The Early Bird

As the season cools towards winter, the flow of life in and out of my gardens is changing, too. The longer nights are generally quieter - lacking the shrilling of crickets and percussion ensemble of the various frogs along the creek and in the swamp.  Around midnight there is usually at least one burst of possum snarling, as territory is claimed and reclaimed, but, after the boundaries are sorted, silence returns.

Have they nothing to say, or are they anticipating the increasing hunger of roaming foxes? - always busier, it seems, in the colder weather.  Perhaps it is the foxes, too, that postpone the dawn chorus of small birds - finches, wrens, and silvereyes - until the first rays of sunshine reach in among the branches and make the world just that bit safer for the smallest denizens.

The first sign of bird life is generally the chorus of kookaburras, telling the rest of us that the eastern sky is changing from black to grey.  The magpies and currawongs are usually next, renewing their claim to lookout tree, nesting place, and grassy hunting grounds.  When they call, you know the sun is not far below the horizon.

Once the early, yellow light has banished the nocturnal predators - fox, cat and owl - to their diurnal shelters, the tiny birds give voice from within the tangle of twigs and thorns.  The satin birds begin to sortie out of the denser foilage, seeking berry and fruit, and the crimson rosellas appear to brighten the world.

This is a time when the shadows are long enough to give ample hiding places to the hunted, and the sky is bright enough to silhouette the early hawks and falcons.

In that still, cool, perfect early light, two crimson rosellas - brilliant red and blue - jinked and swerved through to trees to check out the feeder in the small oak tree.  Often loud and tuneful, they swooped in silence, and checked out their destination from the safety of the neighbouring liquidambar.  Their reflexive caution made me wonder if the cat from two doors up has again been conducting dawn patrols through the adjacent camellias.

Reconnaissance completed, they fluttered down into the feeder bowl and broke their fast, all the while conducting a softly muttered conversation.  The soft chirps and whistles didn't stop as I walked by on my way to the village - they know the humans who belong here, as do the magpies, and king parrots, and the cuckoo doves who spend part of each year here.  If they are gone when I return from the shops, the magpies will be waiting on the veranda rail for me, hoping for a treat, and the black ducks will be grazing across the lawn above the creek, where the fractal edge of tree-shadow gives them a sense of safety.  It would be a poor world without them.

As the day warms and the shadows tuck themselves in closer to the tree trunks, the birds seem to retreat as well, but the shadows will reach out again as the air cools, and the tide of life will flow again across the garden.