(tales from the birdgirl)
Recently, out bushwalking, I came across a bunch of kangaroos
bivouacking under the trees.
I felt as though I had gate-crashed on their gathering.
One of the females certainly let me know how she felt about my intrusion.
So I left them to their party …
The bush is in the throes of mid-summer right now.
It’s dry and brown.
It’s a tangle of trunks and branches —
and grasses —
and twigs and leaves.
But the mistletoe in the trees …
… is in flower:
And one or two bushes are heavy with creamy blossom.
Insects tick.
Shrike thrushes sing.
Whistlers call.
Black cockatoos swoop and shriek.
Kookaburras laugh.
Summer slumbers on.
On one of my favourite bike rides,
I pass an empty field outside a GP clinic.
Most of the year, it’s just a bare field with long, uncut grass.
But in spring, it changes.
Such deceptive beauty!
These flowers, heralding from South Africa,
are considered weeds here.
They’ve spread far and wide, pushing out our own native flowers.
It’s hard not to admire them, though —
their abandoned spread;
their cheerful, bright colours …
… and their faces uplifted to the sun.
I took a walk through the bush again in late September.
Skinks rustled through the undergrowth.
Whistlers burbled; shrike thrushes sang; blue fairy-wrens and fantails darted about.
And there were wild flowers everywhere, including common fringe-myrtles;
paper flowers;
smooth rice-flowers;
and grevilleas.
Every month brings a new season in the bush.
Every month brings a new, different kind of joy.
My garden originally had several patches of arum lilies.
Also called calla lilies, these flowers are sometimes thought to symbolise death. They’re considered a toxic weed in South Australia, so I ended up reducing my lilies to one small, protected patch.
They spring up during the mid-winter rains, when the grass is long and wet and green, and the soil damp and crumbly — reminding me not of death, but of life.
Of growth.
Of abundance.
I’m happy to let them grow in that small patch, ready for picking and putting in a vase — tall, elegant and lush.
One of my favourite native plants is the grasstree.
In the last few weeks, walking through the bush,
I’ve glimpsed grasstrees at all stages of their life cycle.
Some were growing and establishing themselves:
Some were flowering:
And some were dying and decaying:
At each stage of their life
grasstrees seem to me unique, strange, prehistoric …
and beautiful.
twenty-one words 