BirdForum

He is from the place of the silver back crow
And the hills where the gorse, heather and bracken grow
On land too rough and high for the plough around every stone
Near Rathmore in east Kerry by the Paps of Shrone.

He migrated to Victoria in nineteen sixty one
His oldest grand-daughter has a two year old son
His wife is an Aussie and their children and she
The Sliabh Luachra countryside have yet for to see.

But his Sliabh Luachra...

Francis Duggan

Brown butterflies dancing in the sun and the breeze
On a January day close to thirty degrees
The brown grass looks lifeless and the countryside as dry as it has ever been
And only the trees and the bushes look green
The air full of the buzzings of flies and of bees
And the wallabies shelter from the sun in the shade of the trees
For many weeks El Nino has been around
Sucking every drop of moisture from the ground
In places miles distant and...

Francis Duggan

The old thistles dying and the young thistles growing
And the thistledown in the warmth of the afternoon are blowing
Above the brown paddocks in the freshening Summer breeze
On a January day of twenty five degrees
In Thistledown the famous poem by Harold Monro
He told of the thistles how they do self sow
The tiny fluffy thistle seeds by the wind blown
To grow in nearby place as a noxious weed known,
In Summer and Autumn the winds blow the thistledown...

Francis Duggan

The song of the curlew is with me today
In McCloughlins beach in South Gippsland from here far away
His beautiful fluting I fancy I hear
In the calm of the morning melodious and clear.

When the nesting birds of the south do whistle and sing
They fly from north east Asia to South Gippsland in Spring
Above the mudflats by the ocean in the sunny sky
How lovely to hear them piping as they fly.

With their long curved bills they probe...

Francis Duggan

Far north as the birds fly from here far away
It is cold and raining in Ireland today
And often noisy jackdaw in head feathers of gray
On the leafless birch tree has nothing to say
And in the flooded river that flows by the town
The white breasted dipper one mostly dark brown
In January does not have a song to sing
In his Season of silence two months from the Spring
Here it is mid Summer the weather warm and fine
And white butterflies...

Francis Duggan