Discuss: Magpie Song

Robert Michael Pyle’s call to look wherever we go so we can ‘never be anywhere other than home’ put me in mind of a poem/mantra commended by Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. The poem begins: ‘I have arrived. I am home. In the here. In the now.’

Living in the south-east of Australia I know most of the birds Pyle encountered during his walk through Perth’s Kings Park. The magpie and the galah are common on the east coast too, and the rainbow lorikeet is not difficult to spy. (I can even find a blue fairy wren nearby without much effort.) But it’s rare for me to give them my full attention. My lack of presence in the ‘here’ and ‘now’ was brought back to me this week by a work colleague who was visiting Australia from Seattle. Like Pyle she was captivated by the magpies’ carolling. It was she who drew my attention to the chortling black and white birds encamped around us as we ate our lunch.

We fell to talking about birds. I supported her enthusiasm for the crimson rosella and the rainbow lorikeet, but then she spotted another bird in the tree above our heads. ‘What’s that lovely bird?’ she asked. I looked, and looked again. I could see no lovely bird. She carefully directed my gaze. At last I found the creature that had attracted her – a red wattlebird. A ‘lovely’ red wattlebird with its creamy-yellow breast and its waggling, red neck-wattles. My guest was delighted; I, a little chastened.

There are red wattlebirds in my home garden. I watch them some mornings through my study window as they breakfast on banksia cones. They are loud and aggressive and competitive. I’ve never felt an attraction to them or affection for them. I am so dismissive of them that I could not readily see one on a branch only metres from my eyes. And yet, here was my guest describing them as ‘lovely’.

Perhaps, if I let it, the wattlebird would tell me ‘I have arrived. I am home.’ Maybe it’s time to look at it again.

It is definitely the right time to look again...Thank you for your wonderful call to ‘here’ and ‘now’!

“Beyond song and dance
as the worm turns
HOME Mmm...”
Video-art haiku at
http://www.ecovideonet.com/earthday2008.html

Maybe you will find affinity with this video-art haiku contribution to celebrate Earth Day 2008!

Thank you, Mr. Pyle, for urging me
to redouble my efforts to play in the
natural world and to take the time to
observe the daily wonders around me.
It’s ironic that I discovered your
“magpie song” on my first venture deeper into the Orion site.  Enjoy your year playing and observing across North America.  Then come back, and heighten my awareness beyond my own feeble efforts.

It was my photography a few years ago which caused me to look more closely at the natural world around me-- including Tessa’s red wattlebird. Now I don’t need the excuse of a camera-- though I still use it with delight-- and Robert tells why it should never be necessary.

Magpie, this is good song!