for pine nuts or other unknown goodies.

A pigeon flew almost unseen into pine tree branches then settled down standing tall and proud, up-pointed crest indicating it was indeed a crested pigeon, the only pigeon I like to see at our place.

One other bird seen and noted - swallow zooming in from

somewhere else, zooming off again, then back and away once more.

That was what I saw, bird-wise, plus of course various others, parrots several times, chattering once unseen in trees nearby, and a small flock of them another time, too fast over the house and away, calling in the way parrots do, in flight, a sweet call I can’t describe, but know when I hear it. I didn't see them well enough to name which type they were, so they remain unnamed.

Of course there were more anonymous birds too, small brown birds that may have been sparrows, or honeyeaters, or could have been an unseen species, one not on my list of birds seen here. 

We’ve lived here for over the twenty-five years, living in the country, in our country home, where we find peace and space, where our dogs can run and bark and nobody minds. Nature gives us much,  and the community gives us much too, friendships grow and help is given and accepted as needed, n the way it always happens in the country. Suburbs hold no temptations for me – I grew up there, but the country is where I truly live.