Grey Currawong Poem by Francis Duggan

I hear them in the woodland every day
Those birds with yellow eyes in cloaks of gray
No matter what the weather like they sing
Their bell like notes in wooded hillside ring.

The young girl to her mother run to say
'Mum' what bird sing in wood across the way?
I've seldom seen them know them by their song
Her mother answers those 'grey currawong'.

They build their stick made nest on higher tree
Lay two blotched eggs on some occasions three
Their offsprings leave the nest in latter Spring
And learn the oft sung song their parents sing.

Were i a poet i might describe in words
Of how they kill and eat the young of smaller birds
But taste for flesh run in their family
And of any guilt all wild born things are free.

Grey Currawong sing twelve months of the year
And their bell like song is one i oft times hear
And the young girl to her mother run to say
What bird is that in wood across the way? .