The birds

own the day, hereabouts.

In the length of time it takes me to smoke a cigarette on the front porch, I have seen small honeyeaters chasing insects, rainbow lorrikeets draining nectar from the bottlebrush next door, an ibis using its long narrow curved beak to seek out grubs in the lawn across the road, a crow chased by three or four noisy miners, a pair of cooing doves protected by the long spines of the palmtree where they have their nest, a wagtail careering from tree to tree, a hawk or kite or some other raptor circling over head, a black-faced cuckoo shrike, a pair of blue-eyed honeyeaters hanging upside down from branches as they plunder the dangling flowers that hang from another branch, a kingfisher poised on a powerline. & out the back, the sound coming easily because of its volume, some kookaburras arguing.