I discovered another humpy this week. This one was much larger. Made from scrap sheets of corrugated iron. Situated under a bridge in a criss cross of over passes and freeways. The area itself is industrial. With train yards on the left and buildings on the right. The creek, at this point in its journey out to sea, begins to open out and become swampy. Occasionally you see a large white herron stalking its banks. The beauty of Creation can grab your attention in the grimiest settings. The only real traffic along this section of the path are cyclists. The only sounds, that of freeway traffic overhead and trains. I wonder what Christmas is like living in a humpy? Do you pine for all the trappings of our consumer society as you gaze into the fire at night?

Some Birds Are More Adaptive Than Others

There is a Pied cormorant ( above) waddling across the beach. It looks out of place among the fleet footed silver gulls clustered in little groups along the shore, which stand on one sauce coloured leg. Eyelids fluttering and feathers ruffling in the on shore breeze. He waddles among them, like a stranger in his own land while they float in the shallows and small sandbars, which the little white caps roll over, before converging again in deeper water, and creeping up the sand with wet, disappearing fingers.

What do cormorants eat? Fish mainly. Silver gulls are far more adaptive. They have adapted to humanity and coastal societies. Scavengers. thriving on the waste of our hubris.

Cormorants retain much of their inherent nature. Still requiring a distinctly oceanic habitat. They cant pilfer scraps from pie wrappers. They dive deep into the sea. Catching fish and crusteaceans.Otherwize, what? Will you ever see a pied cormorant perched atop a bin, or stalking the outskirts of a footy oval? I doubt it. Some birds are more adaptive than others.

Summer by the Creek

I stepped outside yesterday and noticed that the Apricot tree is already laden with golf ball sized fruit. Not yet yellow. Speckled with sunburn. They hide among the heart shaped foliage. Peeking out like small cherubs. Peeking out like love. Saying, "Life is still here." It has not yet been sucked up and spat out by darkness, or reduced to dust by the long dry summer of shame.

Last summer Frank complained that there was hardly any fruit to harvest. It sent a cold shiver of metaphor through me. Jesus cursed the fig tree and it withered. The Apricot tree lay bare and fruitless. When I caught sight of the laden branches murmuring in the breeze, yesterday, I must admit I was relieved. I still hope for harvest fruit.

After the hottest november day on record, I walked along the creek at dusk in a southerly direction. Battalions of invisible insects hovering above the dead grass in columns got into my mouth and nose. I spat them out like dried herbs. Everything is so dry. The creek is almost empty. A mere trickle. You can see where the water mark has dropped along the bank. Where the water once coursed, flattening the grass into snaking ribbons. Now set dry and brittle, crumbling at the touch. Rust coloured rocks exposed to the baking november sun. No longer slippery with moss. Skeletal bodies of ancient shopping trolleys protrude from the sediment, wrapped in ribbons of flotsam. They gape at me like yawning skulls.