Category Archives: Nature Poetry

Mid-Sky Moon

The moon is about mid sky again (between the month’s peak north and peak south), and I’m down at the beach. The shoreline is at around 30 degrees with duel ridge mounds—one line near the top of the incline, the other nearer the water. There has not been too much of a change between high and low tides. And the weather has been pretty normal for this time of year. The mid-sky moon—of neither higher high tides, nor lower low tides, but bunched up smaller variations with more than one high or low in a day—clearly written on the shoreline.

New Moon Moisture

Usually with full moon comes an increase in moisture which may also manifest in clouds and rain. Lately I’ve also been trying to notice what is happening around new moon: Today, anyway, there is a lot more humidity—moisture—water—in the air. The next morning the courtyard is wet—from rain, or moisture at least.

Hardhead Dives

Maybe I have been confusing boodoo the bluebill for my new friend eroodoo the hardhead for some time. Maybe not. I see the differences clearly now: hardhead has white tip on bill end, white undertip to tail, white of eye; other features, though, are somewhat similar. And today I notice that I have another diving duck on my hands.

Dead Koolbardi  

I come across a dead koolbardie magpie in the the grasslands and big eucalypts not far from where a large branch fell down by the owl nest. His back is to the sky, all black and white, and his beak is tucked in under him—under his chest. He is in a small cupping of dark sand—not grass—and the earth seems to hold him there, like that…or his body at least; this bird of the sun, this being of the stars and skies.

Ducks, Bark, Warblers, Coots, Bandicoots

Before seeing a dead koolbardie magpie I’m at the eastern viewing area again. And in the reeds below, unseen for much of the last few weeks, I see the female kadar musk duck with two young, now not so small, paddling away from the reeds and rushes and from my interruption. A little later there is koordji-koordji the reed warbler at the top of the reed, near the seedhead, the whole thing bending slightly with its little weight, and the lake so still that the entire scene is mirrored clearly in the water below. To my right is the paperbark that is always there, but today I take special note of the many dozens of layers of its skin, folded in, folded over, layering and layering like limestone. There is the sound of coots in the water, and the sound of quenda the bandicoot in the dry rustling and leaves.  

Snake in River

Evening walk with Katie, heading upriver: southwest wind, very small alto, maybe some cirrus. It’s been a mid-to-high-20-degree day. Two dolphins head upriver over the sandbar. There are terns and seagulls, and many flowering native grasses—mostly tall feather-grass. And it’s one of those days where it’s easy to see, in the middle of the river, a snaking line of intersecting surface layers, at the corner by the yacht club, on the incoming tide.

Treefall & Tawny

Walking the grassland and large tree area of the lake today, approaching the last of three known tawny frogmouth nests, and I see that a large branch has fallen down and now sits near the base of the nest. On getting closer it’s clear that the branch would have fallen right on the nest in the tree next door if a couple of smaller branches hadn’t deflected it and caused it to fall slightly further east. On standing at the canopy of the now fallen branch, I look directly up to see if the owl is still there in the nest—and sure enough she is.

What a moment that must have been to hear the tearing of the bark of the tree—maybe in the night—and then to hear it come crashing down onto your own tree, only to miss by a couple of wingspans. I look at her now. She remains perfectly still.

Joondalup to Jennalup

I walk downriver from Joondalup Point Walter towards Jennalup Blackwall Reach along the shoreline on a relatively low tide. Koorodoor the egret is there all white in the morning light, Pacific black ducks, koordjikit the black cormorant, kakak to small pied cormorant with a small fish—djilba bream?—in his mouth. Two osprey fly high above, while another perches on a riverside dead tree branch, which becomes eye-level when I take the path up; hIs feathers are all ruffled, and his eyeline stands out brown against the white of his head and chest. There is plant life in the area that burned a couple of years back, including many healthy-looking balga grasstrees. The wind is offshore for here, no clouds. So much limestone, and so much depth to the water below.