Distractions

Distractions are all about me as I write.  The leaves are fading and falling from the fruit trees beyond my study window, allowing me to glimpse the smear of autumn colour on the Japanese Maples on the other side of my little valley.  A few minutes ago the biggest of them was glowing red and orange against the white boards of the house behind it, and the dark green of pines and eucalypts beyond.

Excited, shrill piping drew me to the other window to find a flock of silver-eyes celebrating the food they were finding in the vegetable gardens.  Watching them carefully inspect the underside of each cabbage leaf in search of caterpillars and aphids made me wish they would live there full time - but, like all the life in the Mountains, including mine, they are seasonal.  Tiny nomads on an endless round, the silver-eyes, robins, and finches, with their larger cousins, the doves and quail, all pass through my gardens twice a year.

A magpie's fleeting shadow sent them scurrying to hide among the thorns of the rose bush by the front steps.  Magpie is harmless to them, I think - perhaps they mistook the flash of black and white for her cousin, the butcher bird.  After a few minutes pillaging the aphids on the rose shoots, they were off with the rising breeze.

They wouldn't sit still for my camera, and I could only capture what may be the last rose of autumn, fading as wintry clouds stole the blue from the sky.

Within minutes of the sun's disappearance, the picknickers come down the road from the lake, striding towards warmth and shelter.  The visitors and tourists are dressed for the warm autumn day that was, while the locals are equipped with scarves, mittens, beanies and coats - they know how swiftly capricious the Mountains weather can be.  Weaving through the walkers are the first of the evening joggers and cyclists, hurrying to complete their appointed miles before the threat of rain is fullfilled. The chilly gusts and prematurely fading light adds weight to that threat.

When the sunlight left, so did the small birds.  If I leave my keyboard and walk through the garden to the forest, or perhaps down to the creek, will I find them there?  Or are they deeper in the shadows, hiding from the hawks and butcher birds who like to cruise the valley as the light fades?  It is tempting - but I have been there twice already today, when the sun was shining, and I owe my novel-to-be at least another half a chapter before I can leave the keyboard again.  There are shadows enough to be explored there, as I hunt for the truth about my characters.