Billycan Creek

When I get tired of the concrete and tar there’s a place I can go, and not travel far, that hasn’t been touched by progress at all; nature stands still beneath gums growing tall. And in amongst shadows with sprinkled light, there’s rippling water and birds taking flight, a sprinkling of colour amongst shades of green, there’s burrows and scratching where something has been. So I give you a picture of Billycan Creek where flora and fauna are all quite unique, and nothing is spoilt where I sit on a log with my video camera and terrier dog. A single stem orchid stands better than stark with a deep purple flower that closes at dark, and a coprosma tree with red berries quite sweet is a pleasure to find with its bounty a treat. In mistletoe weeping from a host in disguise I video drifting jezebel butterflies, and sitellas who cling to an old stringybark, then high on a limb…the nest of a mudlark. So I give you a picture of Billycan Creek where flora and fauna are all quite unique, and my camera is ready, with eyes like a hawk where now with my dog on a casual walk. Here the undulate water it constantly flows, diverting ‘round logs and where overhang grows, a haven’s provided for what could be prey and in the shallows there’s a freshwater cray. Some red brow firetails flit down for a drink, there’s a burrow that’s new with no reason to think, for a wombat has scratched out a hole and a mound; but a wombat’s nocturnal who lives underground. So I give you a picture of Billycan Creek where flora and fauna are all quite unique, and I’ve only a second to capture a scene, so my camera is ready to help me convene. The scent of boronia hangs heavy and strong, lances of grass trees are a seed clustered prong, white ants have covered an old stump with mud, and Christmas bush bracts are now starting to bud. On a hazel bush branch a grey fantail sits prone in a nest made of cobwebs, to a tapering cone, and a chattering chough tells me that I don’t belong, now my camera has died so I can’t say it’s wrong… So my battery is flat and I’m back at the log with a film full of nature, and my terrier dog, and you’ve read my picture of Billycan Creek where flora and fauna are all quite unique. ©2011 Lindsay Laurie