Larry's Gallery:   Grey Fantail (1/7)

PASSERIFORMES: Rhipiduridae

Rhipidura albiscapa  

The Grey Fantail

THE bushmen call me "Cranky Fan,"
Because my strange, erratic flight
Seems to uncomprehending man
Sign of a wit not over bright;
But nimble wit and nimble wing
Uphold me in the trade I ply
Of ever-restless foraging--
Excuse me--there's another fly!

A tireless ball of buff and grey;
White-shafted, my important tail
Guides me on my eccentric way
When stronger aviators fail;
Now right side up, now upside down,
Now tumbling crazily from high,
I ape the antics of a clown--
Whoop!--and that's another fly!

'Tis thus my daily fare I earn
By nimble trick of wit and wing;
And, when my nestlings so would learn,
A clothes-line is a handy thing.
And that is why we're sitting now,
Tho' not for long, my brood and I,
That they may be instructed how--
Whoo-oop!--and that's another fly!

I loop the loop with careless ease,
Now in a tail-spin watch me fall;
Yet, spite these eccentricities,
I am the friendliest bird of all.
Upon your shoulder, lordly man,
I pause as I go flitting by.
Spare a kind word for Cranky Fan--
Whoop!--and that's another fly!

The Grey Fantail
by C J Dennis (1876-1938)
The Singing Garden (1935) p.83.