On Hearing And Seeing An Olive Whistler Poem by Francis Duggan

In the backyard upon a wattle tree
A brown bird with gray under throat I see
An Olive Whistler whistling loud and clear
His distinctive song so beautiful to hear.

The olive whistlers are considered to be rare
And not seen often and not everywhere
But there is such beauty in their flute like song
And I could listen to them all day long.

They search for insects on trees and on ground
And to uncover their food they scatter leaves around
Larger than a sparrow a bird of average size
And to see one in backyard is quite a surprise.

As woodland birds they have been classified
And in woods and in steep gullies they reside
But today in backyard of this rural Town
I heard him whistling in his cloak of olive brown.

Birds slightly smaller than a blackbird or a thrush
They build a cup shaped nest of leaves and grass in a shrubby bush
And two to three buff spotted eggs the female lay
Well hidden from the bigger birds of prey.

An olive whistler I see and heard today
On a wattle tree from my kitchen window a few metres away
In the Autumn sunshine I heard him pipe and sing
Close to five months from the first breath of Spring.