By Hamilton Lake Poem by Francis Duggan

The loud quack of the female black duck one could never mistake
And the musk duck for food are diving in Hamilton Lake
In the quiet of an April evening just before sundown
In a beautiful place close to Hamilton Town.

The tall and graceful great egret a bird white as snow
By size and appearance one not hard to know
It stabs small aquatic prey with it's long pointed bill
On the bank of the lake it is standing quite still.

The moorhen, swamphen and coot their cries wild and shrill
And the large white waders known as yellow billed and the royal spoonbill
They move their spoon like bills side to side through the water in the shallows walking slow
Birds I sometime do see but of their ways little know.

The black swan and black back pelican in Hamilton sometimes seen
And the silver gulls wash themselves before they preen
In the calm of the evening just before sundown
Just a fifteen minute walk from old Hamilton Town.