Category Archives: Sky Poetics

Owl Movements

The single owl sitting in the furthest north tree has now left its nest—no chick was seen. The one furthest south had one chick, but now also nothing left but the nest. The owls in the middle tree are all that remain, and the two chicks are getting big. In fact today I see they’ve now moved branches, away from the nest.

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.

Watching Owls Watching

There’s been a bit more movement amongst the owls these last few days at the lake. I’ve seen two tawny frogmouths sitting in each of two separate trees, one nest a little larger than the other. When standing under them, they seem a little less reluctant to move, and so show us the side of their head, then look down again. Today there are many dogs running around under them—every day must be somewhat the same. One owl can’t be more than a couple of metres above them. I wonder what the owls think of them, these four-legged creatures fetching balls and sticks and frisbees for those who walk on two legs beside them, while the owls are all the while sitting, waiting, watching. 

In addition to dogs and humans there are also magpies, also wattle birds, also crows, and other birds. I’ve heard stories of it not always being so amicable—stories of crows attacking owls—but as far as I can see here, the magpies and others—often so territorial—seem happy to let the frogmouths sit on their branches all djilba or kambarang—maybe also keeping one eye on them—sitting, sitting, in the sun and storms and winds and rain and waiting.

Of the City Sky

On the old traffic bridge stretching across the river from North Fremantle—where even now they build a new bridge next door—above a lightpost on the upriver side, just as the road starts to hang out over the water—in that upper world, looking down on it all, including the river, sits, as so often he does, dorn dorn the osprey. The next day I’m walking across the high trainline pedestrian bridge towards the ocean, and on the westernmost lightpost, high above coastal dunes and plants and road, sits a small raptor of some kind—I’m guessing a kestrel, the sun heading towards setting beyond. And on the way home, on a power line the other side of the highway, sits wardo wardong the grey butcherbird, all black and white and high, singing as if from the periphery of life.

Crescent Moon and Venus

Just past sunset and the crescent moon and Venus are side by side, almost touching. The next night the moon moves on, waxing; and on during the next night; and on; until it becomes gibbous. And Venus, it seems, is left behind, with the Sun.

On Opening the Window Blind

I open the window to red earth Australia—Pilbara or Midwest Gascoyne—around sunset. We look east. A hazy sky, old waterways, ridge lines in the evening light glowing. A road, a homestead, a couple of salt-lake-looking formations. The eastern horizon is orange, yellow, green, blue. A seasonal riverbed. Another homestead. A minesite. River valley. Magenta then peach above on the horizon (darker red to apricot). Areas of saltlakes. Orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo sky. Lights at minesite; a single one elsewhere. Now the sky is orange, yellow, blue. More lights. More saltlakes. Hazy darkness. More lights. Sudden country and connection.