The bird that's like a piece of wood

Beside the beaten track
The woodpecker went tapping on,
To the bird that's like a piece of wood.
The soldier bird got very cross -- it wasn't her;
The spurwing plover had to stab with a spur:
The jackass laughed,
I take to stripping bark.

Then all the birds for miles around came in to lend a hand;
They perched upon a broken limb as thick as they could stand,
And just as old man eaglehawk prepared to have his say
A portion of the broken limb got up and flew away.

The boobook owl -- he squats himself along a broken limb,
And pokes his beak up like a stick;
Can you tell which is boobook owl and which is broken bough.

his nest a bunch of sticks across a fork;
A cuckoo wouldn't use his nest, but what's the odds to him --
A bird that tries to imitate a piece of leaning limb!"


(Blackout of Camouflage by Andrew Barton Paterson)