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Sally Murphy, Australian author

A Cautionary Tale of Birds, Birds and More Birds

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This is a tale with a  moral and I feel inclined to tell you the moral first: be careful what you wish for.

See, I’m in Adelaide at the moment and a few days I took a rather pleasant stroll along the Torrens River, admiring the surroundings and the black swans, including this beauty.

Black Swan Adelaide

So, this morning was a little cold and blustery but I really wanted to visit the birds again, so off I went.

I’d just got to the river when I started spotting birds. First there was this swan, huddled up against the cold wind.

sleeping swan adeliade

Then this shag, which was doing duck dives (shag-dives?) under the water.

shag adelaide

A mudlark flew in front of me, and I could hear parrots in a nearby tree. I had this sudden idea that I would try to photograph as many birds as I could, and blog about them. There’s  my wish.

Further along the bank I could see two pelicans also huddled up against the wind, and I wanted to get them on camera, so I wandered towards them. But, before I could get close to them, this happened: goose attack!

I think I managed to placate the goose, and did get a shot of my sleeping pelicans.

sleeping pelicans

But then I realised I was being chased again:

It was funny but also just a little bit like being in the movie The Birds. There were swamphens, and coots, ducks, all following me. so many of them! And it was then I remembered that I’d wanted to see lots of birds so I could blog about them. Wish granted: in a bit of an awkward way.

Later, I walked into the city, thinking I was away from the birds. But, as I sat on a bench to get my breath, a speckled pigeon and a banjo-playing busker united to give me a laugh.

So maybe, morals aside, I’ll still go looking for birds (and other things) to take photos of and blog about.

Life is good.

Poetry Friday: Watching

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It’s Poetry Friday and I am still enjoying the advent of Spring, one of my favourite seasons. There is a lot of very active bird life on my morning walks at present – magpies, ducks (with ducklings!), spoonbills, willy wagtails, swamphens, and more. I love to watch them, but they don’t always seem quite as happy to see me. Thus, this week’s poem.

Watching

I took a walk along a pathSpoonbill

Beside a lake, beneath a tree

And looked and saw and stopped and smiled

That there was so much there to see.

Ducks and wagtails, spoonbills, crows

Bright butterflies, a busy bee

But then I paused to wonder if

All that I Magpiewatched was watching me.

And even as I wondered this

A nearby magpie turned to flee

Flying away to a safe branch

So off I walked, and let him be.

 

Today’s Poetry Friday roundup is hosted by Michelle at Today’s Little Ditty.   Pop over there to see what other poetry goodness is on offer.

Poetry Friday: Magpies, a Poem That Makes Me Tingle

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When I sat down to post today for Poetry Friday I had no idea what to write about. Then I looked out of office window and saw five magpies playing on the grass across the road, and the words of a poem by Judith Wright came to my head:

Along the road the magpies walk
with hands in pockets, left and right.Magpie
They tilt their heads, and stroll and talk.
In their well-fitted black and white.
( You can see the rest of the poem at AllPoetry )

 

I’ve blogged before about different poems that make me tingle – that make me smile, or cry or shiver, and that stay with me for years and years. This is one of them. What a perfect extended metaphor, and about a bird I love. I hope you love it as much as I do.

Poetry Friday is hosted today at Merely Day by Day, where you can find links to all the poetry goodness.

poetry-friday-logo

Bird watching and more

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This morning I took my camera and went looking for birds. I lost count, but I spotted about 20 different species all within less than a kilometre of home.

There was a pigeon, just across the road from my house

Bronzewing pigeon

and a magpie, that wardled as it told me how it longed to slide down that slide.

Magpie

There were ducks – there are always ducks. These ones were almost too sleepy in the early morning sun to notice me coming along the path.

Two wood ducks

A family of coots. The babies are past the super-cute stage, but fun to watch:

Baby coot

and I loved the way this baby kept heading back to mum for a piece of whatever she was foraging

Baby coot being fed

And there were spoonbills, which are surprisingly quiet as they roost and roam about the trees over the swamp

Spoonbill
Spoonbill
Spoonbills

So I was happy, but sometimes it’s the little things you weren’t looking for that really make you smile, like this:

Spiderweb

or this

Feather

or even just the perfect sky above it all

Blue sky
Blue sky

Ahhhhh.

A Walk With My New Camera

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After months of thinking about it, I bought myself a new camera a few days ago. Yesterday, I took it on my usual morning walk. As a result, I didn’t quite get the usual walking pace up, but I did get to stop and look at things I might otherwise not have.

The path I follow

The path I follow

This is the path across from my house. It looks like I’m heading off into the bush, but if I’m honest it’s about 15 metres long before it meets the bike path, and the total block of bush is less than a hundred metres wide.  But it feels like bush. And there are interesting trees, which harbour possums and other wildlife,

Knotted tree

and wildflowers

Pink flower

and awesome, tiny butterflies.

Two tiny butterflies

Down the road, at the lake, there are lots of birds.  The most obliging of these, photo-wise, are the ducks. There are lots of these at present, and as I neared the lake a little yappy dog chased a large group of them from the grass back into the water.  Of course, I felt sorry for the ducks, but was secretly a little pleased because it gave me lots of opportunity to photograph them. (Disclaimer:  no ducks were harmed by the dog, and the dog was not mine). This was my favourite shot of the day:

Duck

but, proving that they weren’t left too distressed, I was also pleased with this one:

Three swimming ducks

I also tried to get some photos of the willy wagtails, which are one of my favourite birds, but hard to capture – both because of their constant movement, and their size. Oh, and my inability to hold the camera steady. This was the best of them:

Willie wagtail

On the other side of the lake, there’s a boardwalk which takes you close to the water birds that like the paperbarks growing there in the water.  I don’t remember the name of these little black birds, but they’re fun to watch – and really interesting because they have a smallish body (smaller than a duck) but long legs and big feet.  This one was not very obliging – I wanted to capture him on the branch with his reflection, but because he was busy grooming, most of the shots look like he’s headless. This one is the best I could get:

Coot

When he got back in the water, he swam very close, so I did manage a shot which shows how big his feet are. They are splayed to the side because the water was quite shallow:

Coot

I’ve been umming and ahing over a new camera for ages, largely because I didn’t know what I wanted. Now that I have one, I’m wondering why I didn’t get it ages ago. I’m looking forward to getting better at using it and discovering just what it can do.

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