A SOLDIER’S SCREECH

For the last 16 years, October 1999 to February 2015, I have been watching the masked lapwing or spur-winged plover(vanellus miles: Latin for soldier) walk on and fly over the streets, lawns and properties of south George Town in the vicinity of Pipe Clay Bay where I live.  These birds, these soldiers, accompany me now in the evening of my life, my retirement from FT, PT and casual-volunteer work.  They became fully protected by an Act of government and a Wildlife Regulation in 1999(1) just as I arrived in this oldest town in Australia to begin my years of full-time writing and editing, poetry and publishing, journalism and blogging, reading and research.

In these last 16 years we’ve done a lot of walking these plovers and I.  When in full-gate their little legs move like olympian runners trying to break a world record.   These soldiers also have a loud and penetrating call, so piercing that it is enough to wake the dead.  They often startle me out of my mental fatigue and somnambulence in the midst of my stroll along these streets in the afternoon, early evening or just after nightfall.

Stretching my limbs after several hours of reading and writing, I find these daily walks have become crucial to my energy state, my persistence and my need for relaxation.  After a late lunch or an evening meal, in order to ready myself for more writing and reading, I head out for my 15 minute to half hour walk, my daily constitutional in the company of these little chaps who hustle and bustle about, making way for me as I head for the edge of this small old town, the oldest in Australia.  After an evening meal with my wife, a late night snack after midnight and a daily consumption of two hours of television on average before going to bed I make a mental calculation to see if I have attained my eight hours of serious academic work that day. -Ron Price with thanks to 1“Native Plants and Animals,” Department of Primary Industries and Water, 25 October 2010.

They’re bold birds these soldiers

of the sky and streets….the only

troops I’ve seen here in 16 years,

always accompanying…..always

in pairs, these parents protecting

their young and their territory…

Their little legs move faster than 

Olympic athletes in a 100 metre

race covering their territory from

birth to death on that same patch

of lawn and road-back and forth

they go for generations-and they

have been that way since Caesar’s

day, indeed, way back to tertiary

years and its several epochs from

65 MYA to 2 MYA in time's-record.

They swoop to defend their young,

ward-off intruders bluffing as their

instincts dictate--and we are advised

to wear a hat and glasses in a swoop

zone, but I just walk on by and gaze:

for I, too, am a soldier of the street &

sky.  I, too, am an Olympic athlete on:

my patch of territory bustling yearly

from town to town, from birth to the

end of my days on this mortal coil as

I put one foot in front of the other

sometimes as fast as I can go to get

out of the way, or  to get others out

of my way--occasionally letting-out

an almighty screech at all of life’s

slings and arrows of sad fortunes.

Ron Price

13/8/'07 to 4/2/'15.