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Looking through the three-eighth gauge, at zebra's, stars and plumhead.
Listening to the expert in the trade and take in what he said.
I went home and scanned through pages of books and magazine,
perusing photographs of aviary birds - most I had never seen.

Where I lived quite often the red browed finch in flight would call,
and I'd scatter seed beneath a box to try and trap them all,
then I'd keep the birds as captives in a restricting fearful gaol.
Their flight was all sheer panic; I never thought my ethics fail.

My aviaries grew, knowledge too, t’ward more species and their need.
I kept and bred our finches, on white ant, mealworm and seed,
with little care about their state; just replace them if they die
from an overcrowded dealers cage and never question why. 

Since I'd bred most of the common, I searched deeper for the rare.
Delving for the scarce and lesser known. Where they came from I don't care.
My mind scans through the ‘birds for sale’ ‘cause maybe ‘at a pinch’,
there could be the white eared mask, pale blood, or close to home the firetail finch.

I read the firetail’s common in Tasmania while in ‘Vic’ is very shy,
and most attempts in aviaries have seen the firetails die.
But did that put me off the quest? No, for here’s a challenge I can run,
and prove to the avicultural world keeping firetails can be done.

But dead end leads were constant with the answer always ‘no.’
Just one ‘keeper’ said he’d saw them and that was years ago,
and so I shelved my great ambition, and left my search behind,
by caging just the common trapped though firetails never left my mind.

My love of nature it was strong (sometimes in the wrong direction)
The trees, the peace, the forest smells, around me stood as mere perfection.
Some days I’d walk the tracks and creeks; hear foliage ‘chatter’ as it's meant
where cycles turn and balance stays. Where mans time has not been spent.

Now along the Rysons Creek was special with its natural concerns, 
to clear my cluttered mind beneath ti-tree and ‘mongst the ferns.
Wading in the mountain water flowing ‘round the sword-grass base. 
'Twas here I saw a firetail finch with a meeting face to face.

On black flowered stems of sword grass, red seeds were being crushed.
From just around six feet away, I froze, standing still and hushed.
I saw the black and white fine stripes, red circle ‘round the eye,
the scarlet rump that forged its name and prayed that it won’t fly.

We shared a time of fifteen minutes amongst the beauty all around.
There was no wire or steel built frames; no feed trays to be found.
Here I was in nature’s splendour, so rich yet with no cost.
To think if I had won my quest this scene could have been lost.

I never felt one trace of envy when this bird left me to fly,
and disappear upon its journey to the eucalypts up high …
This firetail finch had changed my mind; to where true beauty lies.
Not the artificial world of aviaries, but the one before my eyes.
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