Scraps of scribble from different notebooks:

SCRAPS – mostly birds, mostly Parramatta
SE Crawford

A solemn feasting by thought-provoking philosophers
leaning from bridges
made by convict hands
cannot match the fastidious fast probing
of a highly motivated egret –
her white feathers astonishing
on a murky strand
*
Hot blooming wattle attracts a swarm of thornbills
scattering the golden confetti
on the toes of Spring
*
Two cormorants snooze aloft
a siesta in a day of fishing
unafraid of falling
from the arm of the eucalypt
stretched across the lily pads
inhabited by coots
*
A cave by the lake
home to the homeless
and welcome swallows nesting
is fenced off now
*
Here’s a lady watching the lake
and there’s a white-faced heron
he is fishing, she is taking a break
from the bus, from the other seniors
he is grey, with some courtship plumes
she is in grey-scale jacket and skirt
her white hair matching his signature cheek
they even stand alike: alert, slim, wings folded