Larry's Gallery:   Wedge-tailed Eagle (1/7)

ACCIPITRIFORMES: Accipitridae

Aquila audax  

The Wedge-tailed Eagle

SCARCE am I of the earth;
But lord of the air am I,
In the heights I had my birth,
And my range is the broad blue sky.
Soaring, ever a-wing,
Swooping down to the kill,
I fear no feathered thing;
None may oppose my will.

Lonely I am, and proud,
Savage and fierce and strong.
Afar is my keen gaze bowed
Where the meek earth creatures throng,
My prey, my meat are these;
Larders of living food
To pluck from their sheltering trees,
And bear to my hungering brood.

I watch grey dawns arise
Where my storm-swept ramparts frown;
Cradled in painted skies,
I watch gold eves go down.
For the chase are my arts employed-
To harry and hunt and seize;
Then back to my vast blue void
In the vault of the mysteries.

What do I dream of there,
Where only the eagles go?
What are my joys, my care?
None but the eagles know.
Up from dull earth I lift,
From the lowly things of the sod,
And into the zenith drift
Questing my meat from God.

The Wedge-tailed Eagle
by C J Dennis (1876-1938)
The Singing Garden (1935) p.27.

In climbing to the top of Mount Francis (I think it must only just make the height minimum for being called a 'mount') in the hope of sighting a Peregrine Falcon we were pleasantly surprised to also meet with this Wedge-tailed Eagle that did us the honour of a doing a couple of loops around the mountain top at head height before soaring up high.