Birds of a Feather by Erica Chester

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We all know kookaburras
love to sit in old gumtrees,
But how ‘bout welcome swallows
twirling on the breeze?

The palm cockatoo
loves to drum his homemade sticks,
While his cousin, with the sulphur crest,
loves to do his tricks.

The colourful rainbow lorikeet
loves to play and chatter,
But the serious powerful owl 
likes to focus on things that matter.

Curious black and white magpies
like to warble right on dawn,
Whilst the crow caws away
His sound is most forlorn.

Beautiful little fairy wrens
are hopping all day long,
While the pied butcherbird
sings his melodic song.

The scatter-brained bush turkey
likes to scratch around,
While spotted green catbirds
make an awful wailing sound.

What a wonderful, noisy, crazy,
Colourful and cheery bunch,
Who tweet and chirp and caw 
and laugh and drum and screech and munch.

Image by David Clode from Pixabay

Outside My Window by Jacinta Lou

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Outside my window
Black cockatoos
Walk on the grass
searching for bugs and worms after the rain.

Outside my window
currawongs hover, seeking space between cockatoos,
hungry for bugs and worms after the rain.

Outside my window
plovers land and take off again.
Too many others searching for bugs and worms after the rain.
No room for eggs here.

Outside my window, magpies chase away the larger birds.

They won the yard today.

(In response to prompt #2 What’s Outside Your Window?)

As this is Jacinta’s first contribution to Australian Children’s Poetry we thought you’d like to know a little bit about her:

I’m a writer living in the bush in southern Tasmania with my black pug, Bellatrix. When I’m not writing I look out my window to Kunanyi, Mount Wellington, and watch the many birds foraging in the trees and on the grass. I write for children and hope to publish picture books.

Poem of the Day

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KOOKABURRAS

 

Dacelo novaeguineae

 

Ho, koo-koo-kaa-kaa,

Kookaburras,

Laughing in your trees;

No jumbuck jollier,

Gladly I’d follow yu’,

Life was meant to please.

 

Can you whistle?

Oh but this’ll

Do, for laughter’s sweet

And you could,

If you but stood

Your terribly ticklish feet.

 

Tiring is this

Wing-flap business,

But you need to fly;

For ticklish feet

Sure has you beat,

But what a way to die!

 

Bridh Hancock

Poem of the Day

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A BIRD UNIQUE

Hoo hoo hoo, and he haw hay

laughed the Kooka on his way.

 

After him the magpies chased

winging past in reckless haste.

 

What was it that the Kooka heard

to cause the magpies get so stirred?

 

An ornithologist rushed to meet

a magpie walking on two sore feet.

 

‘I’m scared to fly,’ the magpie wailed

‘They laughed at me because I failed.’

 

He then limped on, a bird unique,

an unhappy agoraphobic freak.

 

© Margaret Pearce