Palm Sunday

7.00am. Palm Sunday (It's really 6.00am but they fiddled the clocks last night)

Already, the air is soft and warm, rich with the smell of damp earth, pine, eucalyptus trees. Even the wind is down.

There, on top of a dead tree is a great grey shrike on the lookout for a mate. A merlin glides by, majestically surveying the scene. A blackcap shoots off into the undergrowth. Stone curlews with their weird sticking out yellow eyes cry out their songs of lament. Here is a cuckoo calling. There the crested skylarks trilling. A green woodpecker, drilling. The terns are back, screeching over the lake. Swifts hang in the air, screaming with delight. Swallows are dive bombing each other for the fun of it. An avocet, elegant in black and white, stalking on its blue legs. Pink flamingos gurgle their own pecualiar sounds, whilst delicately balancing on one foot. No traffic noise yet on this Palm Sunday. The loud silence exquisite. In the distance, a cock crows.

The rising sun warms everything. Now the butterflies are up. White, orange, and then a swallowtail flutters by. Here are tiny white orchids.

Tread softly now, for you are treading on my dreams.

Suddenly, loud yelling and shouting rips through the pastoral scene: men on bicycles conversing at the top of their voices. They approach fast, racing each other, wrecking the silence with their screaming fluorescent spandex sportsgear. They wear crash hats. Gloves, even. Testosterone on wheels, ridng high. Faster and faster, the hordes are getting nearer, shouting 'Hay perro!' Is it any wonder that intelligent dogs instantly clock the imminent danger and want to bite off the cyclists' feet?

The birds have fled. Their songs died.

Courtesy of Heinke Woodbridge.